CyberPunk and William Gibson
The lecture this week was about the genre of 'Cyberpunk' and an author of the genre named William Gibson.
Originally I thought cyberpunk was a person or a subculture that existed of some sort of technical speak for 'hacker'. But not quite. I was a tad far off.
To my personal understanding the concept of 'cyberpunk' is actually a genre. Like romance and drama, it is a genre. It is actually a sub-genre of sci-fi. It is a hybrid genre that tries to make sense of this world.
But back to the lecture...
Cyberpunk was described as a gritty aesthetic. It is surrounded by decay and lust. It is surrounded by high technology that humans are fused to machine.
It has a questionable morality. It revolves around opportunism, theft and murder. It is very selfish.
It is kind of like technology. Even new technology, something brand new and it still breaks or crashes.
There is no 'love' in cyberpunk. It is all based on seduction. It is all about getting what you want. You want information (in this case, technology) and this information is everywhere, yet no where, all at the same time.
Although cyberpunk is meant to make sense of the world it believes that the world sucks: existential malaise. We just live but there is no point.
William Gibson writes cyberpunk literature.
List of books: http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/books/books.asp
He is very important for this genre, as his books comprehend the idea of this genre properly.
He is aware that the world won''t get shiner or better and that once information is online, it can never properly be deleted. So he incorporates these ideas into his books.
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