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ok, so we keep saying what is or isn't cyberpunk, but we don't really have a definition. I'm actually kinda interested to see how opinions differ.
Here's my guess:
- philosophical play with reality, simulations of reality
- techniness and future tech
- explorations of the cyborg, AI, merging of humans with tech, transhumanism, etc.
- dark, slick, dangerous, sexy image
- feel of counterculture and living beyond the law, drugs etc.
- within the realm of explainable reality
- near-future
- an element of the dystopian
I wouldn't expect everything in the genre to match, but I'd want atleast a majority of the above to include it.
Here's my guess:
- philosophical play with reality, simulations of reality
- techniness and future tech
- explorations of the cyborg, AI, merging of humans with tech, transhumanism, etc.
- dark, slick, dangerous, sexy image
- feel of counterculture and living beyond the law, drugs etc.
- within the realm of explainable reality
- near-future
- an element of the dystopian
I wouldn't expect everything in the genre to match, but I'd want atleast a majority of the above to include it.
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San Diego
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Re: definition of cyberpunk
Sun, February 15, 2004 - 11:52 AMI like most of your terms, but I think also that too many of them define more of the genre cliches and less of a genre description.
Personally, I would define cyberpunk as being about mans interaction with technology, and how that technology changes them and their social networks. This being the cyber- part of the genre, which could involve telephones changing the way people communicate with each other as much as cybernetic eyes changing the way we see the world.
Alongside that a struggle or class-schism of some sort, the division between the technological ( or ecological, or biological ) haves vs the have-nots. This could mean industrialized nations vs non-industrialized as easily really as it could mean those people with designer genes vs those who can't afford a genetic upgrade. This being the more -punk part of the genre descriptor.
Admittedly, these are somewhat more vague descriptions then yours, but they also allow for things like "The Difference Engine" to still be cyberpunk even though it is not near-future. Just my 2k of opinion. -
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Re: definition of cyberpunk
Sun, February 15, 2004 - 1:59 PMI had the opportunity to ask Asimov a question. I asked what he though SF was. He replied: "for me, it's always been a way to warn man about the intrinsic dangers of playing with technology that we don't fully understand or fail to prepare for adequately. Lately, though, it's been more of a playground for the potentials man has or has had involving technology."
That's a pretty broad definition, but taking it very literally, if the story only uses technology as a prop then it isn't scfi-fi, but if it's involved in the dangers and benefits of plaing with technology, then it's sci-fi. Since cyberbunk is concidered a subset of SF, then the first paragraph of the above definition is covered. :)
I think that class schizms and industrializtion are often the side effects of a distopian story. Demolition Man was excellent SF, and may have qualified as Cyber, because of the distopian underground and class separation. However, to me, it didn't _feel_ like Cyberpunk. Blade Runner felt like cyberpunk, though it may not entirely qualify by strict Gibsonian standards either. Dark city had the right feel, but was clearly an alien abduction story, not a distopia.
To me, it needs to be involved with man's direct and personal involvement with technology (bioware, nano tech, etc) rather than just making use of it (like time travel). Then it needs to explore a distopia (though not necessarily show the start of end of it), and it needs that film noir quality (ie. punk/indu/goth). Given this definition, films like Gattaca, Cube, and Blade Runner fall off to the sides, and others like Matrix, Johnny Mnemonic, and Max Headroom step up with Demolition man resting on the fringes of what your definition of "punk" is.
Dictionary.com has some interesting definitions for the term, too:
dictionary.reference.com/search -
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Re: definition of cyberpunk
Sun, February 15, 2004 - 3:42 PMinteresting reference:
"(Originally coined by SF writer Bruce Bethke
and/or editor Gardner Dozois) A subgenre of SF launched in
1982 by William Gibson's epoch-making novel "Neuromancer"
(though its roots go back through Vernor Vinge's "True Names"
to John Brunner's 1975 novel "The Shockwave Rider"). Gibson's
near-total ignorance of computers and the present-day hacker
culture enabled him to speculate about the role of computers
and hackers in the future in ways hackers have since found
both irritatingly na"ive and tremendously stimulating.
Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the
short-lived but innovative "Max Headroom" TV series. See
cyberspace, ice, jack in, go flatline."
So there seems to be a reference to "hackers" a lot in cyberpunk. But I think this is just a merging of lawlessness, underground and advanced technology (which happens to be computers in Gibsons work). I would say you don't need hackers if you have the same feeling of lawlessness and challenging the system. You also don't need VR, genetic technology, nanotechnology or regressed tech (aka steampunk), have the same point.
What's not cyberpunk about Bladerunner? It's about creating artificial humans. It explores the concept of a computer having emotions and fearing death. They live in a dark, depressing world controlled by cops and rich people. It's reasonably near future. It is a Asimovian warning tale.
I would also add that SF doesn't just warn people of potential dangers (although this is an admirable purpose.) It also acclimates people to likely changes before they happen and gives people ideas for what to create. It is likely that Gibson gave researchers the idea for VR and other things... -
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Re: definition of cyberpunk
Sun, February 15, 2004 - 3:47 PMa hacker is more than a kid defacing websites you know.
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Re: definition of cyberpunk
Tue, February 24, 2004 - 10:53 PMSF as I understand it fills the roal to expose a wide audience to new and fantastical ideas. Once these ideas are aired then the can re-accur. Some ideas are so life changing that we manifest them quicker then they would naturaly occur.
A good example is the star treck (1st generation) communicator. Wait isn't a flip cell phone pretty much that?
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Re: what about
Sun, February 15, 2004 - 5:59 PMto be fair, i read that somewhere, maybe in the blurb of a gibson book. and it is obviously so terse that there can't be lots of cleverness in it. but yes, i also like it :-) -
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Re: what about
Mon, February 16, 2004 - 3:27 AMnetworkgirl got me thinking about typical sci-fi, so you could also describe what cyberpunk isn't.
- it isn't about other planets, it's about earth and often the dregs of society. A lot of sci-fi involves space exploration, cyberpunk doesn't, because it's near future, and we aren't going to do that for awhile.
- there's no aliens, nothing imaginary, no ghosts (except for perhaps a rogue AI), etc.
that's what's cool about cyberpunk: it's immediate applicability. -
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Re: what about
Mon, February 16, 2004 - 3:58 AMvery good point. to an extent, this also has something to do with other features already mentioned above: it's a rather near future, and technologies are more extrapolated from what we have now, nothing fantastic. another thing you often find in other sci-fi, but rarely in cyberpunk, are androids with human-like or even super-human AI.
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Unsu...
Re: what about
Mon, February 16, 2004 - 4:05 AMA cyberpunk setting typically is darker -- environmentally, socially. There are fewer haves and more have nots. That's where the punk comes in -- utilizing obsolete tech, "borrowing" corporate resources. Partly this is out of literary necessity -- it's harder to appreciate a rebel when he or she is in a peaceful, just society. -
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Cyberpunk :: a semiotic ghost
Mon, February 16, 2004 - 7:51 AMMy 2 eurocents:
Cyberpunk is already a semiotic ghost fully integrated inside our posmythical culture: movies, music, sfi, comics, games, posmodernism, critical thought, cyborgology, etc, etc-----
No possible a definitive definition, it's something evolving.
"If you want a classier explanation, I'd say you saw a semiotic ghost. All these contactee stories, for instance, are framed in a kind of sci-fi imagery that permeates our culture. I could buy aliens, but not aliens that
look like Fifties' comic art. They're semiotic phantoms, bits of deep cultural imagery that have split off and taken on a life of their own, like the Jules Verne airships that those old Kansas farmers were always seeing.
But you saw a different kind of ghost, that's all. That plane was part of the mass unconscious, once. You picked up on that, somehow. The important thing is not to worry about it."
[William Gibson: The Gernsback Continuum]
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Re: definition of cyberpunk
Tue, February 17, 2004 - 4:16 PMTo me, this genre is a poetic offshoot from the main trunk of science fiction. The stories are dark, very cool, but ultimately meaningless adventures.
Cyberpunk celebrates, rather than comments on, an extreme, dystopian projection of trends that existed in the late 70's and early 80's. New worlds and new premeses are not as important as putting a hard tilt on the present.
- JML -
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Re: definition of cyberpunk
Tue, February 17, 2004 - 5:26 PMWhoa there.
Cyberpunk may be a meaningly adventure for you, but it's not for me. It is an extremely creative and rich exploration of future technology designs (as well as entertainment). I design future technologies. I use these books as brainstorming tools.
The very fact that they are dystopian and near future means that they (as mentioned above) serve a warning function. They serve a good function for society to make them aware of potential problems which exist now which could result in the dystopias they describe. We've currently got RFID tags, image face recognition, mobile communications, huge databases of personal info, nanotech without regulation, software on the verge of intelligence. How are these things going to pan out in the future? This is what cyberpunk talks about. -
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Re: definition of cyberpunk
Tue, February 17, 2004 - 6:16 PMI define cyberpunk more narrowly than a lot of people do. Maybe its just me, but I enjoy cyberpunk more for the journey than the destination. Its all about the cool factor of a narrow band of time, not the deep commentary. Yes, real problems are discussed, but more as decoration for the startling and beautiful.
Science fiction stories which deal with potential (and actual) problems are never as expressive as works along the lines of Herbert Sr., Gibson, or PKD. Now don't get me wrong - I love allegorical stories along the lines of Brave new World, 1984, and Patternmaster. But the more science fiction strives to comment on the present or the past, to reform the future, or to influence readers, the less poetic and rhythmic it feels.
Cyberpunk has that meaningless feel of a beat reading. That is not to say that it is worthless.
- JML
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Re: definition of cyberpunk
Wed, February 18, 2004 - 2:35 AMI'd say in 30 years, software might me on the verge of _artificial_ intelligence that can't just solve one single task, but be more flexible. But real intelligence, we're nowhere near that.
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