Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk, formed from the terms cyber (from Old Greek κυβερνάω meaning to control or direct) and punk, is a dystopian trend in science fiction literature that emerged in the 1980s. The term first appeared in a short story of the same name by Bruce Bethke in 1980, and was eventually coined by Gardner Dozois to describe the works of William Gibson (specifically the Neuromancer trilogy). Cyberpunk is considered the film noir of science fiction genres.

Unlike the classic utopias of many other science fiction genres, the world of cyberpunk is not shiny and sterile-clean, but bleak, and marked by violence and pessimism. Created in the 1980s, it reflects the emerging critique against what is perceived as increasing commercialization and urbanization. In this dystopia, states are controlled by large corporations that abuse the state's monopoly power for their own ends, resulting in the loss of physical and economic security for the individual (previously present in developed countries). The promise of a better world through technological progress has not been fulfilled. High technology does not serve the welfare of people, it is used for general surveillance and optimization of living organisms by means of cyberware.

Some readers and critics see influences of the critique of capitalism in this scenario: the corporations have taken over, governments no longer exist or play a very subordinate role. Private, paramilitary security services ensure "order". The boundaries between reality and fiction are often blurred with technology, such as the term cyberspace coined by William Gibson - a similar technology is called Metaverse in Neal Stephenson's work - or SimStim.

Against this background, cyberpunk often paints the picture of a subculture that emerged, as it were, as the antithesis of a new world order without social and personal security; popular in this role are hackers. The main characters are usually the losers of this development. They are soldiers of fortune and adventurers who - often involuntarily - lead a life away from the large corporations "in the shadows" of society. Many stories set them as protagonists against the power and ruthlessness of the unleashed corporations.

Definitions

Retrieved

Cyberpunk Subgenres

There are several subgenres of cyberpunk that focus on different individual aspects.

Steampunk

Steampunk, also called retro-futurism, is a subgenre of cyberpunk in which the future is seen from the perspective of the Victorian age. Steampunk thus creates a world that combines elements of the future and the past. Especially steam engines, but also Victorian clothing and hairstyles create a future with a retro look reminiscent of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.

Some typical steampunk works are the children's book series A Series of Distressing Events by Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket, which served as a template for both the feature film Lemony Snicket - Mysterious Events (2004) and the television series a A Series of Distressing Events. The literary model His Dark Materials as well as the film adaptation The Golden Compass are also counted as steampunk, as is the comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen created by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, as well as the 2003 cinematic adaptation The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Tim Burton's horror film Sleepy Hollow (1999), the 2004 Japanese anime film Steamboy set in Victorian England, and the adventure film Duel of the Magicians (2010) are also typical representatives of steampunk.

Dieselpunk

Dieselpunk is a further development of steampunk, in which diesel-powered devices instead of steam engines are in the foreground. The vision of the future thus still appears in retro optics, but is viewed from the perspective of the 1930s and 40s. Art Deco and the First and Second World Wars are frequently used elements and themes. The earliest work that was subsequently assigned to Dieselpunk was made in 1927: Fritz Lang's monumental film Metropolis is set in a distant future in which modern technology and machines dictate the rhythm of life for the working class. The theme of man and machine is also taken up by Dsiga Wertow in his documentary The Man with the Camera (1929). In the 1960s, Hanna-Barbera Studios began producing the retro-futuristic animated series The Jetsons, of which 75 episodes were released by the late 1980s. The feature films Brazil, 1985 by Terry Gilliam and Rocketeer, 1991 by Joe Johnston are also classified as dieselpunk.

Atomic Funk

In Atompunk, retrofuturistic aspects are combined with post-apocalyptic scenarios, e.g. after a nuclear war or a nuclear super-disaster. However, it is also possible to move the action from Earth to another planet, as in the film Forbidden Planet (German title Alarm im Weltall), which had impressive special effects for 1956.

The computer game series Fallout with its setting in the year 2077 after a nuclear war has destroyed the world as we know it.

Biopunk

Biopunk is about scientifically inspired biological changes, including genome alterations and interventions that can be classified as science fiction or body horror. Literary representatives of biopunk include, for example, Schismatrix (1985) by Bruce Sterling and the science fiction novel Biokrieg by Paolo Bacigalupi. Biopunk films include EXistenZ (1996), The Fifth Element (1997), The Gene Generation (2007), Repo Men from 2010, and several episodes of the series Orphan Black (2013-2017).

The science fiction film Gattaca (1997) deals with some of the ethical issues raised by biopunk in the field of genetic engineering in such a nuanced way that it is shown at the University of Toronto to accompany the introduction to biopunk, bioethics, and the science of genetic manipulation, and then discussed by scholars and students.

Ribofunk, by science fiction author Paul Di Filippo is considered one of the major literary works of biopunk.

Movies

Cyberpunk can be classified in the film with other genres in the generic term Dark Future. The genre has a thematic proximity to film noir and science fiction, which is why cyberpunk can also be called SF noir.

Title	Year	References
12 Monkeys	1995
A Scanner Darkly	2006	Based on the novel The Dark Umbrella by Philip K. Dick (1977)
Aachi & Ssipak	2006
Alita: Battle Angel	2019	based on the manga Battle Angel Alita
Akira	1988	based on the manga of the same name Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo
Animatrix	2003	based on the Matrix movies
Avalon - Play for your life	2001
Babylon A.D.	2008	is based on the novel Babylon Babies
Blade Runner	1982	The literary model is the novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick.
Blade Runner 2049	2017	Sequel to the film Blade Runner, based on a book by K. W. Jeter.
Brazil	1985	The original title was intended to be "1984 and ½" - an allusion to George Orwell's famous novel 1984 as well as Federico Fellini's film 8½.
Chrysalis - Deadly Memory	2007	As a template served the authors of the horror film Eyes Without a Face
Code 46	2003
Cypher	2002
The Rattlesnake	1981
Dark City	1998
The fifth element	1997	Subgenre Biopunk
Dredd	2012	based on the comic character Judge Dredd from the British comic magazine 2000 AD
Elysium	2013
Equilibrium	2002
eXistenZ	1999	Similar to the book Simulacron-3, David Cronenberg raises the question of what is reality and what is merely sensory input fed to an individual.
Freejack - Hostage of the Future	1992	is based on the 1959 novel Immortality, Inc.
Gamer	2009
Gattaca	1997	Subgenre Biopunk
Ghost in the Shell	1995	based on the manga of the same name Ghost in the Shell
Ghost in the Shell 2 - Innocence	2004	based on the manga Ghost in the Shell
Ghost in the Shell (2017)	2017	based on the manga Ghost in the Shell
Guardian of Memory - The Giver	2014
I.K.U.	2000	the plot can be seen as a continuation of the American film Blade Runner.
Immortal - New York 2095: The Return of the Gods	2004	based on the first two volumes of Enki Bilal's Alexander Nikopol trilogy
Networked - Johnny Mnemonic	1995	based on the cyberpunk short story The Mnemonic Johnny by William Gibson (author of the Neuromancer trilogy)
Looper	2012
Matrix	1999	cites cyberpunk films such as Blade Runner, Total Recall and Brazil.
The Matrix Reloaded	2003
The Matrix Revolutions	2003
Metropolis by Osamu Tezuka	2001
Minority Report	2002	based on the short story The Minority Report by Philip K. Dick
Mute	2018
Natural City	2003	clear parallels to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner
Nirvana	1997
One Point Zero - You are programmed	2004
Paprika	2006
Ready Player One	2018	based on the science fiction novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Renaissance	2006
RoboCop	1987
Serenity - Escape to new worlds	2005
sleep dealer	2008
Splice - The Gene Experiment	2009	Subgenre Biopunk
The Strange Days	1995
Surrogates - My Second Self	2009	based on the graphic novel of the same name
The Tank Girl	1995	based on the comic series Tank Girl
Tetsuo: The Iron Man	1989	Body Horror
Terminator	1984	see Terminator (movie)#screenplay
The 13th Floor - Are you what you think?	1999	It is based on the science fiction novel Simulacron-3, published in 1964.
The Zero Theorem	2013
The Total Memory - Total Recall & Total Recall	1990/2012	based on the short story Memories en gros by Philip K. Dick
Tron	1982
Tron Legacy	2010	The sequel to Tron
Upgrade	2018
Videodrome	1983	Body Horror
world on the wire	1973	Based on the 1964 science fiction novel Simulacron-3, written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

 

Anime and Manga

• Akira (manga 1982-1990; anime 1988), Katsuhiro Otomo
• Bubblegum Crisis (Anime, 1987)
• Neo Tokyo (Anime, 1987)
• Ghost in the Shell (manga 1989; anime 1995), Masamune Shirow
• Battle Angel Alita (manga 1990-1995; anime 1993), Yukito Kishiro
• Armitage III (Anime, 1994)
• Appleseed (manga 1985; anime 2004), Masamune Shirow
• Eden - It's an Endless World! (Manga 1997-2008), Hiroki Endō
• Serial Experiments Lain (Anime, 1998)
• Blame! (Manga, 1998-2003), Tsutomu Nihei
• Battle Angel Alita: Last Order (Manga, 2000-2014)
• NOiSE (Manga, 2001), Tsutomu Nihei
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (anime, 2002-2003, 2nd season, 2004-2005)
• Texhnolyze (Anime, 2003)
• Animatrix (2003)
• Biomega (Manga, 2004-2009), Tsutomu Nihei
• Ergo Proxy (Anime, 2006)
• Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. Solid State Society (Anime, 2006)
• Psycho Pass (anime, 2012-2013, season 2, 2014, season 3, 2019, anime films, 2019, 2020).
• Mardock Scramble (manga, 2010-2012; anime, 2010-2011; serial novel, 2003), Tow Ubukata.
• Ghost in the Shell: Arise (manga, 2012-2016, anime, 2013-2015, anime film, 2015).
• Love, Death & Robots (2019), collection of 18 short stories.

Games

Tabletop and RPG

• Cyberpunk 2020 (Engl. 1988; Engl. 1992)
• Shadowrun (1989)
• GURPS Cyberpunk (1990)
• Necromunda (1999)
• Infinity (2008)
• Android Netrunner (Living Card Game) (2012)

Video games

• Snatcher (1988)
• Neuromancer (1988)
• Rise of the Dragon (1990)
• Dreamweb (1992)
• Beneath a Steel Sky (1993)
• Syndicate (1993), Syndicate Wars (1996), and the remake Syndicate (2012).
• System Shock (1994) and System Shock 2 (1999)
• Blade Runner (1997)
• Nightlong (1998)
• Perfect Dark (2000)
• Deus Ex (2000), Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003), Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011), Deus Ex: The Fall (2013), Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016).
• Uplink (2001)
• Anarchy Online (2001)
• Neocron (2002) and successor
• Restricted Area (2004)
• Dystopia (2005)
• NeoTokyo (2009)
• E.Y. E: Divine Cybermancy (2009)
• Crysis 2 (2011)
• Hard Reset (2012)
• Shadowrun Returns (2013), Shadowrun: Hong Kong (2015)
• Remember Me (2013)
• Watch Dogs (2014), Watch Dogs 2 (2016), Watch Dogs: Legion (2020).
• Observer (2017)
• Detroit: Become Human (2018)
• Cloudpunk (2020)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)

Radio plays

• 1984-2001, 2008: The Last Detective, radio play series by Michael Koser. Production of Bayerischer Rundfunk (episodes 1-40) and Kanzlei Dr. Bahr (episodes 41-42).
• HumAnemy (2013)
• Cyberdetective (2016), radio play series by David Holy

Typical scene in a cyberpunk game


Film poster Metropolis