ABSTRACT
The cultural history of the (not only spotty adolescent) body has one clear contemporary manifestation in the recent science fiction literary practice which has become known as cyberpunk. Critical ways of approaching it have largely revolved around the interface between technology and the body, a cyborgian criticism, or in terms of postmodern theories of the simulacrum, a spectacular criticism, or through postmodern constructions and explorations of cyberspace, and information networks. I’m less interested in these clearly theorised and theorisable approaches than in looking, as a starting point, at the very term itself. Much critical attention has been paid to the cyber of cyberpunk-but what about the punk? This chapter explores some of the ideological implications of cyberpunk criticism (and looks a little at the fiction of William Gibson), focusing less on cyberpunk texts than on the critical and cultural debates clustered around cyberpunk, or fragmenting from it. I question particularly cyberpunk’s relation to the wider socio-critical tradition of science fiction. Does cyberpunk maintain or jettison this tradition? I approach this question tangentially, by means of comparative analysis between cyberpunk and punk rock. Does the punk figure represent a figure of rebellion or resentment against the near-total urban fragmentation of the future, or does the punk constitute a nihilistic, possibly postmodern, acceptance of a decentred, multiple, subcultural cityscape? In order to offer responses to questions like these I look at the retrospective construction of punk rock and its co-optation by science fiction critics, at problems of this strategy, and at some of the reasons for problems. This raises issues about the differences between British and North
American experiences and constructions of punk rock. By looking at the punk in cyberpunk, I also have the chance to be hopelessly/postmodernly/critically (?) nostalgic, even while uncomfortably aware of-was it John Lydon’s (Johnny Rotten as was)? He should know-the searing indictment of the ‘punk fogey’ mentality, that of the sad thirtysomething has-been whose only recent experience of speed is in a life that’s fast running out of excitement…
Cyber/punk
I want to start by elucidating some current critical thought on the term cyberpunk. In his introduction to the Mirrorshades anthology Bruce Sterling explains that:
Figure 3.1 The cyberpunk ‘look’ makes it into the clubs. Source: Photograph by David Swindells, 1988.
