the ramble dump

[This is about Cyberfunk, which I just finished writing. You can read it in its entirety either here on the site or by downloading the PDF. There are no spoilers below.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk

In the vaguest, not-very-definitive terms, 'cyberpunk' is what started out as the label applied to a new wave of science fiction that, in the early 1980s, mixed a focus on the technological effects on society, above all computers and information technology, with society's lowlifes for whom this technology is an everyday reality: rebellious hackers and con-artists, drug users and mercenaries. These people were the principal players in cyberpunk stories, the 'heroes' trying to eke out their existence and keep their head above the surface in a fast-moving world of corrupt, ruthless capitalism.

The word didn't stay so specific. Works like William Gibson's Neuromancer or Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, two of the progenitors of the genre, dealt with a lot of different things in the context described above, and codified and packaged it all in a very distinctive way. These days, to identify something as 'cyberpunk' is often a retrograde, and not always meaningful, process--to recognise, or to deliberately reflect, in films or books, music, fashion or everyday society, some aspect that evokes the cyberpunk genre as it has come to be known through convention, as much as it has anything to do with the actual meaning of 'cyber+punk'.

So we can point at The Matrix, a film released fifteen years after Neuromancer, and call that cyberpunk, and the label still makes a lot of sense because the film draws heavily on a lot of the same stuff and captures a similar spirit, attitude, sense of zeitgeist, etc, even if it does its own things with it or updates it for the late '90s or whatever. (The game Deus Ex: Human Revolution arguably did the same again this year, in some ways.) But we can call a bunch of other derivative novels or games or films that emulate these works 'cyberpunk', too, and it may only signify how clichéd they are.

We can also point to a news story about the real-life hacker collective Anonymous and call that cyberpunk, or give the label to the developments of Augmented Reality or prosthetic limbs. Or to the city of Tokyo. Or the music of Nine Inch Nails, which buries and distorts a human voice amongst harsh electronic and industrial soundscapes. Or to shades and leather trenchcoats, or the practice of putting neon in your hair. I wouldn't be surprised if the word has even been used for a clothing range put out by some billion dollar fashion house.

It gets to a point where it's an almost, but not quite, meaningless label. It's always evoking something, and something fairly specific, but it can reach the stage of flavours and echoes where whatever was 'cyber+punk', if it's even that direct, only informs something in the most vague and shallow of ways. Things can easily be 'cyberpunk' while having nothing to do with the attitudes and sentiments that defined the original cyberpunk works, even contradicting them, or being co-opted by the kind of capitalist entities they viewed negatively.

It's not unlike punk itself, or the related music genre grunge, which is comparable for being about as vital and now completely over as cyberpunk (and similarly never all that beholden to its label anyway). The word 'grunge' has been used ever since to mean straggly hair and flannel shirts, and people who dress like that to 'be grunge', as much as reflecting the original substance of the term.



When I decided to write Cyberfunk, a little over two years ago, I'd been pursuing an interest in all things 'cyberpunk' for a long time already. I approached it as a light-hearted parody, a break from some other stuff, and a way of maybe getting it out of my system. But it grew beyond my expectations, getting a lot more attention than I'd originally planned.

Of course, at the time I didn't know I'd also be writing, right in the middle of it, a 15,000-word dissertation on William Gibson for an MA, which I completed earlier this year. Surprisingly, though, the cyberpunk burn-out never really happened. In fact, getting a better theoretical handle on (historical) cyberpunk turned out to be pretty useful.

I read a lot about what cyberpunk is, and what it isn't, but ultimately, trying to decide what counts as cyberpunk and what doesn't, and trying to make things fit the label, becomes a futile exercise.

What made cyberpunk so important and interesting in the first place, and the things that continue to attract people like me who have found themselves seeking it out, is huge and sprawling and touches on a lot of different and interconnected things. I could relate it to being a literary nerd, or a fan of rock music, or of action cinema; someone who finds the philosophy interesting, the questions of humanity, the patterns of society it reflects. Maybe it's how it brings out the weird and surreal. Or I could relate it to the strange sense of nostalgia I get when I watch Hackers, or the appreciation I have for aesthetic grunge. Maybe I could say it's about the thrills; the way it attends to the cerebral and the visceral and everything in between. Or maybe I just like the pretty lights.

Cyberfunk explores some of these things, but by no means is it an attempt at a complete account of cyberpunk. Instead, it's about making cyberpunk out of cyberpunk, according to its best and worst definitions (though I'll admit I didn't know this at the start). Sound pretentious? Great! I could spend hours gleefully pointing out, like a self-indulgent asshole, all the references I make in this story, but I'll settle for simply acknowledging that pretty much everything is lifted from other cyberpunk sources, in bits great and small, and then all mixed together to whatever the hell effect there is in the end.

I've come this far without mentioning Jesnails, a character, or should I say entity, who has in this story finally found her perfect fit. I can't claim full credit for her either, but I hope I've finally done justice to her potential after a long, trying search for the appropriate pulpit. What started out as a Jesnails story with cyberpunk, and then became a cyberpunk story with Jesnails, eventually arrived at the realisation that they are, in many ways, one and the same thing.

Labels: cyberpunk, deus ex, jesnails, neuromancer, the matrix

# posted by Chris @ 1:49 AM