Lecture Notes Week 10

Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a science fiction genre based in the possibilities inherent in computers, genetics, body modifications and corporate developments in the near future.
->Comes from the word amalgamation of Cybernetics (the study of communication, command and control in living organisms, machines and organisations) and Punk (music).

-> Cybernetics comes from the Greek kybernetes (steersman or pilot)

-> Cyberpunk developed as a reaction against the over-blown and predominantly safe stories pf 'space opera' such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy and George Lucas's Star Wars.

William Gibson
->A US/Canadian writer whose fictional work has spawned a number of key concepts like 'cyberspace' and 'virtual reality'. His work sits uncomfortably in the sci-fi genre because its gritty realism about the near future makes it too close to the truth. The social criticism inherent in his pessimistic, dystopian vision provides a balance to the corporate boosterism and optimistic views of Bill Gates.

CYBERPUNK THEMES
1. Technology and Mythology

Greek mythology-> Prometheus created humans, and stole fire from the gods and gave it to the humans. He was punished having his liver pecked by an eagle eternally.

Judeo-Christian-> Adam ate fruit and he was expelled from the Garden of Eden, only to find that there is no way out of the deal.

Cyberpunk sought to demythologise technology but effectively predicied/created the World Wide Web and so was used to remythologise technology.

2. Utopia and Dystopia

Some of the most powerful myths for and against technology have been intertwined with utopian writing. Utopias (from the Greek, meaning nowhere) are literary works that tell of imaginary places where everything is perfect, usually because people and technology are in harmony.
-> Last two hundred years have seen many Utopian experiments. People have tryed to live out the literary myth, sometimes by embracing new technology and sometimes by eschewing new technology.
Technology itself has often been visualised as Utopia

Development of new communication has led to another set of mythologies.



3. Cities as Machines

The Shape of the City dictates the kind of lives that most people lead. The City in Bladerunner is avowedly post-modern, built up layer on layer but starting to lose its relevance – people are moving to the Off-World.
-the city is a machine for living ... it creates human lifejust as humans create it
-the city is a natural thing, created by natural beings (humans)just as bee-hives and ant nests are created by natural beings
-the city is a living being ... a cyborg which combines humantissue with synthetic infrastructure.


4. Technological change

The First Media Age (centralised dissemination) versus the Second Media Age (decentralised interaction)

Early forms of electronic communication technology bore many similarities. Most importantly they were (with the interesting exception of the telephone) unitary systems of dissemination.

Mark Poster calls this period the first electronic media age.

You could write a letter, make a film or television program, broadcast a radio program, record an album and thousand could receive that message.

The latest development to mimic the equalising structure of the telephone is the Internet.
30 million users by the middle of the 1990s.
2000 about 262 million

5. Modernism to Postmodernism
Shadowing this split between the technologies of dissemination and the technologies of interaction is the shift discussed by a variety of theorists from modernism to postmodernism, from the certainties of the 'grand narratives' of big institutions to the complexities of personal survival for individuals.

But who controls the switches?

The second media age is built upon the first media age.
-> depending on the the world view inherent in existing technologies
The new media brings a need for new understandings to protect the public interests.
-the means to protect rights of access
-equity of access
-the means to strengthen and enhance existing community structures
-development of the democratic process/structure (why?)
-development of a global community
-development of strategies for developing, implementing and enforcing global laws
-intellectual property laws
-freedom of speech
At the moment, many entrenched social mores tend to dominate the ways in which we use the Internet and virtual reality.