Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk (a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk) is a genre of science fiction that focuses on computers or information technology, usually coupled with some degree of breakdown in social order. The plot of cyberpunk literature often revolves around the conflict between hackers, artificial intelligences, and mega corporations, tending to be set within a near-future dystopian Earth, rather than the "outer space" locales prevalent at the time of cyberpunk's inception. Much of the genre's "atmosphere" echoes film noir, and written works in the genre often use techniques from detective fiction. While this gritty, hard-bitten style was hailed as revolutionary during cyberpunk's early days, later observers concluded that, literarily speaking, most cyberpunk narrative techniques were less innovative than those of the New Wave, twenty years earlier. Primary exponents of the cyberpunk field include William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, John Shirley and Rudy Rucker. The term became widespread in the 1980s and remains current today.

Music and fashion

The term "cyberpunk music" can refer to two rather overlapping categories. First, it may denote the varied range of musical works which cyberpunk films use as soundtrack material. These works occur in genres from classical music and jazz—used, in Blade Runner and elsewhere, to evoke a film noir ambiance—to "noize" and electronica. Typically, films draw upon electronica, electronic body music, industrial, noise, futurepop, alternative rock, goth rock, and intelligent dance music to create the proper "feel". Of course, while written works may not come with associated soundtracks as frequently as movies do, allusions to musical works are used for the same effect. For example, the graphic novel Kling Klang Klatch (1992), a dark fantasy about a world of living toys, features a hard-bitten teddy bear detective with a sugar habit and a predilection for jazz.

Related Topics:
Classical music - Jazz - Blade Runner - Noize - Electronica - Electronic body music - Industrial - Futurepop - Alternative rock - Goth rock - Intelligent dance music - Kling Klang Klatch - 1992 - Teddy bear - Sugar

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"Cyberpunk music" also describes the works associated with the fashion trend which emerged from the SF developments. Starting around the year 1990, popular culture began to include a movement in both music and fashion which called itself "cyberpunk", and which became particularly associated with the rave and techno subcultures. The hacker subculture, documented in places like the Jargon File, regards this movement with mixed feelings, since self-proclaimed cyberpunks are often "trendoids" with an affection for black leather and chrome who speak enthusiastically about technology instead of learning about it or becoming involved with it. ("Attitude is no substitute for competence," quips the File.) However, these self-proclaimed cyberpunks are at least "excited about the right things" and typically respect the people who actually work with it — those with "the hacker nature". {{ref|Jargon}}

Related Topics:
1990 - Popular culture - Rave - Techno - Hacker - Jargon File

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Certain music genres like drum'n'bass were directly influenced by cyberpunk, even generating a whole subgenre called neurofunk, where the bass lines, synths and beats try to give the listener the sensation of being inside a sprawl or crawling through cyberspace. Neurofunk was pioneered by artists like Ed Rush, Trace and Optical. In the words of the journalist Simon Reynolds:

Related Topics:
Neurofunk - Ed Rush - Trace - Optical - Simon Reynolds

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:Jungle's sound-world constitutes a sort of abstract social realism; when I listen to techstep, the beats sound like collapsing buildings and the bass feels like the social fabric shredding The post-techstep style I call "neurofunk" (clinical and obsessively nuanced production, foreboding ambient drones, blips 'n blurts of electronic noise, and chugging, curiously inhibited two-step beats). Neurofunk is the fun-free culmination of jungle's strategy of "cultural resistance": the eroticization of anxiety. Immerse yourself in the phobic, and you make dread your element. {{ref|SimonReynolds}}

Related Topics:
Jungle - Techstep

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See also the list of cyberpunk bands.

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