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Craig White's Literature Courses Cyberpunk |
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associated terms: Hi-Tech / Virtual Reality
associated styles: slick, cool, unreal, easy with power
term "cyberpunk" first used in 1983-84, 80s phenomenon
Style or sub-genre of science fiction
films: The Matrix, Blade Runner, Dark City, Videodrome, RoboCop, Johnny Mnemonic,
Appeals:
"hard science" science fiction (or at least a hard stylistic edge)
virtual reality = a computer-simulated environment (as in online fantasy games, video games, animation, computer graphics)
youtube video of virtual reality
Cyberpunk identification:
linguistics: "portmanteau word" created by combining parts of two other words
cyberpunk < cybernetics + punk
cybernetics = artificial intelligence, computer systems
punk = street style, semi-outlaw, walking line between in and out
Many current terms for same general field of phenomena:
cybernetics, IT (instructional / information technology)
wired / wireless world
cyberspace, computer-simulated world
artificial reality
computer graphics
going digital
examples of virtual reality places, events: Gulf War as video game; The Truman Show; Disney World; Holiday Inn + cable TV
Cyberpunk style and content markers / "signatures" or conventions:
body enhancement and transgression: implants, extensions
neon (from Film Noir?)
Why Cyberpunk broke through to literary prestige
Background: science fiction often dismissed as escapist fantasy for nerds indifferent to style or quality of literary fiction.
Inverted millennialism
That is, cyberpunk is *not* millennial, despite sense of general decline and munginess
Rather, people survive, even beauty survives or is remembered amid general decay of overpopulated, hustling world
Austin TX as one center of cyberpunk movement (Bruce Sterling, Lewis Shiner, authors of "Mozart in Mirrorshades" etc.)
Clear Springs High School Theater
Steampunk production of Suessical the
Musical