The Generic Hybridity of Cyperpunk - Coursework Example

The generic hybridity of cyberpunk and its relationship to postmodernism and late capitalism Introduction Cyberpunk is a way of expressing ideas mostly the dark ones in relation to the human nature, technology and the combination of the human nature and technology in the near future. It can be visualized as mechanizing the future and alienating the social and emotional aspects of human beings from others, themselves and the environment. Understanding of cyberpunk is enhanced by use of themes. First, there is a need to understand that technology contains some negative impacts to the human. Cyberpunk has made technology to be rampant in the near future in such a way that it leads to manipulations of most of the interactions within the society. Secondly, cyberpunk bring up the fusion of human and machine. It in some cases distorts the real meaning of the human being through creation of machines that change the looks and the perception of humanity. Cyberpunk main focus is the directed mostly to the society’s underground, exhibits a corporate control of the society through a futuristic dystopia. Finally, the cyberpunk visuals which are projected towards the near future are regarded as hyper-realistic. Postmodernism can be defined as a social and condition that is usually modeled by the culture of the media. It is a movement that is philosophical considered to be away from what is regarded as the point of view of modernization. Postmodernism is based on a view that apparent realities are social constructs only because they face subjection to change inherent to space and time. The post modern culture is viewed or represented as an alternative to the current or the existing society which according the Featherstone and Burrows (2000), it s viewed as a limited structurally or flawed. The postmodern culture is seen to be focusing in great extent the new individual identities that are emerging; it abandons the narrow scope about the modern individual. Late capitalism can be defined as a form of capitalism that came before the modernist period and currently, it is dominating the postmodern culture. Technology in the world is advancing at a higher rate. Study of cyberpunk is important as it is directly related with human being in day to day activities and also it modifies the futuristic world through science and fiction. As postmodernism is based on what is to come after the current conditions, study of the relationship between these two is essential. Research question The purpose of this paper is to study the generic hybridity of cyberpunk. By understanding the cyberpunk, its relationship with postmodernism will be established. In order to understand this question, this study will try to examine if cyberpunk as a genre of science fiction is unavoidable. According to how technology is progressing, I suggest that cyberpunk is unavoidable since there will always be a ‘post something’ after what is happening now. Through the study of cyberpunk and postmodernism this article will focus on the following questions; Is cyberpunk related to postmodernism in the science fiction novels? Is cyberpunk related with the postmodernism in the film industry? Cyberpunk and postmodernism in science and fiction novels Cyberpunk started appearing in the early 80’s when it became a label for referring to particular groups of science fiction writers. These writers aimed at explaining about loner hackers’ efforts of trying to survive in a future that is dominated by corporation and computerization. It focus was explaining about a future society that is post apocalyptic. They viewed the cyberpunk world future as being shockingly recognizable by becoming more uncomfortable, getting worse, thrilling, inhospitable and dangerous no matter how the technology is advancing and amazing. They visualized cyberpunk as mechanizing the future and alienating the social and emotional aspects of human beings from others, themselves and also the environment. Cyberpunk heroism is focused on the survival in the midst of a massive and diverse electronic network which the world has turned to be by making sure one does not loose his sense of self. The fiction about cyberpunk focuses on determining what really makes the human beings to be human. This is achieved by explain certain factors such as our difference with the increasing artificial intelligence which we are experiencing in our day-to-day life. It also explains how we differentiate real places, experiences and objects from what is regarded as their copies. Finally, it also determines how the boundaries are drawn between real, virtual, machine, and human. One of the novels that explain the cyberpunk fiction is the William Gibson neuromancer (Park, 2004). In William Gibson’s novel, the American themes of postmodern fiction through experimentation such as uncertainty, paranoia, science, popular culture, indeterminacy, history, technology and identity are featured. These aspects define the neuromancer as postmodernist. The interface that is complicated between human beings and technology, the realities of the postindustrial capitalism and the implications for agency and identity of simulation processes defines the conditions of postmodernism. Neuromancer which is a cyberpunk fiction forecasts these issues and can then be referred to as a postmodern fiction (Bailenson et al., 2008). Using the William Gibson’s neuromancer novel, the time of its development can be compared to the other science fiction novels based on the sensibility of the postmodernist. Through comparison with the novels that came before, the William Gibson’s neuromancer may be classified as being more of modernist work than being of a postmodernist work (Kitchin & Kneale, 2001). According to McCaffery, (1991), cyberpunk is viewed as an artistic style that is international and legitimate with aesthetic and philosophical premises that are profound. McCaffery views cyberpunk as more surrounded by aesthetics and not just as a movement. He describes the William Gibson’s first novel known as neuromancer as one of the most interesting material of the postmodern age. He further describes cyberpunk in broader sense as reflecting an increasing influence of a moment of the science fiction on the postmodern culture. This is the moment in which the science fiction shows a future collapsing on the present. In the mid 90’s, the contradictions in the fiction of cyberpunk made its style to be favorable in expressing itself through the visual media. This was accomplished by use of televisions, video, film and performance arts related to comics. This made the movement of the cyberpunk to absolutely fit into the postmodernism paradigm as it was in the verge of gaining popularity and at the same time being accumulated into the academic field. At this case, the authors were focused in the human subject alienation in a post capitalist world. This issue of alienation led to its expression in what was seen as the highest form in the environments of postmodern writing and cyberpunk as these environments were mediated by technology (Park, 2004). The artists in cyberpunk succeeded to be the first generation where technologies in videos, digital watches, computer games, satellite dishes, audio players and MTV became part of day to day reality matrix as they were not exoticisms. Cyberpunk writers also became the first to read the works of Thomas Pynchon, Burroughs and Ballard in their teenage who grew up deep in technology and also more importantly in the pop culture, in aesthetics and the values counterculture that was related to the video games, drug culture and punk rock. The cyberpunk fiction was aspired and imitated towards the trends and images in popular culture. It was aimed at erasing the divisions that existed between the low and the high cultures (Park, 2004). This is also reflected in postmodernism as postmodernism is generally seen as overthrowing the gap that separates the low and high cultures. Jameson gave a description of a cyberpunk as the supreme expression of postmodernism and if not postmodernism then it is an expression the late capitalism. Other novelists in this book including Gibson William and Bruce Sterling show cyberpunk as being postmodernist in its character and its focus (Deely, 2000). Cyberpunk and postmodernism in film industry The relationship between cyberpunk and postmodernism can be depicted in the field of films. The cyberpunk cinema is said to be in the post futuristic science fiction cinema category. This can be also explained as a shift from preoccupation of culture containing outer space to what is referred as an obsession containing the inner space. Those films that were produced earlier with clear boundaries between human protagonist and the alien gave way to different forms of films which had blurred boundaries such as star war release in the year 1977. This blurring of the inside and the outside were more pronounced in the field of cyberpunk cinema beginning from the mid 90’s to current with Hollywood cinema growth showing postmodernism. Postmodernism in this case is expressed through mediation landscape of what was seen as culture incorporation of the increasing technologies in the production of the films (Park, 2004). The films that can be related to this period clearly show some traits such as privileging of spectacle and style over the content, breaking down the established narrative based on Aristotelian and the collapsing space, time that originates from scavenging that is unyielding, and the recombination of what signifies culture. The traits present in the film are the one that defines postmodern aesthetic. The cyberpunk cinema has been at all times foregrounding these traits (Park, 2004). Given that cyberpunk exhibits postmodern nature in addition to industrial and social developments internet incorporation and successful film series, the themes and styles in cyberpunk started appearing in regular terms in the late 90’s. Films such as the blade runner have been depicting the urban future vision since it appeared in the 80’s. This film shows the elements of the subject that is not quite human which changes the view of the existing society. this can be related to the post modern culture which is viewed or represented as an alternative to the current or the existing society which according the Featherstone and Burrows (2000), it s viewed as a limited structurally or flawed. The postmodern culture is seen to be focusing in great extent the new individual identities that are emerging; it abandons the narrow scope about the modern individual. Conclusion Cyberpunk technologically focuses on the future hence it is unavoidable as we are always interested with what will come tomorrow. Cyberpunk is a way of perfection and is said to suggest the highest levels of postmodernism. On one hand, it is a pure negation of philosophy, manners, politics, history and anything which can be said to be mediated by the cultural memory; on the other hand cyberpunk is a pure attitude where all that regarded as nature once is elaborated and simulated using the technical means. It is also a world construct of the future which has the remoteness of the lessons about the history as the current mix up is obtained from fantasies of science fiction of the past which attempted to imagine us as humans. The conception of cyberpunk fuses the high and the low, the simple and the complex which is also reflected in postmodernism as postmodernism is generally seen as overthrowing the gap that separates the low and high cultures. Cyberpunk contains the marks of the influence of the postmodernism in the readership of science and fiction. Some of the postmodernism markers which are seen to recur in cyberpunk include the culture commodification, persistence developments of the field of information technology, fragmentation and also decentering of an individual, the boundaries of the popular and high culture are blurred and finally the disappearance or the loss of history. Cyberpunk and postmodernism are described or characterized by an endless process of recycling in order to rebuild. The connection between postmodernism and cyberpunk may be used to show the extent to which the author or the novel itself demonstrates the sensibility of postmodernism. Cyberpunk work can be identified by being more of a postmodernist than a modernist work. Cyberpunk is a fiction that celebrated the cultural and formal hybridity and in a way, it attempted to wipe away the division that existed between the low and the high culture. Cyberpunk achieved a tendency of a paradoxical mixture by bonding two phenomena based on culture which on the surface, they proved to share very little in common. This is also depicted in postmodernism where it is generally seen as overthrowing or closing the gap that separates the low and high cultures. Cyberpunk is the ultimate fictional expression of the postmodernism and if not, then it is the expression of the late capitalism. There are certain events that led to submergence and development of cyberpunk as a genre of fiction with the grounds of the postmodern science. Events that circulated between human body and the technology resulted to development and submergence of cyberpunk that is a genre of fiction based on postmodern science. Cyberpunk resulted to praise through advancement of the technology and it brought about some critiques based on feminine, racism and age group. References Bailenson, J. N., Yee, N., Kim, A. & Tecarro, J. (2008). The Influence of Informed Science Fiction on Virtual Reality Research, Sciencepunk 16 (1), 1-39 Deely, J. (2000). The Red Book: The Beginning of Postmodern Times, Charles Sanders Peirce and the Revovery of Signum, 3, 131-76.  Featherstone M. & burrows R. (1995) ‘Cyberspace, cyberbodies, cyberpunk: cultures of technological embodiment, university of Teesside’. Theory and culture society, 21, 160-180. Kitchin, R. & Kneale, J. (2001). Science fiction or future fact? : Exploring imaginative geographies of the new millennium. Progress in Human Geography, 25 (1), 19–35. McCaffery, L. (1991). ‘Cyberpunk and Neuromanticism: Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk and Postmodern Science Fiction’. Durham and London: Duke UP Park, C. H (2004). Orientalism in U. S. Cyberpunk Cinema from Blade Runner to The Matrix, Dissertation, 1, 1-332 Read More