cyberpunk (in English: cyberpunk; pronounced )[1] is a subgenre of science fiction, known for reflecting dystopian visions of the future in which advanced technology is combined with a low standard of living. Originally the term cyberpunk was used to refer to the literary movement led by Bruce Sterling, William Gibson and John Shirley that emerged during the 1980s within science fiction literature,[2] being used for the first time in that sense by Gardner Dozois in 1984.[3] Dozois was probably inspired by the title of a story by Bruce Bethke "Cyberpunk (novel)").[2] Cyberpunk receives its name from the addition of the prefix cyber- (related to computer networks)[4] to the word punk (in reference to its rebellious character). In it, science (and especially computer science and cybernetics) usually generates or interacts with some type of social or cultural paradigm shift.
In the plots of the cyberpunk genre, the plot is usually focused on the hypothetical conflicts between hackers, artificial intelligences and megacorporations, all located in the near future of planet Earth. This context is opposed to that of many classic science fiction narratives, such as Foundation "Foundation (novel)") by Isaac Asimov or Dune by Frank Herbert, which are generally set in the distant future and on extrasolar planets and stars. The post-industrial dystopias of cyberpunk, however, are usually marked by extraordinary cultural development, and by subversion in the use of technologies, which are exploited in areas never foreseen by their creators. In the words of William Gibson in the short story collection Burning Chrome "Burning Chrome (collection)"), "the street finds its own uses for things." The atmosphere of the genre is also inspired by film noir, and reuses techniques common in detective novels. Notable early writers include William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker and John Shirley. The term cyberpunk was coined in the 1980s, and is still used today.[5][6][7].
Unlike new wave science fiction "New Wave (literature)"), which imported into its fold the techniques and stylistic concerns pre-existing in literature and culture, the original origin of cyberpunk lies in science fiction, before its popularity increased. In the early and mid-1980s, cyberpunk became one of the trendy topics in academic circles, where it began to be the subject of research by postmodernism. During that same period, Hollywood cinema took interest in the genre, incorporating it into its science fiction productions. In the most influential cyberpunk films, such as , , , , , , or , you can appreciate the continuation of the most important themes and styles of the genre. Cyberpunk video games, board games, and role-playing games, such as [8][9][10] or the appropriately named ,[11] often offer scripts heavily influenced by cyberpunk films and literature. Starting in the 1990s, certain trends in the fields of fashion and music were classified as cyberpunk.
Architecture of urban dystopias
Introduction
cyberpunk (in English: cyberpunk; pronounced )[1] is a subgenre of science fiction, known for reflecting dystopian visions of the future in which advanced technology is combined with a low standard of living. Originally the term cyberpunk was used to refer to the literary movement led by Bruce Sterling, William Gibson and John Shirley that emerged during the 1980s within science fiction literature,[2] being used for the first time in that sense by Gardner Dozois in 1984.[3] Dozois was probably inspired by the title of a story by Bruce Bethke "Cyberpunk (novel)").[2] Cyberpunk receives its name from the addition of the prefix cyber- (related to computer networks)[4] to the word punk (in reference to its rebellious character). In it, science (and especially computer science and cybernetics) usually generates or interacts with some type of social or cultural paradigm shift.
In the plots of the cyberpunk genre, the plot is usually focused on the hypothetical conflicts between hackers, artificial intelligences and megacorporations, all located in the near future of planet Earth. This context is opposed to that of many classic science fiction narratives, such as Foundation "Foundation (novel)") by Isaac Asimov or Dune by Frank Herbert, which are generally set in the distant future and on extrasolar planets and stars. The post-industrial dystopias of cyberpunk, however, are usually marked by extraordinary cultural development, and by subversion in the use of technologies, which are exploited in areas never foreseen by their creators. In the words of William Gibson in the short story collection Burning Chrome "Burning Chrome (collection)"), "the street finds its own uses for things." The atmosphere of the genre is also inspired by film noir, and reuses techniques common in detective novels. Notable early writers include William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker and John Shirley. The term cyberpunk was coined in the 1980s, and is still used today.[5][6][7].
Unlike new wave science fiction "New Wave (literature)"), which imported into its fold the techniques and stylistic concerns pre-existing in literature and culture, the original origin of cyberpunk lies in science fiction, before its popularity increased. In the early and mid-1980s, cyberpunk became one of the trendy topics in academic circles, where it began to be the subject of research by postmodernism. During that same period, Hollywood cinema took interest in the genre, incorporating it into its science fiction productions. In the most influential cyberpunk films, such as , , , , , , or , you can appreciate the continuation of the most important themes and styles of the genre. Cyberpunk video games, board games, and role-playing games, such as [8][9][10] or the appropriately named ,[11] often offer scripts heavily influenced by cyberpunk films and literature. Starting in the 1990s, certain trends in the fields of fashion and music were classified as cyberpunk.
Blade Runner
The Terminator
Ghost in the Shell (1995) "Ghost in the Shell (1995 film)")
RoboCop
Total Recall
The Matrix
Metrópolis "Metropolis (2001 film)")
Akira "Akira (1988 film)")
Shadowrun
Cyberpunk 2020
In the same period in which very diverse writers began to work with cyberpunk concepts, new subgenres emerged, focusing on the technology and its social effects in a different way. Among its examples are steampunk, pioneered by Tim Powers, Kevin Wayne Jeter and James Blaylock, and biopunk (or alternatively ribofunk), in which Paul Di Filippo stands out. Likewise, some people consider novels such as Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson as the beginning of the postcyberpunk category.
Distinctive style and character
Contenido
Los escritores ciberpunk tienden a emplear elementos de la novela policíaca dura, del cine negro y de la prosa postmoderna para describir las características del lado clandestino de sus sociedades dominadas por la tecnología. Su visión de un futuro imperfecto puede ser vista como la antítesis del porvenir utópico que se anunciaba en las historias de la Edad de Oro de la ciencia ficción, populares en los años 1940 y 1950.[12].
En la escritura ciberpunk la mayor parte de la acción ocurre en línea, en el ciberespacio; atenuando cualquier frontera entre la realidad y la realidad virtual. Un tropo "Tropo (retórica)") típico en estas obras es la conexión directa entre el cerebro humano y un sistema de cómputo. El mundo dominado por los sistemas informáticos es representado como un lugar oscuro, siniestro, donde las redes de comunicación controlan todos los aspectos de la vida. Las corporaciones multinacionales gigantes han tomado el papel de los gobiernos como centros del poder político, económico y militar. La lucha entre un personaje marginalizado y un sistema totalitario es un tema común en la ciencia ficción (por ejemplo, la novela 1984 "1984 (novela)") de George Orwell) y particularmente en el ciberpunk, aunque en la ciencia ficción convencional los sistemas totalitarios tienden a ser estériles, ordenados y controlados por el Estado.
Protagonists
The protagonists of cyberpunk writing are generally hackers, who are frequently molded into the idea of a lone hero who fights injustice: cowboys, rōnin, etc. They are often marginalized individuals caught up in extraordinary situations, rather than brilliant scientists or star captains intentionally seeking advancement or adventure, and are not always true "heroes."[13]
One of the prototypical characters of the cyberpunk genre is Case, from the novel Neuromancer by William Gibson. Case is a "console cowboy", a brilliant hacker, who betrays his organized crime partners. Robbed of his talent with an injury that leaves him crippled; inflicted in revenge by his criminal partners, Case receives an unexpected once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be cured with expert medical assistance; but in exchange for his participation in another criminal enterprise with a new team. Like Case, many cyberpunk protagonists are manipulated, put in situations where they have little or no choice, and while they may see themselves in this, they don't necessarily become any further away than they previously were. These anti-heroes – “criminals, outcasts, visionaries, deserters and misfits” – do not experience Joseph Campbell's “hero's journey” like a protagonist in the Homeric epic or a novel by Alexandre Dumas (Alexandre Dumas (Father)). They, on the other hand, bring to mind the private investigator in detective novels, who could solve the most complex cases, but never receive a fair reward. This emphasis on misfits and malcontents—what Thomas Pynchon calls the "past" and Frank Zappa the "forgetfulness of the Great Society"—is the "punk" component of cyberpunk.
Society and government
Cyberpunk positions itself as a defender of the free circulation of information. Decidedly opposed to intellectual property rights, he is a staunch defender of encryption technologies "Encryption (cryptography)") to guarantee privacy as well as electronic money.
Cyberpunk literature often serves as a metaphor for current concerns about the effects and control of corporations over people, government corruption, alienation, and technological surveillance. Cyberpunk can be understood as a warning to readers and a call to action. This often expresses the sense of rebellion, suggesting that one could describe it as a type of countercultural science fiction. In the words of author and critic David Brin:
It is common in cyberpunk stories to present a kind of global communications network combined with multisensory representations of information, similar to virtual reality. Some of its characters are expert and prestigious users (hackers) of these networks, often in contrast to their precarious living conditions in the real world.
Although they can be considered as fictitious forecasts of the evolution of the Internet, the "cyberspace", "the Network", "the Metaverse" or "the Matrix" of cyberpunk with more online virtual reality environments than extrapolations of our current information networks. In this context it is important to note that the earliest descriptions of a global communications network appeared long before the World Wide Web entered popular knowledge, although not before traditional science fiction writers such as Arthur Charles Clarke and some social commentators such as James Burke began to predict that such networks would eventually form.
Literature
Science fiction editor Gardner Dozois is generally known as the person who popularized the use of the term "cyberpunk" as a type of literature. Writer Bruce Bethke") coined the term in 1980 for his short story Cyberpunk, although the story was not published until November 1983, in Amazing Stories "Amazing Stories (magazine)"), Volume 57, Number 4.[5][6][7].
The term was quickly embraced as a label applied to the works of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, John Shirley, Rudy Rucker, Michael Swanwick, Pat Cadigan, Lewis Shiner, Richard Kadrey and others. Of these, Sterling started the movement, leading the ideology, thanks to his fanzine Cheap Truth. (See also John Shirley's articles on Sterling and Rucker).[17].
Elements of cyberpunk are present in The Songs of Hyperion by Dan Simmons; The planet Lusus has many characteristics of the dystopian world of Neuromancer and the cybernetic levels of life and the existence of artificial intelligence have obvious influences from Gibson's works.
William Gibson, with his novel Neuromancer, is probably the most famous writer connected with the term. The emphatic style, the fascination with the surface, the future "look and feel" and the already traditional atmosphere in science fiction are seen as the rupture and sometimes as "the archetypal work of cyberpunk." Neuromancer was awarded the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards. According to the jargon archive, "Gibson's total ignorance about computers and current hacker culture allowed him to speculate about the role of computers and hackers in the future so that both have since been irritatingly naïve and tremendously stimulating."[19]
Early on, cyberpunk was hailed as a radical break from science fiction standards and a new manifestation of vitality, however shortly thereafter many critics emerged to change its status to a "revolutionary movement." These critics say that the "new wave (science fiction)" science fiction of the 1960s was much more innovative in terms of style and narrative techniques.[20] Furthermore, while the narrator of Neuromancer may have had an unusual "voice" for science fiction, many other examples can be found prior to this: Gibson's narrative voice, for example, resembles that of the very current Raymond Chandler in his novel The Big Sleep "The Big Sleep (novel)") (1939). Others consider that the features considered unique to cyberpunk can in fact be found in older works by other writers, of which we can cite James Graham Ballard, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Stanisław Lem, Samuel R. Delany and even William Burroughs. For example, the works of Philip K. Dick contain recurring themes of social decay, artificial intelligence, paranoia, and hidden lines between reality and a kind of virtual reality;[21] the cyberpunk film Blade Runner is based on one of these books. Humans linked to machines are the foundation of the novel Wolfbane by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth (1959) and Creatures of Light and Darkness by Roger Zelazny (1986).
In 1994, academic Brian Stonehill suggested that Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow "not only insults but plagiarizes the precursors of cyberspace." Other important predecessors include Alfred Bester's two highly celebrated novels, Demolished Man and The Stars, My Destiny, as well as Vernor Vinge's novel True Names. In this decade, the Brazilian writer Fausto Fawcett published his first novels.
Science fiction writer David Brin describes cyberpunk as "(...) the finest free promotional campaign undertaken in the name of science fiction." This may not have attracted "real punks", but it attracted many new readers and set up the kind of movement that postmodernist literature sought to comment on (an illustration of this is Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto, an attempt to construct a "political myth" using cyborgs as metaphors for contemporary "social reality").[23] Cyberpunk made science fiction more attractive to academics, Brin argues. It also made science fiction more lucrative for Hollywood and the visual arts in general. Even though their "rhetorical import and complaints of persecution" by cyberpunk fans were irritating at worst and humorous at best, Brin declares that "the rebels turned things upside down; We are indebted to them [...]». But, he asks: "Were they original?"[24].
Future cyberpunk inspired many professional writers who were not among the "original" cyberpunks to incorporate cyberpunk ideas into their own works, such as Walter Jon Williams with Hardwired "Hardwired (novel)") and Voice of the Whirlwind, and George Alec Effinger with his work When Gravity Fails. As new writers and artists began to experiment with cyberpunk ideas, new varieties of fiction emerged, sometimes drawing the same level of criticism as the original cyberpunk stories. Lawrence Person wrote in an essay posted on the Internet forum Slashdot:
Person's essay advocates using the term "postcyberpunk" to label the new works these writers produce. In this vision, typical postcyberpunk stories continue to focus on a ubiquitous data atmosphere of computerized information and cybernetic augmentation on the human body, but without assuming dystopia. Good examples might be Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson or Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson. Like all categories included in science fiction, the boundaries of postcyberpunk are susceptible to changing or being poorly defined. To complicate matters, there is a continuing market for "pure" cyberpunk novels heavily influenced by Gibson's early work, such as Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.
Cinema and television
Beginnings of the subgenre
In 1965, Jean-Luc Godard released Alphaville "Alphaville (film)"), a science fiction film with elements of novels of that same genre, in which a dystopian future typical of cyberpunk appears, probably based on the one that appears in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. A year later, the film Fahrenheit 451 "Fahrenheit 451 (1966 film)") was released, being the supposed adaptation of the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury and considered one of the first feature films of cyberpunk dystopian cinema.
The film Blade Runner (1982), adapted from the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, is set in a future dystopia in which manufactured beings called replicants (in the novel, "andys" or "andrillos" depending on the translation) are used as slaves in space colonies, and on Earth they are prey to various bounty hunters, who are in charge of "retiring" (killing) them. Although Blade Runner was not a success upon its release, it found a great niche in the movie rental market. Since the film omits the religious and mythical elements of Dick's novel (e.g. empathy boxes and Wilbur Mercer), it falls more strictly within the cyberpunk genre than the novel. William Gibson would later reveal that the first time he saw the film, he had been very surprised at how similar the look of this film was to his vision when he was working on Neuromancer. Although it was not until the early nineties when it became established as a popular genre, thanks to numerous films, among which Hardware or Death Machine stand out.
As mentioned above, the television series Max Headroom also expanded cyberpunk, perhaps with more popular success than the early written works of the genre.
The number of films in this genre, or at least one of its elements, has grown steadily since Blade Runner. Several of Philip K. Dick's works have been adapted for the big screen, with cyberpunk elements becoming typically dominant, examples include Screamers (1996), Minority Report (2002), Paycheck (2003) and A Look at Darkness (film) (2006).
But unfortunately for the original plot, the film Johnny Mnemonic (1995) was a failure, commercially and critically. Gibson fans claim that the plot deviated substantially from the original work, even though Gibson himself wrote the final script.
Director Darren Aronofsky sets his debut π "Pi (film)") (1998) in a modern-day New York, but built the script with influences from cyberpunk aesthetics. According to DVD commentary, he made this production deliberately using old machines (such as the 5¼-inch floppy disk), imitating the technological style of Brazil (1985), to create a cyberpunk "feel." Aronofsky describes Chinatown, where the film is set, as "the cyberpunk neighborhood after New York."
There are other films practically contemporary with Blade Runner, which also reflect this cyberpunk world, such as Liquid Sky (1982), as it has an urban science fiction plot with quite marginal protagonists, the film Max Headroom: 20 Minutes in the Future (1985) also deserves mention, since in a time like the 80s, a plot like the one in this film was very striking, in it, an artificial intelligence had the leading role, It would also become a television series. On the other hand, we also find the film Strange Days (1995) dealing with a virtual reality apocalypse in 1999, although it was a film with very little reception, the same as happened with the already mentioned film Johnny Mnemonic.
The film Demolition Man (1993) describes a futuristic society where crime has been practically eradicated and its inhabitants live according to their birth programming based on predetermined characteristics (inspired by the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley), in fact the name of the protagonist Lenina Huxley is a nod to the main character of said work and the author's last name. The values of the society of the future have suffered a process of infantilization, since its inhabitants practically lack a priori evil, as well as free will. A curious fact about this film is because in the period of history that occurred between the years 1996 and 2032, it is said that the United States experienced a period of anarchy and extreme violence that lasted until the second decade of the century, where such a scenario almost destroyed humanity. Therefore, the environment has been refounded by society based on its project of earthly Eden that would become the city of San Angeles.
The series RoboCop "RoboCop (franchise)") is more suited to the near future where there is at least one corporation, Omni Consumer Products, which is an all-powerful company in the city of Detroit. Until the End of the World (1991) shows another example where cyberpunk is the background theme, and a plot strategy, to see it differently and direct the character of the story. Gattaca (1997) directed by Andrew Niccol is a futuristic noir film whose drenched dystopian mode provides a good example of biopunk.
The Matrix series, which began in 1999 with The Matrix (also made up of The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, The Matrix Resurrections and The Animatrix) use a wide variety of cyberpunk elements. The film I, Robot "I, Robot (film)") (2004), contains elements of several of the works of the author Isaac Asimov, among them, the three laws of robotics and some ideas extracted from the stories come from The Lost Robot. The fictitious company U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men (USR) is cited in the novels and short stories of the same author and the plot is located in a dystopian city of Chicago in the year 2035, where humanoid robots are part of daily life on Earth and are the workforce of the human race.
A film titled 2033: The illusion of a better future "2033 (film)"), was considered the first Mexican science fiction film with a cyberpunk theme, produced by the production company La Casa del Cine. The film contains some references to socialist-oriented figures in Mexico's past: first, the painting in General Benavides' dining room is the work of muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros, a well-known member of the Partido Popular Socialista "Partido Popular Socialista (Mexico)") (PPS); The name of the tyrant ruler, Pec, forms the initials of Plutarco Elías Calles, a Mexican president who, in fact, tried to ban cults and thereby caused the Cristero War. The name of the character Goros refers to Enrique Gorostieta Velarde, a military leader and strategist who managed to unify the different Cristero factions. Finally, the name of the leader of the rebellion, Father Miguel, is a reference to Miguel Agustín Pro, a rebel priest who was shot during the Cristero War and decades later canonized by John Paul II.[25] That is, the antagonistic figures are related to the government and socialist thinking, and the leading figures are related to religion, particularly Christian symbology. The cryogenic prison (previously featured in Demolition Man), where Goros is imprisoned, is briefly shown in the film.
The cyberpunk style and futuristic design have found great reception (and vast exposure) in anime, including Akira "Akira (1988 film)") (the first anime reference of the genre) is a manga "Akira (manga)") on which the Japanese animated film of the same name is also based. Both works had instant recognition as classics within their respective genres. The manga, of more than two thousand pages, was written and drawn by Katsuhiro Otomo between 1982 and 1993, achieving significant success in Japan and the rest of the world. Awarded the Kōdansha Award for best manga in 1984 in the general category (一般部門). The feature film of the same name is separated from the manga's plot line for clear reasons: the film was released five years before the conclusion of the manga. Akira is set in the futuristic city of Neo-Tokyo, depicted in deep detail in the animated film (about seven million dollars were invested in the sets alone). Other animes that address this theme are: Ghost in the Shell, this anime is one of the most important within this subgenre, presenting connections with film noir and existentialist reflections on a world where distinguishing machine from human is increasingly difficult.
Next to this potential we find other works such as Cyber City Oedo 808, Battle Angel Alita, BLAME!, Bubblegum Crisis, Armitage III"), Armitage Dual Matrix"), Silent Möbius, Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze, Appleseed "Appleseed (film)"), Ergo Proxy, Eden: It's an Endless World! and Psycho-Pass, the latter being the one that has most influenced contemporary Japanese youth who live in relative proximity to the setting of the series, which shows a Japan with cutting-edge technologies and which warns about the risks that this can cause in the event of a possible loss of human identity.
Anime has also provided examples of steampunk subgenres, as is the case with CLAMP's Clover manga, also in many of Hayao Miyazaki's works, but also notably in Last Exile (2003), created by the Gonzo studio "Gonzo (animation)") and directed by Koichi Chigira, which offers a curious mix of Victorian society and futuristic battles between airships.
Present
This subgenre also continues to be reflected in current films, television series and anime, an example of this is the 2010 film Inception directed by Christopher Nolan and performed by Leonardo Di Caprio, it can be related to this subgenre since this versatile director, without having to deal with the popular virtual reality, makes the viewer enter a distant reality, making the protagonist along with his henchmen enter other people's dreams, something that fits with the patterns of this subgenre to be discussed.
In Time, directed by Andrew Niccol, is a film that combines film noir with cyberpunk elements and is set in the year 2161, where the human aging gene has been deactivated; since upon reaching the age of twenty-five, humans stop aging. When a year passes, they die of a heart attack unless they "gain" time and fill their "life clocks" with it, which count down in the form of a digital clock on their left forearms, programmed from birth. Although the film was a success, grossing more than $173 million against a budget of forty million dollars, a month ago on September 15, 2011, a report from The Hollywood Reporter mentioned that lawyers for novelist Harlan Ellison filed a lawsuit in federal court in California because the plot was similar to his acclaimed story Repent, Harlequin!, Said Mr. Tick-Tock of 1965.[26] The lawsuit, which accused the company New Regency Productions, the film's director among others, was based on the similarity of both stories, set in a dystopian future where people have a certain amount of time to live, which can be revoked by a government authority known as "Timekeepers." Ellison's goal was to prevent the film from being released (due to plagiarism accusations),[26] but he later changed his mind and demanded that his name be included in the closing credits.[27]
The new Total Recall film "Total Recall (2012 film)"), directed by Len Wiseman and starring Colin Farrell, was released in 2012 and is considered a remake and not an adaptation, given the difference between Dick's story and the 1990 version, directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Likewise, the anime and light novel Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, being a spin-off of the Sword Art Online franchise, offer elements of the cyberpunk theme.
Blade Runner 2049, directed by Denis Villeneuve, is a clear example of cyberpunk today, being a sequel to the acclaimed Blade Runner. This film is set thirty years after the events of the first film, and shows a dystopian future full of references to cyberpunk culture. The 2012 film Dredd, directed by Pete Travis, can also be highlighted, since despite its lack of commercial success, it is a good example of these established cyberpunk keys, as it represents a violent and dystopian future.
Music and fashion
The term "cyberpunk music" can refer to two somewhat overlapping categories. The first example may denote the wide range of musical works that cyberpunk films use as their soundtrack. These works vary in genre from classical music and jazz—used in Blade Runner, which also evokes the atmosphere of film noir—to noise and electronic music. Typically films make use of electronica, electronic body music, industrial music, noise, futurepop, alternative rock, gothic rock, synthpop, retrowave, synthwave, vaporwave and intelligent dance music, derivatives and fusions to create the "appropriate" feel. The same principle applies to video games and of course, while written works are not associated with soundtracks as often as films, the allusion to musical works is used to the same effect. For example, the graphic novel Kling Klang Klatch (1992), a dark fantasy about a world of living toys, where a bitter teddy bear has an addiction to sugar and a predilection for jazz.
The second example of "cyberpunk music" also describes the works associated with the fashion trend that emerged from the development of science fiction. The book Future Shock by Alvin Toffler influenced both the creators of techno in Detroit in the early 1980s, such as Juan Atkins and his group Cybotron, and the European synthesizer pioneers Kraftwerk, producing songs of clear dystopian inspiration. The Canadian thrash/punk/progressive metal band Voivod was one of the first to call themselves cyberpunk. In the 1990s, popular culture began to include a movement in music and fashion that they also called "cyberpunk" and that became particularly associated with the rave and techno subcultures. With the new millennium came a new movement of industrial bands making “laptop” music. Punks and squatters armed themselves with digital equipment and fused technology with street sounds. The hacker subculture documented in places like the Jargon Archive views this movement with mixed feelings, from self-proclaimed cyberpunks who are frequently "inclined" toward black leather and chrome to those who enthusiastically talk about technology rather than learning or being involved in it. However, these self-proclaimed cyberpunks are at least "excited about the right things" and typically respect people who are currently working with this "hacker nature."
The Spaniard José María Ávalos Oliveros, in his master's thesis for the digital post-production degree at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, called Musical dystopia: Music in Cyberpunk, argues that no composer conforms to specific rules for writing or composing cyberpunk music. There is no pre-established style or guidelines to follow and each musician brings something different, generally, to each production in which they have participated. Factors must also be taken into account such as the time in which the music was composed, the songs, if any, that are used in the soundtrack along with the commercial nature and the influence it may have on other productions of the genre.[40].
Certain musical genres such as drum and bass were directly influenced by cyberpunk, even spawning an entire subgenre called neurofunk. A clear example of the cyberpunk influence in music is the band seguir seguir Sputnik and the music video for the single Union of the Snake by Duran Duran. The 1982 studio album by the electronic group The Cassandra Complex is called Cyber Punk. Currently, we can say that the genre that fully represents the cyberpunk spirit is futurepop, led by bands like Mind.In.A.Box, VNV Nation, Rotersand, Covenant "Covenant (band)"), Colony 5 and synthpop bands like Neuroactive, Neuroticfish and Seabound. These groups stand out for the intense use of the Vocoder (voice synthesizer) in their songs, danceable rhythms between 120-140 bpm, futuristic lyrics, and catchy melodies that cause an effect appropriate to the cyberpunk atmosphere.
The cover of the album Somewhere in Time "Somewhere in Time (Iron Maiden album)") (1986) by the band Iron Maiden has a clear cyberpunk aesthetic, portraying the band members and Eddie the Head in a futuristic and dystopian setting. The single Fortnight by Taylor Swift and Post Malone, released as the first single from Swift's album The Tortured Poets Department, is a downtempo and electropop song that pays homage to the "cyberpunk music" of the 1980s and the music video for the single MotorSport by American hip hop trio Migos on their studio album Culture II shows some futuristic scenes of an urbanized megalopolis and the related film noir background atmosphere with dystopian science fiction cinema films, especially the feature film Blade Runner from 1982. The cover of the album Data "Data (Tainy album)") (2024) by producer Tainy has as a reference to a cyborg protagonist named "Sena" and the cover design resembles the anime feature film Ghost in the Shell "Ghost in the Shell (1995 film)") (1995).[41] The same producer explained that the sounds of synthpop and the rhythm of Latin reggaeton merged to create a completely futuristic rhythmic environment and a retro "feeling."[42].
The studio albums Drones "Drones (Muse album)") (2015) and Simulation Theory (2018) by the band Muse feature conceptual artwork that pays homage to science fiction stereotypes. The album Drones is a conceptual art that chronicles the abandonment of a soldier, his indoctrination as a "human drone" and his subsequent desertion, also addressing the Obama administration's drone program. The album cover for Simulation Theory was designed by Kyle Lambert (who participated in the cover art for the Netflix series Stranger Things) and incorporates lighter influences from 1980s science fiction and pop culture in his songs and music videos such as the Back to the Future film trilogy, Michael Jackson's Thriller "Thriller (song)" music video, and the feature film Teen Wolf. The band expressed that in their lyrics they explore the role of simulation in society and the simulation hypothesis, which proposes that reality is a simulation.
In Brazil, the singer-songwriter Fausto Fawcett, also a writer, stands out. He began his musical career in 1986, at the suggestion of one of his college friends, the filmmaker Cacá Diegues, and signed with Warner Music Group to release his debut album, Fausto Fawcett e os Robôs Efêmeros (Fausto Fawcett and the Ephemeral Robots) the following year. The album has been described as a "conceptual work about a Copacabana Blade Runner". In the United Kingdom, the band Gunship "Gunship (band)"), composed of vocalist Alex Westaway, keyboardist Dan Haigh and drummer Alex Gingell, is one of the most prominent in this country. His influences vary between the music of television series and science fiction films of the 1980s, but also in video games, since Dan is also a video game developer and SFX specialist. However, the band's name is inspired by the video game Gunship, which was very popular in arcades in the 1980s and 1990s. The strength of this band lies in the intensity of its cinematic voice and the melodies made with analog synthesizer, which give it a very stylized cyberpunk style.[43][44].
Games
Video games
Video games frequently use cyberpunk as a source of inspiration, some of these, such as Blade Runner or Enter the Matrix, are based on films of the genre, while others such as Deus Ex and System Shock, Final Fantasy VII, Mega Man, Snatcher and Observer "Observer (video game)") are original works.
Some multimedia franchises enter the field of video games, such as Shadowrun "Shadowrun (2007 video game)") or Ghost in the Shell, while others tend to include atmosphere and themes of the cyberpunk genre as another element around the construction of their world and narrative, as is the case of the .hack saga, the Xenosaga trilogy, some titles from the Metal Gear and Megami franchises. Tensei, while visual novels like VA-11 Hall-A turn to the genre as a means of both homage and satire to its narrative tropes. Cyberpunk has also been used in adventure video games for computers, including the now freeware Beneath a Steel Sky, published by Revolution Software, Neuromancer "Neuromancer (video game)"), published by Interplay in 1988, BloodNet, published by Microprose in 1993 and Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller, by GameTek in 1994. Also the now abandonedware, Flashback. The action-adventure video game Neuromancer is directly based on the novel, including Chiba City, some of the characters, database hacking, and cyberspace platforms.
This style came to influence the development of first-person shooter video games and mods. Something that can be seen, for example, in Neotokyoº, a mod of the video game Half-Life 2 (whose history and complexity classified it as an independent mod), located in a futuristic Japan and where references to Akira "Akira (manga)"), Ghost in the Shell and different features that define the cyberpunk genre can be seen.
In the series Deus Ex "Deus Ex (series)") they focus not only on the futuristic themes of cyberpunk, advanced technology and its effects on the world, but also on conspiracy theories and conflicts between secret organizations such as the Illuminati, FEMA and the Knights Templar. The video game Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet, inspired by the Phantom Bullet arc of the light novels and manga of the same name, contains elements of cyberpunk and apocalyptic fiction, in addition to having an alternative anime story that has endings depending on the player's choice. Other examples that can be highlighted are the video games Battlefield 2042 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, which are also some of the best examples of cyberpunk, as they are set in a violent and dystopian future (similar to the movie Dredd).
During the 2020s, CD Projekt released the video game Cyberpunk 2077,[45] based on Mike Pondsmith's role-playing game of the same name. Although its premiere had a disappointing performance of the game mechanics due to its numerous bugs and glitches on the eighth generation consoles that caused a total refund,[46] it has managed to regain good global fame for correcting and solving performance problems on the ninth generation consoles, as well as an increase in units sold from 18% to 94% by the ONA Cyberpunk: Edgerunners,[47] thus becoming the best action game futurist of the century.
In Japan, Square Enix released Final Fantasy VII Remake[48] and its sequel Final Fantasy VII Rebirth,[49][50] whose games are intended to be an adaptation and recreation "New version (video games)") of the original plot of Final Fantasy VII. In China, Hotta Studio (a subsidiary of the distributor Perfect World "Perfect World (company)") developed and released the role-playing video game Tower of Fantasy,[51][52][53] and its setting is located on the habitable planet Aida, where scientific fantasy is interspersed with apocalyptic fiction, showing some completely futuristic cities in different settings of the world in the game.
role playing games
There are several role-playing games titled Cyberpunk: for example Cyberpunk 2013, Cyberpunk 2020, Cyberpunk V.3 and Cyberpunk Red, are the four editions of the same game, published by Talsorian Games, and there is also a supplement "Supplement (role-playing games)") for the generic GURPS system (GURPS Cyberpunk), published by Steve Jackson Games. Cyberpunk 2020 was designed with the plot of William Gibson's writings in mind, and to some extent with his approval, different from the (perhaps more creative) approach taken by FASA in the production of the game Shadowrun. Both games are set in the near future, in a world where cybernetics is prominent.
Netrunner is a collectible card game introduced in 1996, based on the role-playing game Cyberpunk 2020; was released alongside a popular online alternate reality game called Webrunner, which allows players to enter the mainframe of a nefarious futuristic organization. Iron Crown Enterprises also released a role-playing game, titled Cyberspace, now out of print.
In 1990, in an unusual marriage of cyberpunk fact and fiction, the United States Secret Service arrived at the Steve Jackson Games facility and confiscated all of its computers under Operation Sundevil, which was a massive blow to computer hackers and crackers. This was because - supposedly - the GURPS Cyberpunk book could be used to prepare computer crimes. This, indeed, was not the main reason for the raid, but after the event, it was too late to correct the public's impression.[54]
Steve Jackson Games later won the lawsuit against the Secret Service, aided by the more broad-minded Electronic Frontier Foundation. This event achieved some notoriety, which also extended to the book. All published editions of GURPS Cyberpunk contain a quote on the cover that reads "The book that was seized by the United States Secret Service!" Inside the book provides a summary of the raid and its consequences.
2004 brought numerous new publications of cyberpunk role-playing games, including Ex Machina, a more cinematic game with four complete scenarios and focused on updating the playful side of the genre to current themes within cyberpunk fiction. These changes include a greater political angle, transferring gender alignment, and even incorporating transhuman themes. 2006 saw the long-awaited publication of Cyberpunk V.3 by Talsorian Games, the sequel to Cyberpunk 2020, however, many saw it more as a transhumanist or post-cyberpunk edition than truly cyberpunk.
Role-playing games have also produced one of the most original takes on the genre in the form of the game series of 1989. Here, the setting is a dystopian near future; However, it also incorporates elements of fantasy and literature, such as magic, spirits, goblins, and dragons. The cyberpunk facets of were modeled largely on the writings of William Gibson, and FASA, who originally published it, have been accused by some of copying Gibson's work without even mentioning his influence. Gibson, meanwhile, has expressed his distaste for the inclusion of fantasy elements within the scenarios he helped develop. However, has introduced many to the genre, and remains popular among gamers.
Cyberpunk in Spanish
The first Cuban cyberpunk book was Nova de Cuarzo (1999), by Vladimir Hernández Pacín. Another "cyber" novel published was Neon Gods (2002), by Michel Encinosa Fú. One of the Spanish groups that calls itself cyberpunk appears in Berlin in 1989 with authors of various underground fanzines who, in 1996, would go on to publish one of the first Spanish ezines on the Web. After establishing itself as an association in 2002, its publications evolved towards cyberactivism, practically abandoning the publication of stories. Literally, the only recognized contribution of this group has been the first novels written in Spanish for mobile phones: Lía, MAD phreaker, by David de Ugarte and BCN No Future by Javier Lorente. In a more futuristic context is 2123: The Year of Moebius, with a booktrailer by Ángel De Aluart. The Dream of the Red King, by the Asturian author Rodolfo Martínez "Rodolfo Martínez (writer)"), is also usually considered within the genre. The philosopher and writer Jonás Barnaby, under the pseudonym Albert Mut, can be counted among the emerging personalities of the genre in recent years, with clearly dystopian and technological stories such as The temporal chicken [55] or Phobos B-101.[55].
In cinema, there are few Spanish films that make use of this style. An example is found in Natalie_Net, directed by Chico Morera, which tells the story of a famous video blogger who begins to develop computer features. The film shows an unhealthy environment, in a dystopian and timeless environment in which technology, computer viruses and human relationships take center stage and show their darkest side.[56].
Regarding the development of the movement in Mexico, it is considered that it was introduced through literature and from there it started to find other more popular means of expression, such as music. The first literary work written in Mexico that can be framed within cyberpunk is the story La red by Isidro Ávila.[57] However, the work that is considered to have originated the movement in Mexico was a novel published a couple of years after Ávila's story. The First Street of Solitude (1994), by the then young Gerardo Horacio Porcayo, served as an anchor for many science fiction writers to take the genre as their own, and although Mexican cyberpunk never ended up completely germinating, it has endured more than a decade after its birth.
The first science fiction novel that could be considered cyberpunk in Paraguay is The Society of Minds (2001), by Juan de Urraza, which, although it contains utopian elements that are dissonant with the genre, actually unites them with the virtual world, especially if it is taken into account as a whole and seen as a unit with his second novel Yronia (2005), which is its continuation.
In Spain, in 2018 Capitán Cid: Artemis was published, establishing the basis of the story in the fictional city of "Nuevo Madrid", where there is a futuristic society dominated by powerful corporations, the presence of advanced technologies, the exploration of the relationship between humans and machines and a narrative that questions power and corruption.
One of the clearest exponents of cyberpunk in Chile is Jorge Baradit, who has written the novels Ygdrasil, Kalfukura and Synco, in addition to participating in or promoting artistic projects such as PDK: Police of Karma, Ucronía Chile and Lluscuma. In Chile, the novel Electrocante by Boris Quercia can be considered an example of the development of Latin American cyberpunk storytelling. Electrocante (published in France as Les rêves qui nous restent) tells the story of Natalio, a class 5 police officer who tries to solve a case of identity theft in a dream factory, while the ultra-unequal society in which he lives is falling apart. Natalio is accompanied at all times by his electrocante, a thinking machine that, due to an anomaly, dangerously tends to become autonomous.
Another Chilean exponent is Jesús Todemun, who has published Valpunk 2127,[58] a cyberpunk science fiction novel set in a futuristic and dystopian Chile and the comic Temu 2069, a graphic novel in collaboration with the illustrators Gastón Blanko in the drawings and Nihil in the colors.
In 2024, Corceles Azules,[59] a cyberpunk fix-up anthology by the Chilean writer I. A. Galdames, was published under the science fiction label Kaneda, from the Peruvian publisher Speedwagon Media Works.
Cultural impact
Art and architecture
Some neo-futuristic artwork and cityscapes have been influenced by cyberpunk. Writers David Suzuki and Holly Dressel describe the cafes, brand-name shops, and video game arcades of the Sony Center on the Potsdamer Platz public square in Berlin, Germany, as "a vision of a cyberpunk corporate urban future."[60]
Society and counterculture
Various subcultures have been inspired by cyberpunk fiction. These include the cyberdelic counterculture of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Cyberdelic, whose followers referred to themselves as cyberpunks, attempted to combine psychedelic art and the drug movement with the technology of cyberculture. Early followers included Timothy Leary, Mark Frauenfelder, and R. U. Sirius. The movement largely faded after the implosion of the Dot-com bubble in 2000.
Cybergoth is a fashion and dance subculture that draws inspiration from cyberpunk fiction, as well as rave and goth subcultures. Furthermore, a distinct cyberpunk fashion has emerged in recent years that rejects the raver and goth influences of cybergoth, and is inspired by urban, post-apocalyptic fashion, functional clothing, high-tech sportswear, tactical and multi-function uniform. This fashion is known as tech wear, goth ninja or tech ninja.
The Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, China (demolished in 1994), is often referred to as the cyberpunk/dystopian slum model as, given its poor living conditions at the time, coupled with the city's political, physical and economic isolation, it has caused many in academia to become unfazed by the ingenuity of its spawn.[61].
Variants and heirs of cyberpunk
Among the subgenres of cyberpunk is steampunk, which is set in a uchronic Victorian era but with a black vision of the world. The term was originally coined in 1987 as a joke to describe some of the novels by Tim Powers, James Blaylock and Kevin Wayne Jeter, but over time William Gibson and Bruce Sterling entered the subgenre with their collaborative novel The Difference Engine, and the term began to be taken seriously.[62] Silkpunk would be a derivative of the latter, with the difference that it focuses on a context set in Han Dynasty China. Being Ken Liu and his book La Gracia de los Reyes a reference of this trend.
Another similar subgenre of still very recent classification is what has come to be called wirepunk, heir to steampunk, which instead of taking the 19th century as its starting point, focuses on 20th century technology, now that it is a time in the past. A clear example is the literary saga of Jeanne DuPrau that began with City of Ember.
The early 1990s saw the birth of biopunk, a derivative style built not on technology but on biology. In these stories people are changed in various ways, but not by mechanical means, but by genetic manipulation of several of their chromosomes. Paul di Filipo is seen as the most prominent biopunk writer, although Bruce Sterling's Shaper/Mechanist is his greatest influence.
The emerging genre called postcyberpunk continues to worry about the effects of computers, but without taking dystopia for granted or giving so much importance to cybernetic implants. Also an heir to cyberpunk, we can consider the concept of technological singularity used in the most recent science fiction, which reflects its concern about the development of artificial intelligence to the extreme, and the role that humans could adopt in such circumstances.
References
[1] ↑ «Pronunciation of ciberpunk». Macmillan Dictionary (en inglés). Consultado el 5 de enero de 2014. (enlace roto disponible en Internet Archive; véase el historial, la primera versión y la última).: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/british/ciberpunk
[8] ↑ DOWD Tom, Shadowrun, segunda edición, Diseños Orbitales, Barcelona, 1993, 304 p. il., cart., ISBN 84-87423-74-4.
[9] ↑ DOWD Tom, Shadowrun, segunda edición corregida, Ediciones Zinco, Barcelona, 1994, ISBN 84-468-0215-5.
[10] ↑ KENSON Stephen, PIRON-GELMAN Diane, SZETO Jonathan, MULVIHILL Michael A., BILLS Randall N. y BOYLE Robert, Shadowrun, tercera edición, La Factoría de Ideas, Madrid, febrero de 2001, traducción al castellano de Félix Fernández-Castro, ISBN 84-8421-081-2.
[11] ↑ PONDSMITH Mike, Ciberpunk 2020, M+D Editores, Madrid, primera edición en español: diciembre de 1993, traducción del inglés al castellano de Óscar Díaz García, 256 p., 28x21 cm, rúst., ISBN 84-88765-01-0.
[12] ↑ Gibson refleja la antipatía de los autores ciberpunk hacia la ciencia ficción de la Edad de Oro en su relato de 1981 The Gernsback Continuum, en el cual se burla y condena hasta cierto punto las novelas utópicas.
[13] ↑ una comparación conveniente puede ser la ambigüedad moral del personaje de Clint Eastwood en la Trilogía del dólar.
[14] ↑ Lawrence Person,"Notas hacia un Manifiesto de Postciberpunk", primera publicación en Nova Express edición 16 (1998), posteriormente publicada en Slashdot.: http://slashdot.org/features/99/10/08/2123255.shtml
[18] ↑ a b Lawrence Person (1998). Notes Toward a Postciberpunk Manifesto. Publicado por primera vez en el número 16 de Nova Express (1998) y posteriormente publicado en Slashdot.: http://slashdot.org/features/99/10/08/2123255.shtml
[19] ↑ Jargon File definition (enlace roto disponible en Internet Archive; véase el historial, la primera versión y la última).; see also «Ciberpunk» en el Jargon Wiki (enlace roto disponible en Internet Archive; véase el historial, la primera versión y la última)..: http://catb.org/esr/jargon/html/C/ciberpunk.html
[20] ↑ James, Edward. Science Fiction in the 20th Century, Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, 1994. p. 197.
[21] ↑ Avedon, Nicholas (29 de diciembre de 2016). «Ciberpunk: 10 curiosidads que no conocías» (html). Nicholas Avedon site. Archivado desde el original el 21 de junio de 2019. Consultado el 19 de junio de 2019. «El escritor de ciencia ficción con más películas ciberpunk adaptadas sobre su obra (novelas y cuentos) es sin duda Phillip K. Dick, sin embargo nunca se le ha considerado dentro del movimiento ciberpunk».: https://web.archive.org/web/20190621192717/https://nicholasavedon.com/curiosidades-sobre-ciberpunk/
[22] ↑ Brian Stonehill (1994). Pynchon's Prophecies of Cyberspace. Discurso ofrecido en la Primera Conferencia Internacional de Pynchon, en la University of Warwick, England, November 1994.: http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/gr/bsto.html
[35] ↑ Blair, Gavin J. (19 de abril de 2016). «Scarlett Johansson in 'Ghost in the Shell': Japanese Industry, Fans Surprised by "Whitewashing" Outrage». The Hollywood Reporter. Consultado el 20 de abril de 2016. «Some Japanese commentators on Twitter suggested that not too much attention should be paid to the physical appearance of the actress, because the dominant themes in Ghost in the Shell are the nature of identity and cyborgs used to host cyber-brains. "There's been a lot of criticism from foreign fans about the casting of Scarlett Johansson as Motoko Kusanagi in the movie adaptation of Ghost in the Shell", wrote @janyojanyo. "It's about artificial bodies, so you may as well think of it as her using a white cyborg...".».: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/scarlett-johansson-ghost-shell-japanese-885462
[62] ↑ Michael Berry (1987). «Wacko Victorian Fantasy Follows 'Ciberpunk' Mold». En The San Francisco Chronicle, 25 June, 1987; citado en línea por Wordspy. Archivado el 26 de diciembre de 2008 en Wayback Machine..: http://www.wordspy.com/words/steampunk.asp
Blade Runner
The Terminator
Ghost in the Shell (1995) "Ghost in the Shell (1995 film)")
RoboCop
Total Recall
The Matrix
Metrópolis "Metropolis (2001 film)")
Akira "Akira (1988 film)")
Shadowrun
Cyberpunk 2020
In the same period in which very diverse writers began to work with cyberpunk concepts, new subgenres emerged, focusing on the technology and its social effects in a different way. Among its examples are steampunk, pioneered by Tim Powers, Kevin Wayne Jeter and James Blaylock, and biopunk (or alternatively ribofunk), in which Paul Di Filippo stands out. Likewise, some people consider novels such as Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson as the beginning of the postcyberpunk category.
Distinctive style and character
Contenido
Los escritores ciberpunk tienden a emplear elementos de la novela policíaca dura, del cine negro y de la prosa postmoderna para describir las características del lado clandestino de sus sociedades dominadas por la tecnología. Su visión de un futuro imperfecto puede ser vista como la antítesis del porvenir utópico que se anunciaba en las historias de la Edad de Oro de la ciencia ficción, populares en los años 1940 y 1950.[12].
En la escritura ciberpunk la mayor parte de la acción ocurre en línea, en el ciberespacio; atenuando cualquier frontera entre la realidad y la realidad virtual. Un tropo "Tropo (retórica)") típico en estas obras es la conexión directa entre el cerebro humano y un sistema de cómputo. El mundo dominado por los sistemas informáticos es representado como un lugar oscuro, siniestro, donde las redes de comunicación controlan todos los aspectos de la vida. Las corporaciones multinacionales gigantes han tomado el papel de los gobiernos como centros del poder político, económico y militar. La lucha entre un personaje marginalizado y un sistema totalitario es un tema común en la ciencia ficción (por ejemplo, la novela 1984 "1984 (novela)") de George Orwell) y particularmente en el ciberpunk, aunque en la ciencia ficción convencional los sistemas totalitarios tienden a ser estériles, ordenados y controlados por el Estado.
Protagonists
The protagonists of cyberpunk writing are generally hackers, who are frequently molded into the idea of a lone hero who fights injustice: cowboys, rōnin, etc. They are often marginalized individuals caught up in extraordinary situations, rather than brilliant scientists or star captains intentionally seeking advancement or adventure, and are not always true "heroes."[13]
One of the prototypical characters of the cyberpunk genre is Case, from the novel Neuromancer by William Gibson. Case is a "console cowboy", a brilliant hacker, who betrays his organized crime partners. Robbed of his talent with an injury that leaves him crippled; inflicted in revenge by his criminal partners, Case receives an unexpected once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be cured with expert medical assistance; but in exchange for his participation in another criminal enterprise with a new team. Like Case, many cyberpunk protagonists are manipulated, put in situations where they have little or no choice, and while they may see themselves in this, they don't necessarily become any further away than they previously were. These anti-heroes – “criminals, outcasts, visionaries, deserters and misfits” – do not experience Joseph Campbell's “hero's journey” like a protagonist in the Homeric epic or a novel by Alexandre Dumas (Alexandre Dumas (Father)). They, on the other hand, bring to mind the private investigator in detective novels, who could solve the most complex cases, but never receive a fair reward. This emphasis on misfits and malcontents—what Thomas Pynchon calls the "past" and Frank Zappa the "forgetfulness of the Great Society"—is the "punk" component of cyberpunk.
Society and government
Cyberpunk positions itself as a defender of the free circulation of information. Decidedly opposed to intellectual property rights, he is a staunch defender of encryption technologies "Encryption (cryptography)") to guarantee privacy as well as electronic money.
Cyberpunk literature often serves as a metaphor for current concerns about the effects and control of corporations over people, government corruption, alienation, and technological surveillance. Cyberpunk can be understood as a warning to readers and a call to action. This often expresses the sense of rebellion, suggesting that one could describe it as a type of countercultural science fiction. In the words of author and critic David Brin:
It is common in cyberpunk stories to present a kind of global communications network combined with multisensory representations of information, similar to virtual reality. Some of its characters are expert and prestigious users (hackers) of these networks, often in contrast to their precarious living conditions in the real world.
Although they can be considered as fictitious forecasts of the evolution of the Internet, the "cyberspace", "the Network", "the Metaverse" or "the Matrix" of cyberpunk with more online virtual reality environments than extrapolations of our current information networks. In this context it is important to note that the earliest descriptions of a global communications network appeared long before the World Wide Web entered popular knowledge, although not before traditional science fiction writers such as Arthur Charles Clarke and some social commentators such as James Burke began to predict that such networks would eventually form.
Literature
Science fiction editor Gardner Dozois is generally known as the person who popularized the use of the term "cyberpunk" as a type of literature. Writer Bruce Bethke") coined the term in 1980 for his short story Cyberpunk, although the story was not published until November 1983, in Amazing Stories "Amazing Stories (magazine)"), Volume 57, Number 4.[5][6][7].
The term was quickly embraced as a label applied to the works of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, John Shirley, Rudy Rucker, Michael Swanwick, Pat Cadigan, Lewis Shiner, Richard Kadrey and others. Of these, Sterling started the movement, leading the ideology, thanks to his fanzine Cheap Truth. (See also John Shirley's articles on Sterling and Rucker).[17].
Elements of cyberpunk are present in The Songs of Hyperion by Dan Simmons; The planet Lusus has many characteristics of the dystopian world of Neuromancer and the cybernetic levels of life and the existence of artificial intelligence have obvious influences from Gibson's works.
William Gibson, with his novel Neuromancer, is probably the most famous writer connected with the term. The emphatic style, the fascination with the surface, the future "look and feel" and the already traditional atmosphere in science fiction are seen as the rupture and sometimes as "the archetypal work of cyberpunk." Neuromancer was awarded the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards. According to the jargon archive, "Gibson's total ignorance about computers and current hacker culture allowed him to speculate about the role of computers and hackers in the future so that both have since been irritatingly naïve and tremendously stimulating."[19]
Early on, cyberpunk was hailed as a radical break from science fiction standards and a new manifestation of vitality, however shortly thereafter many critics emerged to change its status to a "revolutionary movement." These critics say that the "new wave (science fiction)" science fiction of the 1960s was much more innovative in terms of style and narrative techniques.[20] Furthermore, while the narrator of Neuromancer may have had an unusual "voice" for science fiction, many other examples can be found prior to this: Gibson's narrative voice, for example, resembles that of the very current Raymond Chandler in his novel The Big Sleep "The Big Sleep (novel)") (1939). Others consider that the features considered unique to cyberpunk can in fact be found in older works by other writers, of which we can cite James Graham Ballard, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Stanisław Lem, Samuel R. Delany and even William Burroughs. For example, the works of Philip K. Dick contain recurring themes of social decay, artificial intelligence, paranoia, and hidden lines between reality and a kind of virtual reality;[21] the cyberpunk film Blade Runner is based on one of these books. Humans linked to machines are the foundation of the novel Wolfbane by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth (1959) and Creatures of Light and Darkness by Roger Zelazny (1986).
In 1994, academic Brian Stonehill suggested that Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow "not only insults but plagiarizes the precursors of cyberspace." Other important predecessors include Alfred Bester's two highly celebrated novels, Demolished Man and The Stars, My Destiny, as well as Vernor Vinge's novel True Names. In this decade, the Brazilian writer Fausto Fawcett published his first novels.
Science fiction writer David Brin describes cyberpunk as "(...) the finest free promotional campaign undertaken in the name of science fiction." This may not have attracted "real punks", but it attracted many new readers and set up the kind of movement that postmodernist literature sought to comment on (an illustration of this is Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto, an attempt to construct a "political myth" using cyborgs as metaphors for contemporary "social reality").[23] Cyberpunk made science fiction more attractive to academics, Brin argues. It also made science fiction more lucrative for Hollywood and the visual arts in general. Even though their "rhetorical import and complaints of persecution" by cyberpunk fans were irritating at worst and humorous at best, Brin declares that "the rebels turned things upside down; We are indebted to them [...]». But, he asks: "Were they original?"[24].
Future cyberpunk inspired many professional writers who were not among the "original" cyberpunks to incorporate cyberpunk ideas into their own works, such as Walter Jon Williams with Hardwired "Hardwired (novel)") and Voice of the Whirlwind, and George Alec Effinger with his work When Gravity Fails. As new writers and artists began to experiment with cyberpunk ideas, new varieties of fiction emerged, sometimes drawing the same level of criticism as the original cyberpunk stories. Lawrence Person wrote in an essay posted on the Internet forum Slashdot:
Person's essay advocates using the term "postcyberpunk" to label the new works these writers produce. In this vision, typical postcyberpunk stories continue to focus on a ubiquitous data atmosphere of computerized information and cybernetic augmentation on the human body, but without assuming dystopia. Good examples might be Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson or Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson. Like all categories included in science fiction, the boundaries of postcyberpunk are susceptible to changing or being poorly defined. To complicate matters, there is a continuing market for "pure" cyberpunk novels heavily influenced by Gibson's early work, such as Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.
Cinema and television
Beginnings of the subgenre
In 1965, Jean-Luc Godard released Alphaville "Alphaville (film)"), a science fiction film with elements of novels of that same genre, in which a dystopian future typical of cyberpunk appears, probably based on the one that appears in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. A year later, the film Fahrenheit 451 "Fahrenheit 451 (1966 film)") was released, being the supposed adaptation of the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury and considered one of the first feature films of cyberpunk dystopian cinema.
The film Blade Runner (1982), adapted from the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, is set in a future dystopia in which manufactured beings called replicants (in the novel, "andys" or "andrillos" depending on the translation) are used as slaves in space colonies, and on Earth they are prey to various bounty hunters, who are in charge of "retiring" (killing) them. Although Blade Runner was not a success upon its release, it found a great niche in the movie rental market. Since the film omits the religious and mythical elements of Dick's novel (e.g. empathy boxes and Wilbur Mercer), it falls more strictly within the cyberpunk genre than the novel. William Gibson would later reveal that the first time he saw the film, he had been very surprised at how similar the look of this film was to his vision when he was working on Neuromancer. Although it was not until the early nineties when it became established as a popular genre, thanks to numerous films, among which Hardware or Death Machine stand out.
As mentioned above, the television series Max Headroom also expanded cyberpunk, perhaps with more popular success than the early written works of the genre.
The number of films in this genre, or at least one of its elements, has grown steadily since Blade Runner. Several of Philip K. Dick's works have been adapted for the big screen, with cyberpunk elements becoming typically dominant, examples include Screamers (1996), Minority Report (2002), Paycheck (2003) and A Look at Darkness (film) (2006).
But unfortunately for the original plot, the film Johnny Mnemonic (1995) was a failure, commercially and critically. Gibson fans claim that the plot deviated substantially from the original work, even though Gibson himself wrote the final script.
Director Darren Aronofsky sets his debut π "Pi (film)") (1998) in a modern-day New York, but built the script with influences from cyberpunk aesthetics. According to DVD commentary, he made this production deliberately using old machines (such as the 5¼-inch floppy disk), imitating the technological style of Brazil (1985), to create a cyberpunk "feel." Aronofsky describes Chinatown, where the film is set, as "the cyberpunk neighborhood after New York."
There are other films practically contemporary with Blade Runner, which also reflect this cyberpunk world, such as Liquid Sky (1982), as it has an urban science fiction plot with quite marginal protagonists, the film Max Headroom: 20 Minutes in the Future (1985) also deserves mention, since in a time like the 80s, a plot like the one in this film was very striking, in it, an artificial intelligence had the leading role, It would also become a television series. On the other hand, we also find the film Strange Days (1995) dealing with a virtual reality apocalypse in 1999, although it was a film with very little reception, the same as happened with the already mentioned film Johnny Mnemonic.
The film Demolition Man (1993) describes a futuristic society where crime has been practically eradicated and its inhabitants live according to their birth programming based on predetermined characteristics (inspired by the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley), in fact the name of the protagonist Lenina Huxley is a nod to the main character of said work and the author's last name. The values of the society of the future have suffered a process of infantilization, since its inhabitants practically lack a priori evil, as well as free will. A curious fact about this film is because in the period of history that occurred between the years 1996 and 2032, it is said that the United States experienced a period of anarchy and extreme violence that lasted until the second decade of the century, where such a scenario almost destroyed humanity. Therefore, the environment has been refounded by society based on its project of earthly Eden that would become the city of San Angeles.
The series RoboCop "RoboCop (franchise)") is more suited to the near future where there is at least one corporation, Omni Consumer Products, which is an all-powerful company in the city of Detroit. Until the End of the World (1991) shows another example where cyberpunk is the background theme, and a plot strategy, to see it differently and direct the character of the story. Gattaca (1997) directed by Andrew Niccol is a futuristic noir film whose drenched dystopian mode provides a good example of biopunk.
The Matrix series, which began in 1999 with The Matrix (also made up of The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, The Matrix Resurrections and The Animatrix) use a wide variety of cyberpunk elements. The film I, Robot "I, Robot (film)") (2004), contains elements of several of the works of the author Isaac Asimov, among them, the three laws of robotics and some ideas extracted from the stories come from The Lost Robot. The fictitious company U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men (USR) is cited in the novels and short stories of the same author and the plot is located in a dystopian city of Chicago in the year 2035, where humanoid robots are part of daily life on Earth and are the workforce of the human race.
A film titled 2033: The illusion of a better future "2033 (film)"), was considered the first Mexican science fiction film with a cyberpunk theme, produced by the production company La Casa del Cine. The film contains some references to socialist-oriented figures in Mexico's past: first, the painting in General Benavides' dining room is the work of muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros, a well-known member of the Partido Popular Socialista "Partido Popular Socialista (Mexico)") (PPS); The name of the tyrant ruler, Pec, forms the initials of Plutarco Elías Calles, a Mexican president who, in fact, tried to ban cults and thereby caused the Cristero War. The name of the character Goros refers to Enrique Gorostieta Velarde, a military leader and strategist who managed to unify the different Cristero factions. Finally, the name of the leader of the rebellion, Father Miguel, is a reference to Miguel Agustín Pro, a rebel priest who was shot during the Cristero War and decades later canonized by John Paul II.[25] That is, the antagonistic figures are related to the government and socialist thinking, and the leading figures are related to religion, particularly Christian symbology. The cryogenic prison (previously featured in Demolition Man), where Goros is imprisoned, is briefly shown in the film.
The cyberpunk style and futuristic design have found great reception (and vast exposure) in anime, including Akira "Akira (1988 film)") (the first anime reference of the genre) is a manga "Akira (manga)") on which the Japanese animated film of the same name is also based. Both works had instant recognition as classics within their respective genres. The manga, of more than two thousand pages, was written and drawn by Katsuhiro Otomo between 1982 and 1993, achieving significant success in Japan and the rest of the world. Awarded the Kōdansha Award for best manga in 1984 in the general category (一般部門). The feature film of the same name is separated from the manga's plot line for clear reasons: the film was released five years before the conclusion of the manga. Akira is set in the futuristic city of Neo-Tokyo, depicted in deep detail in the animated film (about seven million dollars were invested in the sets alone). Other animes that address this theme are: Ghost in the Shell, this anime is one of the most important within this subgenre, presenting connections with film noir and existentialist reflections on a world where distinguishing machine from human is increasingly difficult.
Next to this potential we find other works such as Cyber City Oedo 808, Battle Angel Alita, BLAME!, Bubblegum Crisis, Armitage III"), Armitage Dual Matrix"), Silent Möbius, Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze, Appleseed "Appleseed (film)"), Ergo Proxy, Eden: It's an Endless World! and Psycho-Pass, the latter being the one that has most influenced contemporary Japanese youth who live in relative proximity to the setting of the series, which shows a Japan with cutting-edge technologies and which warns about the risks that this can cause in the event of a possible loss of human identity.
Anime has also provided examples of steampunk subgenres, as is the case with CLAMP's Clover manga, also in many of Hayao Miyazaki's works, but also notably in Last Exile (2003), created by the Gonzo studio "Gonzo (animation)") and directed by Koichi Chigira, which offers a curious mix of Victorian society and futuristic battles between airships.
Present
This subgenre also continues to be reflected in current films, television series and anime, an example of this is the 2010 film Inception directed by Christopher Nolan and performed by Leonardo Di Caprio, it can be related to this subgenre since this versatile director, without having to deal with the popular virtual reality, makes the viewer enter a distant reality, making the protagonist along with his henchmen enter other people's dreams, something that fits with the patterns of this subgenre to be discussed.
In Time, directed by Andrew Niccol, is a film that combines film noir with cyberpunk elements and is set in the year 2161, where the human aging gene has been deactivated; since upon reaching the age of twenty-five, humans stop aging. When a year passes, they die of a heart attack unless they "gain" time and fill their "life clocks" with it, which count down in the form of a digital clock on their left forearms, programmed from birth. Although the film was a success, grossing more than $173 million against a budget of forty million dollars, a month ago on September 15, 2011, a report from The Hollywood Reporter mentioned that lawyers for novelist Harlan Ellison filed a lawsuit in federal court in California because the plot was similar to his acclaimed story Repent, Harlequin!, Said Mr. Tick-Tock of 1965.[26] The lawsuit, which accused the company New Regency Productions, the film's director among others, was based on the similarity of both stories, set in a dystopian future where people have a certain amount of time to live, which can be revoked by a government authority known as "Timekeepers." Ellison's goal was to prevent the film from being released (due to plagiarism accusations),[26] but he later changed his mind and demanded that his name be included in the closing credits.[27]
The new Total Recall film "Total Recall (2012 film)"), directed by Len Wiseman and starring Colin Farrell, was released in 2012 and is considered a remake and not an adaptation, given the difference between Dick's story and the 1990 version, directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Likewise, the anime and light novel Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, being a spin-off of the Sword Art Online franchise, offer elements of the cyberpunk theme.
Blade Runner 2049, directed by Denis Villeneuve, is a clear example of cyberpunk today, being a sequel to the acclaimed Blade Runner. This film is set thirty years after the events of the first film, and shows a dystopian future full of references to cyberpunk culture. The 2012 film Dredd, directed by Pete Travis, can also be highlighted, since despite its lack of commercial success, it is a good example of these established cyberpunk keys, as it represents a violent and dystopian future.
Music and fashion
The term "cyberpunk music" can refer to two somewhat overlapping categories. The first example may denote the wide range of musical works that cyberpunk films use as their soundtrack. These works vary in genre from classical music and jazz—used in Blade Runner, which also evokes the atmosphere of film noir—to noise and electronic music. Typically films make use of electronica, electronic body music, industrial music, noise, futurepop, alternative rock, gothic rock, synthpop, retrowave, synthwave, vaporwave and intelligent dance music, derivatives and fusions to create the "appropriate" feel. The same principle applies to video games and of course, while written works are not associated with soundtracks as often as films, the allusion to musical works is used to the same effect. For example, the graphic novel Kling Klang Klatch (1992), a dark fantasy about a world of living toys, where a bitter teddy bear has an addiction to sugar and a predilection for jazz.
The second example of "cyberpunk music" also describes the works associated with the fashion trend that emerged from the development of science fiction. The book Future Shock by Alvin Toffler influenced both the creators of techno in Detroit in the early 1980s, such as Juan Atkins and his group Cybotron, and the European synthesizer pioneers Kraftwerk, producing songs of clear dystopian inspiration. The Canadian thrash/punk/progressive metal band Voivod was one of the first to call themselves cyberpunk. In the 1990s, popular culture began to include a movement in music and fashion that they also called "cyberpunk" and that became particularly associated with the rave and techno subcultures. With the new millennium came a new movement of industrial bands making “laptop” music. Punks and squatters armed themselves with digital equipment and fused technology with street sounds. The hacker subculture documented in places like the Jargon Archive views this movement with mixed feelings, from self-proclaimed cyberpunks who are frequently "inclined" toward black leather and chrome to those who enthusiastically talk about technology rather than learning or being involved in it. However, these self-proclaimed cyberpunks are at least "excited about the right things" and typically respect people who are currently working with this "hacker nature."
The Spaniard José María Ávalos Oliveros, in his master's thesis for the digital post-production degree at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, called Musical dystopia: Music in Cyberpunk, argues that no composer conforms to specific rules for writing or composing cyberpunk music. There is no pre-established style or guidelines to follow and each musician brings something different, generally, to each production in which they have participated. Factors must also be taken into account such as the time in which the music was composed, the songs, if any, that are used in the soundtrack along with the commercial nature and the influence it may have on other productions of the genre.[40].
Certain musical genres such as drum and bass were directly influenced by cyberpunk, even spawning an entire subgenre called neurofunk. A clear example of the cyberpunk influence in music is the band seguir seguir Sputnik and the music video for the single Union of the Snake by Duran Duran. The 1982 studio album by the electronic group The Cassandra Complex is called Cyber Punk. Currently, we can say that the genre that fully represents the cyberpunk spirit is futurepop, led by bands like Mind.In.A.Box, VNV Nation, Rotersand, Covenant "Covenant (band)"), Colony 5 and synthpop bands like Neuroactive, Neuroticfish and Seabound. These groups stand out for the intense use of the Vocoder (voice synthesizer) in their songs, danceable rhythms between 120-140 bpm, futuristic lyrics, and catchy melodies that cause an effect appropriate to the cyberpunk atmosphere.
The cover of the album Somewhere in Time "Somewhere in Time (Iron Maiden album)") (1986) by the band Iron Maiden has a clear cyberpunk aesthetic, portraying the band members and Eddie the Head in a futuristic and dystopian setting. The single Fortnight by Taylor Swift and Post Malone, released as the first single from Swift's album The Tortured Poets Department, is a downtempo and electropop song that pays homage to the "cyberpunk music" of the 1980s and the music video for the single MotorSport by American hip hop trio Migos on their studio album Culture II shows some futuristic scenes of an urbanized megalopolis and the related film noir background atmosphere with dystopian science fiction cinema films, especially the feature film Blade Runner from 1982. The cover of the album Data "Data (Tainy album)") (2024) by producer Tainy has as a reference to a cyborg protagonist named "Sena" and the cover design resembles the anime feature film Ghost in the Shell "Ghost in the Shell (1995 film)") (1995).[41] The same producer explained that the sounds of synthpop and the rhythm of Latin reggaeton merged to create a completely futuristic rhythmic environment and a retro "feeling."[42].
The studio albums Drones "Drones (Muse album)") (2015) and Simulation Theory (2018) by the band Muse feature conceptual artwork that pays homage to science fiction stereotypes. The album Drones is a conceptual art that chronicles the abandonment of a soldier, his indoctrination as a "human drone" and his subsequent desertion, also addressing the Obama administration's drone program. The album cover for Simulation Theory was designed by Kyle Lambert (who participated in the cover art for the Netflix series Stranger Things) and incorporates lighter influences from 1980s science fiction and pop culture in his songs and music videos such as the Back to the Future film trilogy, Michael Jackson's Thriller "Thriller (song)" music video, and the feature film Teen Wolf. The band expressed that in their lyrics they explore the role of simulation in society and the simulation hypothesis, which proposes that reality is a simulation.
In Brazil, the singer-songwriter Fausto Fawcett, also a writer, stands out. He began his musical career in 1986, at the suggestion of one of his college friends, the filmmaker Cacá Diegues, and signed with Warner Music Group to release his debut album, Fausto Fawcett e os Robôs Efêmeros (Fausto Fawcett and the Ephemeral Robots) the following year. The album has been described as a "conceptual work about a Copacabana Blade Runner". In the United Kingdom, the band Gunship "Gunship (band)"), composed of vocalist Alex Westaway, keyboardist Dan Haigh and drummer Alex Gingell, is one of the most prominent in this country. His influences vary between the music of television series and science fiction films of the 1980s, but also in video games, since Dan is also a video game developer and SFX specialist. However, the band's name is inspired by the video game Gunship, which was very popular in arcades in the 1980s and 1990s. The strength of this band lies in the intensity of its cinematic voice and the melodies made with analog synthesizer, which give it a very stylized cyberpunk style.[43][44].
Games
Video games
Video games frequently use cyberpunk as a source of inspiration, some of these, such as Blade Runner or Enter the Matrix, are based on films of the genre, while others such as Deus Ex and System Shock, Final Fantasy VII, Mega Man, Snatcher and Observer "Observer (video game)") are original works.
Some multimedia franchises enter the field of video games, such as Shadowrun "Shadowrun (2007 video game)") or Ghost in the Shell, while others tend to include atmosphere and themes of the cyberpunk genre as another element around the construction of their world and narrative, as is the case of the .hack saga, the Xenosaga trilogy, some titles from the Metal Gear and Megami franchises. Tensei, while visual novels like VA-11 Hall-A turn to the genre as a means of both homage and satire to its narrative tropes. Cyberpunk has also been used in adventure video games for computers, including the now freeware Beneath a Steel Sky, published by Revolution Software, Neuromancer "Neuromancer (video game)"), published by Interplay in 1988, BloodNet, published by Microprose in 1993 and Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller, by GameTek in 1994. Also the now abandonedware, Flashback. The action-adventure video game Neuromancer is directly based on the novel, including Chiba City, some of the characters, database hacking, and cyberspace platforms.
This style came to influence the development of first-person shooter video games and mods. Something that can be seen, for example, in Neotokyoº, a mod of the video game Half-Life 2 (whose history and complexity classified it as an independent mod), located in a futuristic Japan and where references to Akira "Akira (manga)"), Ghost in the Shell and different features that define the cyberpunk genre can be seen.
In the series Deus Ex "Deus Ex (series)") they focus not only on the futuristic themes of cyberpunk, advanced technology and its effects on the world, but also on conspiracy theories and conflicts between secret organizations such as the Illuminati, FEMA and the Knights Templar. The video game Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet, inspired by the Phantom Bullet arc of the light novels and manga of the same name, contains elements of cyberpunk and apocalyptic fiction, in addition to having an alternative anime story that has endings depending on the player's choice. Other examples that can be highlighted are the video games Battlefield 2042 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, which are also some of the best examples of cyberpunk, as they are set in a violent and dystopian future (similar to the movie Dredd).
During the 2020s, CD Projekt released the video game Cyberpunk 2077,[45] based on Mike Pondsmith's role-playing game of the same name. Although its premiere had a disappointing performance of the game mechanics due to its numerous bugs and glitches on the eighth generation consoles that caused a total refund,[46] it has managed to regain good global fame for correcting and solving performance problems on the ninth generation consoles, as well as an increase in units sold from 18% to 94% by the ONA Cyberpunk: Edgerunners,[47] thus becoming the best action game futurist of the century.
In Japan, Square Enix released Final Fantasy VII Remake[48] and its sequel Final Fantasy VII Rebirth,[49][50] whose games are intended to be an adaptation and recreation "New version (video games)") of the original plot of Final Fantasy VII. In China, Hotta Studio (a subsidiary of the distributor Perfect World "Perfect World (company)") developed and released the role-playing video game Tower of Fantasy,[51][52][53] and its setting is located on the habitable planet Aida, where scientific fantasy is interspersed with apocalyptic fiction, showing some completely futuristic cities in different settings of the world in the game.
role playing games
There are several role-playing games titled Cyberpunk: for example Cyberpunk 2013, Cyberpunk 2020, Cyberpunk V.3 and Cyberpunk Red, are the four editions of the same game, published by Talsorian Games, and there is also a supplement "Supplement (role-playing games)") for the generic GURPS system (GURPS Cyberpunk), published by Steve Jackson Games. Cyberpunk 2020 was designed with the plot of William Gibson's writings in mind, and to some extent with his approval, different from the (perhaps more creative) approach taken by FASA in the production of the game Shadowrun. Both games are set in the near future, in a world where cybernetics is prominent.
Netrunner is a collectible card game introduced in 1996, based on the role-playing game Cyberpunk 2020; was released alongside a popular online alternate reality game called Webrunner, which allows players to enter the mainframe of a nefarious futuristic organization. Iron Crown Enterprises also released a role-playing game, titled Cyberspace, now out of print.
In 1990, in an unusual marriage of cyberpunk fact and fiction, the United States Secret Service arrived at the Steve Jackson Games facility and confiscated all of its computers under Operation Sundevil, which was a massive blow to computer hackers and crackers. This was because - supposedly - the GURPS Cyberpunk book could be used to prepare computer crimes. This, indeed, was not the main reason for the raid, but after the event, it was too late to correct the public's impression.[54]
Steve Jackson Games later won the lawsuit against the Secret Service, aided by the more broad-minded Electronic Frontier Foundation. This event achieved some notoriety, which also extended to the book. All published editions of GURPS Cyberpunk contain a quote on the cover that reads "The book that was seized by the United States Secret Service!" Inside the book provides a summary of the raid and its consequences.
2004 brought numerous new publications of cyberpunk role-playing games, including Ex Machina, a more cinematic game with four complete scenarios and focused on updating the playful side of the genre to current themes within cyberpunk fiction. These changes include a greater political angle, transferring gender alignment, and even incorporating transhuman themes. 2006 saw the long-awaited publication of Cyberpunk V.3 by Talsorian Games, the sequel to Cyberpunk 2020, however, many saw it more as a transhumanist or post-cyberpunk edition than truly cyberpunk.
Role-playing games have also produced one of the most original takes on the genre in the form of the game series of 1989. Here, the setting is a dystopian near future; However, it also incorporates elements of fantasy and literature, such as magic, spirits, goblins, and dragons. The cyberpunk facets of were modeled largely on the writings of William Gibson, and FASA, who originally published it, have been accused by some of copying Gibson's work without even mentioning his influence. Gibson, meanwhile, has expressed his distaste for the inclusion of fantasy elements within the scenarios he helped develop. However, has introduced many to the genre, and remains popular among gamers.
Cyberpunk in Spanish
The first Cuban cyberpunk book was Nova de Cuarzo (1999), by Vladimir Hernández Pacín. Another "cyber" novel published was Neon Gods (2002), by Michel Encinosa Fú. One of the Spanish groups that calls itself cyberpunk appears in Berlin in 1989 with authors of various underground fanzines who, in 1996, would go on to publish one of the first Spanish ezines on the Web. After establishing itself as an association in 2002, its publications evolved towards cyberactivism, practically abandoning the publication of stories. Literally, the only recognized contribution of this group has been the first novels written in Spanish for mobile phones: Lía, MAD phreaker, by David de Ugarte and BCN No Future by Javier Lorente. In a more futuristic context is 2123: The Year of Moebius, with a booktrailer by Ángel De Aluart. The Dream of the Red King, by the Asturian author Rodolfo Martínez "Rodolfo Martínez (writer)"), is also usually considered within the genre. The philosopher and writer Jonás Barnaby, under the pseudonym Albert Mut, can be counted among the emerging personalities of the genre in recent years, with clearly dystopian and technological stories such as The temporal chicken [55] or Phobos B-101.[55].
In cinema, there are few Spanish films that make use of this style. An example is found in Natalie_Net, directed by Chico Morera, which tells the story of a famous video blogger who begins to develop computer features. The film shows an unhealthy environment, in a dystopian and timeless environment in which technology, computer viruses and human relationships take center stage and show their darkest side.[56].
Regarding the development of the movement in Mexico, it is considered that it was introduced through literature and from there it started to find other more popular means of expression, such as music. The first literary work written in Mexico that can be framed within cyberpunk is the story La red by Isidro Ávila.[57] However, the work that is considered to have originated the movement in Mexico was a novel published a couple of years after Ávila's story. The First Street of Solitude (1994), by the then young Gerardo Horacio Porcayo, served as an anchor for many science fiction writers to take the genre as their own, and although Mexican cyberpunk never ended up completely germinating, it has endured more than a decade after its birth.
The first science fiction novel that could be considered cyberpunk in Paraguay is The Society of Minds (2001), by Juan de Urraza, which, although it contains utopian elements that are dissonant with the genre, actually unites them with the virtual world, especially if it is taken into account as a whole and seen as a unit with his second novel Yronia (2005), which is its continuation.
In Spain, in 2018 Capitán Cid: Artemis was published, establishing the basis of the story in the fictional city of "Nuevo Madrid", where there is a futuristic society dominated by powerful corporations, the presence of advanced technologies, the exploration of the relationship between humans and machines and a narrative that questions power and corruption.
One of the clearest exponents of cyberpunk in Chile is Jorge Baradit, who has written the novels Ygdrasil, Kalfukura and Synco, in addition to participating in or promoting artistic projects such as PDK: Police of Karma, Ucronía Chile and Lluscuma. In Chile, the novel Electrocante by Boris Quercia can be considered an example of the development of Latin American cyberpunk storytelling. Electrocante (published in France as Les rêves qui nous restent) tells the story of Natalio, a class 5 police officer who tries to solve a case of identity theft in a dream factory, while the ultra-unequal society in which he lives is falling apart. Natalio is accompanied at all times by his electrocante, a thinking machine that, due to an anomaly, dangerously tends to become autonomous.
Another Chilean exponent is Jesús Todemun, who has published Valpunk 2127,[58] a cyberpunk science fiction novel set in a futuristic and dystopian Chile and the comic Temu 2069, a graphic novel in collaboration with the illustrators Gastón Blanko in the drawings and Nihil in the colors.
In 2024, Corceles Azules,[59] a cyberpunk fix-up anthology by the Chilean writer I. A. Galdames, was published under the science fiction label Kaneda, from the Peruvian publisher Speedwagon Media Works.
Cultural impact
Art and architecture
Some neo-futuristic artwork and cityscapes have been influenced by cyberpunk. Writers David Suzuki and Holly Dressel describe the cafes, brand-name shops, and video game arcades of the Sony Center on the Potsdamer Platz public square in Berlin, Germany, as "a vision of a cyberpunk corporate urban future."[60]
Society and counterculture
Various subcultures have been inspired by cyberpunk fiction. These include the cyberdelic counterculture of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Cyberdelic, whose followers referred to themselves as cyberpunks, attempted to combine psychedelic art and the drug movement with the technology of cyberculture. Early followers included Timothy Leary, Mark Frauenfelder, and R. U. Sirius. The movement largely faded after the implosion of the Dot-com bubble in 2000.
Cybergoth is a fashion and dance subculture that draws inspiration from cyberpunk fiction, as well as rave and goth subcultures. Furthermore, a distinct cyberpunk fashion has emerged in recent years that rejects the raver and goth influences of cybergoth, and is inspired by urban, post-apocalyptic fashion, functional clothing, high-tech sportswear, tactical and multi-function uniform. This fashion is known as tech wear, goth ninja or tech ninja.
The Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, China (demolished in 1994), is often referred to as the cyberpunk/dystopian slum model as, given its poor living conditions at the time, coupled with the city's political, physical and economic isolation, it has caused many in academia to become unfazed by the ingenuity of its spawn.[61].
Variants and heirs of cyberpunk
Among the subgenres of cyberpunk is steampunk, which is set in a uchronic Victorian era but with a black vision of the world. The term was originally coined in 1987 as a joke to describe some of the novels by Tim Powers, James Blaylock and Kevin Wayne Jeter, but over time William Gibson and Bruce Sterling entered the subgenre with their collaborative novel The Difference Engine, and the term began to be taken seriously.[62] Silkpunk would be a derivative of the latter, with the difference that it focuses on a context set in Han Dynasty China. Being Ken Liu and his book La Gracia de los Reyes a reference of this trend.
Another similar subgenre of still very recent classification is what has come to be called wirepunk, heir to steampunk, which instead of taking the 19th century as its starting point, focuses on 20th century technology, now that it is a time in the past. A clear example is the literary saga of Jeanne DuPrau that began with City of Ember.
The early 1990s saw the birth of biopunk, a derivative style built not on technology but on biology. In these stories people are changed in various ways, but not by mechanical means, but by genetic manipulation of several of their chromosomes. Paul di Filipo is seen as the most prominent biopunk writer, although Bruce Sterling's Shaper/Mechanist is his greatest influence.
The emerging genre called postcyberpunk continues to worry about the effects of computers, but without taking dystopia for granted or giving so much importance to cybernetic implants. Also an heir to cyberpunk, we can consider the concept of technological singularity used in the most recent science fiction, which reflects its concern about the development of artificial intelligence to the extreme, and the role that humans could adopt in such circumstances.
References
[1] ↑ «Pronunciation of ciberpunk». Macmillan Dictionary (en inglés). Consultado el 5 de enero de 2014. (enlace roto disponible en Internet Archive; véase el historial, la primera versión y la última).: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/british/ciberpunk
[8] ↑ DOWD Tom, Shadowrun, segunda edición, Diseños Orbitales, Barcelona, 1993, 304 p. il., cart., ISBN 84-87423-74-4.
[9] ↑ DOWD Tom, Shadowrun, segunda edición corregida, Ediciones Zinco, Barcelona, 1994, ISBN 84-468-0215-5.
[10] ↑ KENSON Stephen, PIRON-GELMAN Diane, SZETO Jonathan, MULVIHILL Michael A., BILLS Randall N. y BOYLE Robert, Shadowrun, tercera edición, La Factoría de Ideas, Madrid, febrero de 2001, traducción al castellano de Félix Fernández-Castro, ISBN 84-8421-081-2.
[11] ↑ PONDSMITH Mike, Ciberpunk 2020, M+D Editores, Madrid, primera edición en español: diciembre de 1993, traducción del inglés al castellano de Óscar Díaz García, 256 p., 28x21 cm, rúst., ISBN 84-88765-01-0.
[12] ↑ Gibson refleja la antipatía de los autores ciberpunk hacia la ciencia ficción de la Edad de Oro en su relato de 1981 The Gernsback Continuum, en el cual se burla y condena hasta cierto punto las novelas utópicas.
[13] ↑ una comparación conveniente puede ser la ambigüedad moral del personaje de Clint Eastwood en la Trilogía del dólar.
[14] ↑ Lawrence Person,"Notas hacia un Manifiesto de Postciberpunk", primera publicación en Nova Express edición 16 (1998), posteriormente publicada en Slashdot.: http://slashdot.org/features/99/10/08/2123255.shtml
[18] ↑ a b Lawrence Person (1998). Notes Toward a Postciberpunk Manifesto. Publicado por primera vez en el número 16 de Nova Express (1998) y posteriormente publicado en Slashdot.: http://slashdot.org/features/99/10/08/2123255.shtml
[19] ↑ Jargon File definition (enlace roto disponible en Internet Archive; véase el historial, la primera versión y la última).; see also «Ciberpunk» en el Jargon Wiki (enlace roto disponible en Internet Archive; véase el historial, la primera versión y la última)..: http://catb.org/esr/jargon/html/C/ciberpunk.html
[20] ↑ James, Edward. Science Fiction in the 20th Century, Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, 1994. p. 197.
[21] ↑ Avedon, Nicholas (29 de diciembre de 2016). «Ciberpunk: 10 curiosidads que no conocías» (html). Nicholas Avedon site. Archivado desde el original el 21 de junio de 2019. Consultado el 19 de junio de 2019. «El escritor de ciencia ficción con más películas ciberpunk adaptadas sobre su obra (novelas y cuentos) es sin duda Phillip K. Dick, sin embargo nunca se le ha considerado dentro del movimiento ciberpunk».: https://web.archive.org/web/20190621192717/https://nicholasavedon.com/curiosidades-sobre-ciberpunk/
[22] ↑ Brian Stonehill (1994). Pynchon's Prophecies of Cyberspace. Discurso ofrecido en la Primera Conferencia Internacional de Pynchon, en la University of Warwick, England, November 1994.: http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/gr/bsto.html
[35] ↑ Blair, Gavin J. (19 de abril de 2016). «Scarlett Johansson in 'Ghost in the Shell': Japanese Industry, Fans Surprised by "Whitewashing" Outrage». The Hollywood Reporter. Consultado el 20 de abril de 2016. «Some Japanese commentators on Twitter suggested that not too much attention should be paid to the physical appearance of the actress, because the dominant themes in Ghost in the Shell are the nature of identity and cyborgs used to host cyber-brains. "There's been a lot of criticism from foreign fans about the casting of Scarlett Johansson as Motoko Kusanagi in the movie adaptation of Ghost in the Shell", wrote @janyojanyo. "It's about artificial bodies, so you may as well think of it as her using a white cyborg...".».: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/scarlett-johansson-ghost-shell-japanese-885462
[62] ↑ Michael Berry (1987). «Wacko Victorian Fantasy Follows 'Ciberpunk' Mold». En The San Francisco Chronicle, 25 June, 1987; citado en línea por Wordspy. Archivado el 26 de diciembre de 2008 en Wayback Machine..: http://www.wordspy.com/words/steampunk.asp
Beatless, a serial novel that had an anime adaptation by the Diomedéa studio, was premiered in its Animeism programming block on the MBS channel, and its plot is set in the year 2105, in a futuristic environment through the advancement of technology on a large scale, showing the hIE (Humanoid Interface Elements), human-like robots invented in the year 2057 and used as public and personal servants of human society. The new version of the anime Night Head 2041, based on its 1992 Japanese drama of the same name and the anime Night Head Genesis from 2006, is set in a dystopian city of Tokyo during the year 2041, where the existence of mental energy and anything from books or images that describe natural phenomena (including psychic ones), are completely censored. It premiered on July 15, 2021 on Plus Ultra, one of the programming blocks of the Fuji TV channel and was acquired by Crunchyroll, who licensed the series.
The film Ghost in the Shell "Ghost in the Shell (2017 film)"), starring Scarlett Johansson and released in 2017, is a live-action adaptation of Masamune Shirow's manga of the same name, set in Section 9 in a futuristic Japan, where the protagonist has an alias that was assigned to her after having her memory and body altered, until she later realizes not only who she really is, but also She had been a Japanese woman who had lost her life and how she had been erased from her real memories. Despite its box office success, it also generated controversy by casting Johansson over accusations of whitewashing,[28][29][30][31] as the filmmakers at some point made use of CGI and other visual effects tests to alter Johansson's appearance in order to make her character have Asian features, further stimulating negative reactions to the film.[32] Producer and distributor Paramount Pictures stated that the tests were short-lived. and did not involve Johansson.[33] Some fans, as well as people working in the industry, have claimed that the controversy is a symptom of a larger problem, and that modern Hollywood fears of casting non-white actors would bring in fewer audiences than white actors.[33][34] In Japan, some fans of the manga were surprised that the casting caused controversy, as many assumed that a Hollywood production would cast a white actress in the lead role, and they considered that not too much attention should be paid to the physical appearance of the main protagonist because the dominant themes in Ghost in the Shell are the nature of self-identity and how it is affected with the use of different cyborg bodies that house cybernetic humans.[35].
Mahōka Kōkō no Rettōsei, an anime inspired by the light novel series of the same name, is set in a futuristic alternative history, where magic exists (without being a product of fantastic legends and fairy tales) and is polished through advanced and modern technology in a distant and dystopian future. However, the ability to use magic is determined by genetics, which limits the number of magicians that exist. After World War III lasted twenty years and reduced the world's population to three billion, the world's superpowers moved to these four nations: the United States of North America (USNA), the New Soviet Union, the Great Asian Alliance, and Japan. In this country, the magical community is informally governed by the Ten Master Clans rather than the government. Due to the limited number of magicians, they are treated as a commodity and are forced to enter magic-related schools and professions. There are nine magical high schools in Japan; Each of them specializes in different aspects of magic and are simply referred to by their number. The series has generated a franchise that obtained several spin-offs, video games and a film released in theaters in Japan.
Dimension W, a manga written and illustrated by Yūji Iwahara, released an anime adaptation produced by 3Hz and Orange "Orange (animation studio)") was broadcast in Japan between January and March 2016. The series is set in the year 2072 and the story follows an automotive mechanics fan named Kyōma Mabuchi and a robot girl named Mira Yurizaki, who are "collectors", bounty hunters in charge of confiscate illegal coils, dangerous devices that can harness the power of another dimension. As they reluctantly join in on their mission, they begin to uncover the truth behind New Tesla Energy, the multinational provider of global electrical energy. The anime series Akudama Drive is set in a dystopian future in Kansai, whose story follows an ordinary young woman who accidentally becomes a criminal who is hunted by the government, although she decides to adopt a false identity to survive after meeting the Kansai messenger. The series aired from October to December 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the anime was inspired by the films Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994); both by Quentin Tarantino and The Usual Suspects (1995) by Bryan Singer.
In 2016, the television series Westworld "Westworld (TV series)") was produced and distributed on its original HBO network, whose plot was based on the 1973 film of the same name by Michael Crichton and to a lesser extent, on its sequel Futureworld (1976). The story begins in Westworld, a fictional, technologically advanced Old West-themed amusement park populated by androids, called "hosts." The park caters to high-paying "guests" who can indulge their wildest fantasies within the park without fear of retaliation from the hosts, who are prevented by their programming from harming humans. Later, the plot of the series expands to the real world, in the middle of the century (with cyberpunk-themed elements), where people's lives are led and controlled by a powerful artificial intelligence called Rehoboam (Rehoboam). Despite having only aired four seasons, the series was canceled after the low viewership levels of the third and fourth seasons.
The British black-futuristic film Anon "Anon (film)") is set in the near future where the government requires everyone to receive an eye implant that records everything they see. The implant provides the user with an augmented reality head-up display with information about anyone and anything they can see, as well as recording the user's vision. Crime investigations amount to detectives reviewing video and assessing whether an alleged perpetrator is innocent or guilty.
In 2018, the television series Altered Carbon, based on the novel Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan, premiered on Netflix. This series is related to this subgenre along with postcyberpunk, taken from elements of the Blade Runner franchise "Blade Runner (franchise)"). The plot is set in the year 2384, where human identity can be stored in a digital medium and transferred from one body to another, allowing human beings to overcome physical death by ensuring that their memories are inserted into new bodies. The protagonist is a mercenary and former member of the special military units, who is murdered and inserted two hundred and fifty years later, into the body previously owned by Elias Ryker, a Bay City police officer, at the behest of Laurens Bancroft, a rich and powerful 365-year-old aristocrat who apparently committed suicide, losing all memories of the events prior to his death. Bancroft is convinced that he has not committed suicide and hires him to investigate what he considers a murder.[36] The first season consists of ten episodes, since its premiere on February 2, 2018.[37] It was renewed for a second season, released in 2020,[38] but in August of the same year its cancellation was announced without an ending. An anime film Altered Carbon: Resheathed, served as a spin-off of the Netflix original series, set some time before the events of the first and second seasons.
The new film version of Fahrenheit 451 "Fahrenheit 451 (2018 film)") directed by Ramin Bahrani and starring Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon is set in a futuristic version of the United States where the "firefighters" are operated by a totalitarian dictatorship that blames unhappiness, mental illness, and conflicting opinions on reading the "wrong" literature by burning books. Despite its mixed reviews, with praise for the performances and visuals, it was negatively criticized for the script and lack of fidelity to Bradbury's original book.
The anime Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, is a Netflix original ONA that is set in the subcontinuity of the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex arc, from the manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow and although it premiered worldwide on Netflix, it has received generally negative reviews and critics considered it inferior to the previous Ghost in the Shell media. Another anime that can also stand out is the original ONA Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, based on the controversial video game Cyberpunk 2077 and also distributed by Netflix in collaboration with CD Projekt RED and Studio Trigger "Trigger (company)"). The setting takes place in the fictional dystopian city of Night City, California and its plot is actually a prequel, set a year before the events of the original video game.
The light novel series Demon Lord 2099, which also had adaptations to manga (one loss and a recent version) and anime, describe a fantastic futuristic setting in which the fantasy world of Alneath merged with the planet Earth during the year 2023 after a catastrophic phenomenon known as "Fantasion" and with it, the integration of modern advanced technology, causing prejudices between the fantastic and human races, the collapse of national borders and wars. between newly established city-states. Finally, after several periods of war, relative peace broke out and the magic of Alneath combined with Earth's industry to create magical engineering known as "machinery."
Blade Runner: Black Lotus is an anime series licensed by Alcon Television Group and distributed by Crunchyroll and Adult Swim. The anime is based on the Blade Runner franchise and the setting is set between the events that occurred in the short films Blade Runner Black Out 2022, 2036: Nexus Dawn, 2048: Nowhere to Run and the movie Blade Runner 2049, in the year 2032 and contains familiar characters from the franchise. Blue Beetle "Blue Beetle (film)"), an American superhero film directed by Ángel Manuel Soto and produced by DC Films (belonging to the DC Extended Universe), is set in the fictional, futuristic city of Palmera City, an original creation of the film, instead of El Paso "El Paso (Texas)"), Texas as it appears in the comics. Soto said this was to create a specific world for Jaime Reyes "Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes)") on a similar level to Metropolis "Metropolis (comic)") for Superman and Gotham City for Batman, and to help position the character as a "potential leader" in the new DC-based franchise. His visual inspiration for the futuristic environment of Palmera City comes from the Japanese feature films Akira "Akira (1988 film)") (1988) and Neo Tokyo (1987), and the city of Miami, Florida as the backdrop.
The feature film The Creator directed by Gareth Edwards "Gareth Edwards (film director)") is considered a postmodern nostalgic film and a porn remix of multiple references to both science fiction films (Westworld, Blade Runner, The Terminator, Akira and Avatar "Avatar (2009 film)")) as well as space opera (Star Wars franchise) and the war (Apocalypse Now, Red Dawn, District 9 and Battle: Los Angeles). Originally titled True Love, Edwards changed the title, explaining that it "sounded too much like a romantic comedy and that message would confuse potential audiences who were not familiar with the plot or trailer of the film."[39]
Shadowrun
Shadowrun
Shadowrun
The role-playing game Torg, published by West End Games in 1990, also included a variant of the cyberpunk (cosmos) setting called Cyberpapacy. This setting was initially presented as a medieval religious dystopia that experiences significant technological advances. Instead of corrupt corporations and governments, the Cyberpapacy is dominated by the "False Papacy of Avignon." Instead of the Internet, hackers navigate GodNet, a computer network with direct religious symbolism, home to angels, demons, and other biblical figures. Another setting (cosmos) apart from the Torg game itself was Nippon Tech, which incorporated other different aspects of cyberpunk such as dominant corporations with professional assassins, however it did not include computer networks as a fundamental part of the setting.
Beatless, a serial novel that had an anime adaptation by the Diomedéa studio, was premiered in its Animeism programming block on the MBS channel, and its plot is set in the year 2105, in a futuristic environment through the advancement of technology on a large scale, showing the hIE (Humanoid Interface Elements), human-like robots invented in the year 2057 and used as public and personal servants of human society. The new version of the anime Night Head 2041, based on its 1992 Japanese drama of the same name and the anime Night Head Genesis from 2006, is set in a dystopian city of Tokyo during the year 2041, where the existence of mental energy and anything from books or images that describe natural phenomena (including psychic ones), are completely censored. It premiered on July 15, 2021 on Plus Ultra, one of the programming blocks of the Fuji TV channel and was acquired by Crunchyroll, who licensed the series.
The film Ghost in the Shell "Ghost in the Shell (2017 film)"), starring Scarlett Johansson and released in 2017, is a live-action adaptation of Masamune Shirow's manga of the same name, set in Section 9 in a futuristic Japan, where the protagonist has an alias that was assigned to her after having her memory and body altered, until she later realizes not only who she really is, but also She had been a Japanese woman who had lost her life and how she had been erased from her real memories. Despite its box office success, it also generated controversy by casting Johansson over accusations of whitewashing,[28][29][30][31] as the filmmakers at some point made use of CGI and other visual effects tests to alter Johansson's appearance in order to make her character have Asian features, further stimulating negative reactions to the film.[32] Producer and distributor Paramount Pictures stated that the tests were short-lived. and did not involve Johansson.[33] Some fans, as well as people working in the industry, have claimed that the controversy is a symptom of a larger problem, and that modern Hollywood fears of casting non-white actors would bring in fewer audiences than white actors.[33][34] In Japan, some fans of the manga were surprised that the casting caused controversy, as many assumed that a Hollywood production would cast a white actress in the lead role, and they considered that not too much attention should be paid to the physical appearance of the main protagonist because the dominant themes in Ghost in the Shell are the nature of self-identity and how it is affected with the use of different cyborg bodies that house cybernetic humans.[35].
Mahōka Kōkō no Rettōsei, an anime inspired by the light novel series of the same name, is set in a futuristic alternative history, where magic exists (without being a product of fantastic legends and fairy tales) and is polished through advanced and modern technology in a distant and dystopian future. However, the ability to use magic is determined by genetics, which limits the number of magicians that exist. After World War III lasted twenty years and reduced the world's population to three billion, the world's superpowers moved to these four nations: the United States of North America (USNA), the New Soviet Union, the Great Asian Alliance, and Japan. In this country, the magical community is informally governed by the Ten Master Clans rather than the government. Due to the limited number of magicians, they are treated as a commodity and are forced to enter magic-related schools and professions. There are nine magical high schools in Japan; Each of them specializes in different aspects of magic and are simply referred to by their number. The series has generated a franchise that obtained several spin-offs, video games and a film released in theaters in Japan.
Dimension W, a manga written and illustrated by Yūji Iwahara, released an anime adaptation produced by 3Hz and Orange "Orange (animation studio)") was broadcast in Japan between January and March 2016. The series is set in the year 2072 and the story follows an automotive mechanics fan named Kyōma Mabuchi and a robot girl named Mira Yurizaki, who are "collectors", bounty hunters in charge of confiscate illegal coils, dangerous devices that can harness the power of another dimension. As they reluctantly join in on their mission, they begin to uncover the truth behind New Tesla Energy, the multinational provider of global electrical energy. The anime series Akudama Drive is set in a dystopian future in Kansai, whose story follows an ordinary young woman who accidentally becomes a criminal who is hunted by the government, although she decides to adopt a false identity to survive after meeting the Kansai messenger. The series aired from October to December 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the anime was inspired by the films Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994); both by Quentin Tarantino and The Usual Suspects (1995) by Bryan Singer.
In 2016, the television series Westworld "Westworld (TV series)") was produced and distributed on its original HBO network, whose plot was based on the 1973 film of the same name by Michael Crichton and to a lesser extent, on its sequel Futureworld (1976). The story begins in Westworld, a fictional, technologically advanced Old West-themed amusement park populated by androids, called "hosts." The park caters to high-paying "guests" who can indulge their wildest fantasies within the park without fear of retaliation from the hosts, who are prevented by their programming from harming humans. Later, the plot of the series expands to the real world, in the middle of the century (with cyberpunk-themed elements), where people's lives are led and controlled by a powerful artificial intelligence called Rehoboam (Rehoboam). Despite having only aired four seasons, the series was canceled after the low viewership levels of the third and fourth seasons.
The British black-futuristic film Anon "Anon (film)") is set in the near future where the government requires everyone to receive an eye implant that records everything they see. The implant provides the user with an augmented reality head-up display with information about anyone and anything they can see, as well as recording the user's vision. Crime investigations amount to detectives reviewing video and assessing whether an alleged perpetrator is innocent or guilty.
In 2018, the television series Altered Carbon, based on the novel Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan, premiered on Netflix. This series is related to this subgenre along with postcyberpunk, taken from elements of the Blade Runner franchise "Blade Runner (franchise)"). The plot is set in the year 2384, where human identity can be stored in a digital medium and transferred from one body to another, allowing human beings to overcome physical death by ensuring that their memories are inserted into new bodies. The protagonist is a mercenary and former member of the special military units, who is murdered and inserted two hundred and fifty years later, into the body previously owned by Elias Ryker, a Bay City police officer, at the behest of Laurens Bancroft, a rich and powerful 365-year-old aristocrat who apparently committed suicide, losing all memories of the events prior to his death. Bancroft is convinced that he has not committed suicide and hires him to investigate what he considers a murder.[36] The first season consists of ten episodes, since its premiere on February 2, 2018.[37] It was renewed for a second season, released in 2020,[38] but in August of the same year its cancellation was announced without an ending. An anime film Altered Carbon: Resheathed, served as a spin-off of the Netflix original series, set some time before the events of the first and second seasons.
The new film version of Fahrenheit 451 "Fahrenheit 451 (2018 film)") directed by Ramin Bahrani and starring Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon is set in a futuristic version of the United States where the "firefighters" are operated by a totalitarian dictatorship that blames unhappiness, mental illness, and conflicting opinions on reading the "wrong" literature by burning books. Despite its mixed reviews, with praise for the performances and visuals, it was negatively criticized for the script and lack of fidelity to Bradbury's original book.
The anime Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, is a Netflix original ONA that is set in the subcontinuity of the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex arc, from the manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow and although it premiered worldwide on Netflix, it has received generally negative reviews and critics considered it inferior to the previous Ghost in the Shell media. Another anime that can also stand out is the original ONA Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, based on the controversial video game Cyberpunk 2077 and also distributed by Netflix in collaboration with CD Projekt RED and Studio Trigger "Trigger (company)"). The setting takes place in the fictional dystopian city of Night City, California and its plot is actually a prequel, set a year before the events of the original video game.
The light novel series Demon Lord 2099, which also had adaptations to manga (one loss and a recent version) and anime, describe a fantastic futuristic setting in which the fantasy world of Alneath merged with the planet Earth during the year 2023 after a catastrophic phenomenon known as "Fantasion" and with it, the integration of modern advanced technology, causing prejudices between the fantastic and human races, the collapse of national borders and wars. between newly established city-states. Finally, after several periods of war, relative peace broke out and the magic of Alneath combined with Earth's industry to create magical engineering known as "machinery."
Blade Runner: Black Lotus is an anime series licensed by Alcon Television Group and distributed by Crunchyroll and Adult Swim. The anime is based on the Blade Runner franchise and the setting is set between the events that occurred in the short films Blade Runner Black Out 2022, 2036: Nexus Dawn, 2048: Nowhere to Run and the movie Blade Runner 2049, in the year 2032 and contains familiar characters from the franchise. Blue Beetle "Blue Beetle (film)"), an American superhero film directed by Ángel Manuel Soto and produced by DC Films (belonging to the DC Extended Universe), is set in the fictional, futuristic city of Palmera City, an original creation of the film, instead of El Paso "El Paso (Texas)"), Texas as it appears in the comics. Soto said this was to create a specific world for Jaime Reyes "Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes)") on a similar level to Metropolis "Metropolis (comic)") for Superman and Gotham City for Batman, and to help position the character as a "potential leader" in the new DC-based franchise. His visual inspiration for the futuristic environment of Palmera City comes from the Japanese feature films Akira "Akira (1988 film)") (1988) and Neo Tokyo (1987), and the city of Miami, Florida as the backdrop.
The feature film The Creator directed by Gareth Edwards "Gareth Edwards (film director)") is considered a postmodern nostalgic film and a porn remix of multiple references to both science fiction films (Westworld, Blade Runner, The Terminator, Akira and Avatar "Avatar (2009 film)")) as well as space opera (Star Wars franchise) and the war (Apocalypse Now, Red Dawn, District 9 and Battle: Los Angeles). Originally titled True Love, Edwards changed the title, explaining that it "sounded too much like a romantic comedy and that message would confuse potential audiences who were not familiar with the plot or trailer of the film."[39]
Shadowrun
Shadowrun
Shadowrun
The role-playing game Torg, published by West End Games in 1990, also included a variant of the cyberpunk (cosmos) setting called Cyberpapacy. This setting was initially presented as a medieval religious dystopia that experiences significant technological advances. Instead of corrupt corporations and governments, the Cyberpapacy is dominated by the "False Papacy of Avignon." Instead of the Internet, hackers navigate GodNet, a computer network with direct religious symbolism, home to angels, demons, and other biblical figures. Another setting (cosmos) apart from the Torg game itself was Nippon Tech, which incorporated other different aspects of cyberpunk such as dominant corporations with professional assassins, however it did not include computer networks as a fundamental part of the setting.