WHAT IS CYBERPUNK?

So The Matrix 4 is confirmed. But what will it look like? There are so many questions! Have no fear! We’ll be reviewing how The Matrix Revolutions ended with Neo (Keanu Reeves), Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), and The Oracle (Mary Alice) in the very last scene. Afterwards, we’ll share some hopes and predictions as to where this story may go into The Matrix 4.

It is a fundamental premise that, even in the grittiest of cyberpunk futures, there’s always a way of keeping poor people alive and docile. Preventing starvation effectively wards off riots, bloodshed and people shouting ‘Eat the Rich’ as more than just a tongue-in-cheek, anarchist catchphrase. Flavored protein paste is the answer.

Burial is an artist capturing withering urban decay. It’s wounded, electronic post-industrial, and even post-modern, eschewing the system of dopamine hitting drops and fist-pounding exhilaration. Although a forebear of dubstep, the secretive South Londoner would never perform on a stage.

Seraphine, a new “virtual influencer” and League of Legends character, seems like it could be based on someone else’s likeness. Imagine waking up one morning and finding a cartoonified version of yourself splashed all over the internet. It’s not a photograph, but it’s close enough that even your mother would take another glance and ask if you’ve taken a second job as a model.

Count Zero is the sequel which many thought would not come. Gibson himself admitted he had no plans to return to the world of the Sprawl; the closing sentence of Neuromancer was intended to be a severing of ties. As iconic as Neuromancer is, Count Zero exhibits the maturing of Gibson’s worldbuilding and even that of the cyberpunk genre itself.

Build your own Alexa using Raspberry Pi. Their Echo series of speakers are straight out of science fiction. Ask one a question and it will find the answer for you. It can make jokes, play music, book dentist appointments, or score cinema tickets.

We know cyberpunk movies, so let us tell you what you’re missing. What’s timeless? What didn’t age so well? Share this article, and we’ll make the case for Dark City.

Neil Postman laid it all out in 1992’s Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology.

A technopoly is a society that accepts data as fact, science as God and sees national progress measured by the rate of technological expansion. Satiated with technophiles, shielded by the benefits of innovation and ignorantly unaware of the threats. The harm in a technophilic culture does not arise from the technology itself.

Hacking is to the cyberpunk genre what axes are to movies set in isolated hotels nestled among the majestic Colorado Rockies. It’s an essential aspect of the plot, a much loved blade in the Swiss Army knife skill set of the protagonist, and provides a handy Deus Ex Machina get out clause when faced with an impossible situation.

Bone Dance is also filled with some of the best prose I’ve read. At its heart is a character that is unique and intersectional. It feels like the handling around gender identity is done well, though I can’t speak to that much. I’m not one for fantasy usually, but this, as with other genre mashups I’ve read lately, features some of the very best work in cyberpunk I’ve consumed.

It’s no secret that huge chasms in equity exist at all levels of society, especially in the USA. If scientific research and academic theory is the way forward in all areas of progress, then what do these disparities tell us?

With a small-living future looming closer and closer, it’s kind of terrifying how, in some ways, the living standards of the cyberpunk world are actually better than ours. After all, the core appeal of the genre is “high-tech, low-life.”