Wendy's Critical Annotated Webliography

"Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that literally imagined our future. Identify the central themes of cyberpunk fiction."


I began to search for sources online with keywords “cyberpunk fiction central theme” returned with a lot of sources; unfortunately I found the results were too broad; forums were also found, however they bear relatively low credibility.


“What is Cyberpunk?”[1] manifests some of the important central themes which constitute a cyberpunk text such as “negative impact of technology on humanity”, “fusion of man and machine”, “corporate control over society”, “story focuses on the underground” and “ubiquitous access to information”. It gave me a simple account on the central themes of cyber punk text and it’s a good starting point to locate more sources by using these keywords.


To understand cyberpunk more, I took a brief look at Veronica Hollinger[2]’s article and realized that the movement holds a common ground with the idea “posthumanism” and “postmodernism”. I also noticed that the movie Blade Runner adapted from Philip K. Dick’s classic science fiction novel Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? was always used as a typical example of the film sub-genre cyberpunk, and it happened to be a movie I watched and like a lot, thereby, I refined my search alternating “cyberpunk”, “posthumanism”, “postmodernism” or “blade runner” and yielded more satisfactory results.
Tama Leaver[3] ’s article brings together the common central themes of the two quintessential cyberpunk texts Neuromancer and Blade Runner. He points out that both texts depicting “‘human’ has transformed into ‘post-human’ and ecological systems have been supplanted by technological constructs”. The themes of “loss” and “escape” dominate and overlapping one another in both texts. The escape he refers to take the form of physical-wise and mental-wise – an escape from the “limitations of an ‘ecocidal’ environment” and a “cyborg escape” from the (impaired) human boby into the cyberspace respectively; while the lost is connoted in a symbolic level which he draws reference of the ‘absence/ lack of nature’ in the texts, that is, the ‘loss of nature’ to “humanity’s ‘ecocide’, the destruction of the last remnant of Eden, the Earth, has thus caused a sense of spiritual loss” – both represents the idea of body-invasion and mind-invasion brought up in Hollinger’s article, which goes along with the same concept of “posthuminism”. Here, I come to the realization that both cyberpunk texts explore the “inhumanity” in “humans”, and the “humanity” in “non-humans” as the increased interface of human and machine decenters the human body and the self, the boundary of the oppositions human/machine becomes blur and even broken down. The underlying issue is not whether we can give a machine the qualities of the human like what in science fiction, but whether the human has lost humanity; whether is has become, in fact, a cyborg. On top of that, according to Tama, ‘cyberpunk’ is the combination of cybernetic and punk where since ‘cyber’ refers to the setting of “a post-apocalyptic, ecocidal world where of techno-fetishism and post-humanism”; and ‘punk’ depicts “the central characters are usually anti-heroes struggling against extremely powerful multinational corporations or military organizations”. Thereby, it sheds light to another theme of cyberpunk also touches the ‘late-capitalist ideology’ underlying the human applications of advanced science and technology, the reshaping of and modeling upon the “self” that have produced the various robots, androids, cyborgs, and “artificial enhanced” beings, in a complex process of commercialization, technologisation and globalization. His article provides a very insightful textual analysis on both text with ample examples and delves into different themes of cyberpunk helps developing the premise of my discussion.


Hollinger mentions in her article that Csicsery contends that cyberpunk is “a paradox of realism” and has a “legitimate international artistic style” which “captured by film Blade Runner and philosopher Baudrillard”. (40) This jotted my memory of the film that the female protagonist replicant Rachael’s human qualities are the result of implanted memories (“memory”) and what she sees from the photographs that provide an historical past of her childhood. The photograph she sees with her eyes and her “memory” as a form of vision representing “hyperreal”; it’s the fulfillment of Baudrillard’s discourse on “I think, therefore I am”, and likewise in the film, the replicant Pris says, “I think, Sebastian, therefore I am.” Consequently, I added more keywords in my searching like “Haraway cyborg”[4] and “Baudrillard” together with “cyberpunk film” hoping to explore more about the concepts of “cybrog” and “realism” interrelating to cyberpunk.


It was partly through surfing one of the results “Realizing Theory: Cyberpunk Film, Haraway, and Baudrillard” that led me to Dhamee’s article “Cyborgs and Feminists”[5]. The highlight of this article in particular is that it draws the parallel among Donna Haraway’s cyborg, Feminism and cyberpunk. Exemplifying Gibson's novels, it points out Heim’s argument that the increased interface of human and machine “carries both liberating and sinister implications” and “the sinister side of cyborg culture involves a mutation if not a loss of humanity” which however, echoes with the “cyborg escape” that Tama argues, and also with Haraway’s concept of “the cyborg can be empowering, particularly for women” since such (body and mental) “modification can lead to increased strength and control over nature” (the innate gender). The representations of femininity, the cyborg image, within cyberpunk texts act as a tool of combats the oppressive male/female dichotomy. This article presents an interesting perspective of how feminism produced an influential body in cyberpunk text and thus the concept of ‘posthumanism’.

“Cyberpunk and Feminism”[6] gave me a clearer vision that cyberpunk feminism emphasizes more on the “the extreme individualism of its characters, both men and women”; while the mainstream feminism focuses on the differences between man and woman. It points out that that “individualism is sometimes rebellious and anarchic, sometimes egocentric and superomistic”. Molly from Neuromancer is a typical example to such feminism since she’s depicted as “strong and ruthless, violent and independent”, which usurps the traditional ideological gender role dichotomies.


Baudrillard’s concept of “hyperreality” seems to be my next focus in the search of the discussion of cyberpunk’s central theme. Paul "nEo"[7] Martin examines the postmodernism in another cyberpunk text The Matrix. He deploys Jean Baudrillard's idea of “postmodern simulacrum” to investigate the concept of reality in cyperpunk -- “the virtual replacing the real” and “the real is said to be nothing more than simulation” in most cyberpunk texts. He quotes what Appignanesi states “the people of today are living what has already been lived and reproduced with no reality anymore but that of the cannibalized image” and this coincides with the concept of ‘being and simulation’ and ‘hyperreality’ in postmodernism, where in the cyperpunk text, the people in “the matrix” lives in a world look more real than the real, “a simulation of cannibalized image”. His point of view cohere with what Hollinger states cyberpunk “recognizes the paradigm-shattering role of technology in post-industrial society” resulting in a decentralized, media-dominated society in which ideas are copies of each other without real origin, leading to fragmentation of subjectivity and identity.
The concept of ‘dystopia’ in the article “Cyberpunk – Future shock: Night City 2020”[8] coheres with previous Leaver’s discussion about the lack of ‘natural’ and an ‘ecocidal’ world in the cyberpunk texts representing a “dystopian urban decay”. It states that cyberpunk fiction focus on potential hazards of scientific progress. The possibly “dehumanising effects of the future technology gives rise to postmodern anomie in “cyberpunk dystopia”, which depicting a destructed late-capitalist, post-industrial, media situated Western society which are usually diminish people, “battered and worn-out”, like large cities with complex architecture or vast wastelands devastated by war and pollution. The article denotes the strong political qualities cyberpunk dystopias carries, however, is on the contrary of Hollinger’s conclusion that “cyberpunk forecloses any possibility of political engagement whithin the framework of postmodern”. It provides very real life example of the possibility of such cyberpunk dystopia. This will be useful for my discussion of the representation in the cyberpunk texts.


The above online sources provides give me a comprehensive account of what cyberpunk is and its central theme to build up my premise of discussion in the aid of some cyberpunk texts’ example.



References

[1] SFAM’s ‘What is Cyberpunk?’ (May 2006)
http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/what-is-cyberpunk/
(accessed 22/10/2006)

[2] Hollinger, Veronica. Cybernetic Deconstructions: Cyberpunk and Post-modernism. Mosaic. 23,2, spring 1990: p29-44

[3] Tama Leaver’s “Post-Humanism and Ecocide in William Gibson's Neuromancer and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner". 12019: Off-World (1997)
http://www.devo.com/bladerunner/index.html
(accessed 22/10/2006)
[4] Kunzro, Hari. “You are Cyborg” Wired 5.02 (Feb 1997)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffharaway.html8
(accessed 22/10/2006)

[5] Dhamee, Yousuf . “Cyborgs and Feminists”. Cyberspace and Critical Theory. (Apr, 2005)
http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/cpace/cyborg/ydcyborg.html
(accessed 22/10/2006)

[6] “Cyberpunk – Future shock: Night City 2020”
http://hem.passagen.se/replikant/cyberpunk.htm
(accessed 22/10/2006)

[7] Paul "nEo" Martin, “Postmodern Motifs and Ambience in Cyberpunk Films” The Cyber Punk’s Project (Oct 2006)
http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/cyberpunk_films_postmodern_motifs_and_ambience.html
(accessed 22/10/2006)

[8] “Cyberpunk – Future shock: Night City 2020”
http://hem.passagen.se/replikant/cyberpunk.htm
(accessed 22/10/2006)