Cyberpunk - just add neon?
daveso
Posts: 7,016
in The Commons
Is that what defines cyberpunk? Just add some neon and a holgraphic image of an Asian women smiling or glaring at the world?
Viola - cybepunk . Or is there more to it?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk
It depends a bit on the definition you use for Cyberpunk. If you mean Cyberpunk as in the universe defined by Mike Pondsmith, then neon, holography and Asia (because of China financially being the leading country in the world in that universe), then yes, those themes are very prominent.
There is also Cyberpunk as more of a style though. It involves themes like high-end electronics, implants, both androids and cyborgs, artificial intelligence, a dystopian civilization (so yeah, a lot of people would be in dispair). Yes, Mike Pondsmiths' Cyberpunk obviously also includes these things. As does a movie like Bladerunner, which is cyberpunk, but not part of Pondsmiths' universe.
Also some good-old home-built stuff (not unsimilar to steam-punk really, just using higher tech components), scrapheap-challenge constructions, using technology discarded by the world powers.
Civilization in cyberpunk usually has a clear seperation between upperclass and lowerclass. Upperclass equipment may be similar to what you'd find in a Utopian setting. However, to maintain their high class life, they have to put the cost on the lower class. An upper class car will look like the nicest car you ever saw. A lower class car will be scratched, have it's engine replaced with something that doesn't really fit (and thus its hood will have some weird extension welded on, painted in whatever paint was available instead of a matching one). You have to think through a bit about "what can the character using stuff afford, and it won't be much, but plenty of spit available to add some off-color polish".
Here's another I found
https://www.neondystopia.com/what-is-cyberpunk/
I would say yes, that's all it takes.
What defines reductionism? One could reduce Greek culture to people wearing sheets, making statues, and poking at each other with pointy things. As in everything, that are a lot of nuance and styles in cyberpunk i.e. Blade Runner doesn't exactly look like the Matrix. There are some iconic bits of imagery granted but that is true of everything. Here is an example in one game of 4 distinct styles of cyberpunk visual styles (the rundown "entropism", the gaudy "kitsch", the austre and dark "neo-militarism", and the futuristic gaudy "neo-kitsch": https://www.gamesatlas.com/cyberpunk-2077/styles/.
I just bought a set of cyberpunk characters and objects for 3D printing ... Neon Street 3k ... very cool stuff
So what are you using the printed models for? Can we see your display cabinet with all of them?
no display, but there will be... I have the 4 tires and roodf printed for the car. That's it. The car itself going to take at least a week to print. 14+ hours for each piece. Than they need cleanup and glued. Some day painted. Id have a couple things done though. ... not from the neon package yet.
pretty cool. You gonna paint them also?
I'd like to someday - once I get the printing down and then save up some cash for paints. I've never painted characters so its another learning experience. I've been watching videos already and figuring it all out. I do have a couple of kids that can paint pretty much professionaly on miniatures, etc. I might let them do it
Both of them worked at a company that molds miniatures, but learned how to paint on their own. Valiant Enterprises Ltd - est 1968 (veltd.net)
daveso,
There's certainly an enduring East-West dialogue as far as cyberpunk aesthetic is concerned. One side takes inspiration from the other and vice-versa. In terms of ideas and themes, I'd say Western writers contributed greatly in the early days of the genre. Neal Stephenson and P.K. Dick come to mind. Then the Japanese picked these up and, through manga and anime, added their own idiosyncratic visual layer. Akira and Ghost in the Shell are just a few famous examples. Now, with a generation of Wester artists having grown up feasting on that visual cornucopia, we readily conceive cyberpunk with Asian tropes.
There are a few works of cyberpunk that break the mold. Minority Report is one. On the surface its visual mood bleeds to a dreamy white; there's very little grit, neon or Asian flavor to it. Yet as a thriller, its themes are rooted in cyberpunk genre.
Cheers!
I'm surprised no one mentioned William Gibson, arguably the father of the genre, and the world he created with books like "Neuromancer", "Idoru", and "Burning Chrome." I think Stonemason's Urban Future sets and urban sets from The Ant Farm capture that world best, no offense to other PAs.
What a wild flight of fancy that is not at all like the world we live in.
Art will often mimic life.
I'm not sure he is the father of the genre. I think Fritz Lang and Thea Von Harbou from 1927 Metropolis pretty much birthed the genre. Of course the term didn't come out till 1982 , writer Bruce Bethke.
...I'm more involved with the dystopic side as presented in the RPG Shaodwrun. At the top of the food chain are the Megacorps which in some cases wield more power than national government. There are three levels of society, the Elite - high level corporate executives and the uber wealthy, The corporate "wageslave" - basically the "rank and file" corporate employee, and the SINless - basically anyone who fell through the cracks ("SINless" have no legal System Identification Number [SIN] which is needed to function in everyday society, hold a steady job, have a bank account, own sign a lease, travel, etc, think of it like a combination of today's Social Security number, ID, and even passport). Those who are among SINless are considered the bottom rung of society and scrape by doing odd jobs or are assoicatied with underground activity.
Like in the Robocop franchise, Most law enforcement is operated by corporations and. contracted out to cities. Megacorporate enclaves and facilities are considered to have extraterritoriality rights no matter where they are located. This means on these premises, corporate security is the "law" and several Megas field large and well equipped security forces that border on being private armies of their own. A person's commlink (basically a "souped up" smartphone) holds all the data needed to get through life, like credit balance ID, history, genetic code, etc and must be active at all times to broadcast your SIN. It is against the law to walk around with it turned off or in "hidden" mode. This is pretty much the "big brother" aspect. Runners (see below) will have several commlnks and forged identities, usually one primary and a couple cheap "burners".
Within the "SINless" society there is of course an underworld segment which includes gangs, those involved in organised crime, and individuals known as "Runners" who are often hired by various special interests and even corporate sources to perform jobs that demand "plausible deniability. Most such individuals are "augmented" in some way that relates to their "profession" (cyber and bio implants or mystical abilities) and perform a number of different roles including infiltration, cyber espionage, providing muscle when needed, and magical support. Life as a runner is extremely dangerous but also very rewarding and thus seen as a way out of poverty without giving fealty to a gang or crime boss. Runners tend to use temporary fake SINs, which the more expensive, the more they will pass as being legitemate.
This is where all the flashy neon, glitz, and glamour has no place as the last thing a runner wants to do is draw unwanted attention to him or herself. Being able to blend into the shadows of the sprawl (major metropolitan area) is how one survives to run another day. Building a solid rep within the runner community means getting better more lucrative jobs On the other hand achieving public awareness or notoriety in the outside world can be very detrimental to one's career.
This is why many of my illustrations in the genre are more dark and brooding. It is also why characters are not running around in skimpy or highly fashionable clothing, unless they are doing undercover work at a public or private event to get information. Armoured clothing of various styles and degrees of protection is relatively easy to obtain and is a lifesaver in the shadows. Probably the closest here in the store to what I would consider cyberpunk wear is the Cyber Girl Nakano Clothing and Hair.
"A combination of low-life and high tech", that's how Bruce Sterling once defined it. But in common perception it has become this shiny world entirely illuminated by neon advertising and people forgot and ignored that it is so very much about the people living where the light doesn't reach, the people that stare at the newest iPhone XXX while trying to figure out where to get their next meal and where to find a place to sleep that's out of the rain.
There's a line in Burning Chrome that's widely quoted - "...the street finds its own uses for things". I don't see that much when looking at what peopletry to sell as cyberpunk.
But if you've been using DAZ for a while, you already have the people and the things. You just need the neon lights...
Those are easy to make in Daz. emissives
If you're going to qualify METROPOLIS (1927), (and that's something that's been debated for a while) then it's still preceded by Karl Capek's R.U.R. (1920), which introduced the word robot and had production design even more evocative of the modern cyberpunk design ethic. (see images below) and R.U.R.'s actual focus was on the ethics of creating an artificial human. That said, it's more accurate to say that METROPOLIS was a key inspiration for cyberpunk, but outside of the Robotrix... whose genesis as depicted is practically alchemical... the technology in the film was, even at the time of the films release, deliberately retro with enslvaved human power and steam power being prominent features, while the art deco design was actually a style that then was wildly in vogue in the real art, architecture, and fashion worlds. In other words, it's really more steampunk with a strong Art-Deco flavor, though in the end it's probably better to simply consider it as highly pooliticized outgrowth of the German Expressionism movement that also birthed films like THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI.
But, to get back to original post, there's no doubt that the term as originally conceived in 1980, two years before the definitely cyberpunk BLADE RUNNER and TRON were released in 1982 has been blurred and distorted to incoporate just about anything people feel like claiming is cyberpunk... in no small part due to 1982's THE TERMINATOR, which embraced the asthetics but is a bit iffier in terms of actually belonging. I'm honestly surprised that we haven't seen a Cyberpunk Barbie yet...
Here you go.
"Just glue some PCB tracks on it and call it cyberpunk"
Termenator actually came out in 1984, not 1982.
I always thought Six Million Dollar Man and Star Wars is cyberpunk too!
Especially in the prequels.
I doubt that when we go full cyberpunk it will still be neon... it's already all LEDs... just look at Times Square or Shibuya, it's all LEDs... especially the giant display screens. Most big cities are starting to become festooned with colorful LED accent lights on high-rises and all over commercial areas.
I tend towards a more optimistic future myself, and so don't really do Cyberpunk as an actual story-setting... but I have collected a number of the Cyberpunk-themed products with the idea of kit-bashing them into a nicer future world instead. That said, not all Cyberpunk worlds are as dystopian as others. Some of them are pretty close to Hopepunk, the opposite of the Grimdark you see in a lot of them.
As for Fritz Lang's Metropolis, I'd tend to tag that one more as Decopunk, which is a sub-genre/side-genre of Diesilpunk, but a lot of people do tend to group Metropolis under steampunk. At some point I WOULD like to try doing at least one story project set in a Decopunk sort of world, actually, so have been trying to collect a few Deco-future things as well.
Those are great :) though, of course, I meant an offical "Cyberpunk Barbie" in the plastic bubble pack at the local toy store (assuming that there are any left in your area) or Mart of Wals. I was in a Tuesday Morning store earlier today and they had a bunch of remaindered Florence Nightingale Barbies for around $6.00 US, and I figure Cyberpunk Barbie would be much more likely to grab kids. That said, there WAS a set of fasion dolls back in the 80s that did incorporate cyberpunk elements, especially in their TV series from Marvel Animation. Truly outrageous...
LEDs are actually pretty old school and clunky. They've been making rave clothes with embedded electroluminecents (paint, tape and wires) for at least fifteen years now and cosplyers were doing it even before that.
Edit - Oh, and I haven't been to Manhattan in a few years, but there's still a LOT of neon in Shibuya, and even more in Shinjuku. The telescreens are LED now, yes, but there's no reason to replace an intricate custom made sign.
As it happens, one reason I don't personally tend to put Fritz Lang's Metropolis particularly into the Cyberpunk category is that it doesn't have the same level of technology as your typical cyberpunk world. There are no advanced computers... in fact, I don't get the impression there are ANY computers in that world.... so, no cyberdecks to hack with, no cyberspace to jack into, no ubiquitous Net to look up stuff in or have synapses fried by running up against the wrong bit of ICE security measures. No automation present at ALL. It's basically in a futuristicified version of the 1920s world and sensabilities.
On the other hand, Fritz Lang's Metropolis does have a lot of elements that do later show up in cyberpunk. Large city filled with giant buildings, hundreds of stories tall? CHECK! Vehicle traffic raised high in the sky? CHECK! Ultra-rich people living in their own, life-of-Riley world up in those giant buildings? CHECK! Lesser citizens eeking out a very harsh existence, separated out completely from those life-of-Riley uber-rich above? CHECK! And those people are worked like dogs, and treated like dirt? CHECK! And the two classes of human really, really don't like each other? CHECK! Somebody constructs a robot that looks indistinguishable from a human, it then goes evil and rogue? CHECK! CHECK!, And that robot proceeds to bring the world to the very edge of Armageddon? CHECK!
Now, compare and contrast Fritz Lang's Metropolis with the anime Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis. It actually has a lot of elements in common with Fritz Lang's movie of the same title, right down to the giant buildings hundreds of stories tall, with a distinctly Art Deco look, and to a plot driven by the presence of humanlike robots... with a similar sort of brought-to-the-brink-of-Apocolypse type of ending, but it is definitely much more Cyberpunk in the level of technology that exists there. My understanding is that the manga it was an adaption of, though, that the author was merely inspired by having seen a movie poster for Fritz Lang's Metropolis, presumably showing the giant buildings and the Maria robot, but that the actual manga is very different from what was in Fritz Lang's movie, because the manga author hadn't actually seen the movie itself when he wrote his work, he just liked the giant buildings and the humanoid robot elements of that poster. The anime-movie adaption of Osamu's manga, in the other hand, pulled in a lot of elements from Fritz Lang's movie, while keeping much of what was in the manga.
Great movie, btw. Actually, both of them are.
Well, 1927 was a while ago. Technology has changed a lot since then. So makes sense back then it would have a style of the time, Like Art Deco. As time moves different style then come in. Just like Jules Vern is very steampunk. Victorian style and tech.
bioluminescence will be the future, they already bred glowing cats