Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction that interrelates with the effects of virtual reality, the internet and cloning. More than often it centralises it themes set in the near future and with physcadelic effects. It is a difficult genre to define and I found the lecture on it quite hard to comprehend and take it all in. It is a world that is based futuristically and implements the idea of punk as being the rebellion of control on society. The difference between Cyberpunk and science fiction is that Cyberpunk creates a dystopian world, whereas science fiction creates a world of utopia.

Readings:

Allegory of the Cave
Platos “Allegory of the Cave’ shows how human’s perceptions of the truth can be altered through different conditions. This reading explores the reality that people have from being in a cave since childhood, only being shown shadows of objects projected on the wall. This example shows how distorted their reality is and if they ever were to see the real object their perception of what it is would be distorted and perhaps seen as artificial as it is not what they knew it to be.

Burning Chrome
William Gibson’s ‘Burning Chrome’ is a Cyberpunk novel that portrays a world where people are controlled by computers. The people who live in this existence are plugged into the computer network and the dangers encountered are the hackers of the computer system disrupting everyday life.