Cyberpunk

 Originally, the term “cyberpunk” was used to describe a subgenre of science fiction.  Cyberpunk science fiction is primarily concerned with computers and their interaction with humans  A world built on one particular technology that is extrapolate to a highly sophisticated level (this may even be a fantastical or anachronistic technology, akin to retro-futurism), a gritty transreal urban style, or a particular approach to social themes  The first and most influential cyberpunk novel is William Gibson’s Neuromancer (Gibson 1984, 1995).  In Neuromancer, Gibson describes a world of outlaw computer hackers who are able to link up their brains to computer networks and operate in cyberspace.  In the late 80s, Cyberpunk escaped from being a literary genre into cultural reality. Media philosopher R. U. Sirius describes this process as follows:  People started to call themselves cyberpunks, or the media started calling people cyberpunks.  The first people to identify themselves as cyberpunks were adolescent computer hackers  In 1988 cyberpunk hit the front page of the New York Times when some young computer kids were arrested for cracking a government computer file. Cyberspace  “new world” that Leary means is (virtual reality and - in a broader sense - all digitally mediated space), which he sees as a boundless reality where time, space and body are perceived as meaningless  can help us to liberate ourselves from authority and “create our own realities” Timothy Leary  was one of the founding fathers of cyberpunk.  In 1973, Leary predicted that some day the world would be linked through an “electronic nervous system” (the Internet) and that computers could be used to empower the individual