New Worlds: Cyber Punk

The first reading (Mischa Peters)I found particularly interesting especially at the beginning when concerning the post-human/cyborg approach. That we somehow have become beyond human; utilizing technology to connect the neurons within our brains to virtual reality, or to some enhancement technology. The first page has a quote from Hockenberry's text from Wired magazine; "Your body. Get over it. (Think mind over matter)". In a way this sums up the digital body, the releasing of our physical matter from our minds; this becomes particularly interesting when applying this notion to the accompanying screened film, "Screamers (1995)". We learn that the character Jessica Hanson is in fact an advanced screamer, yet her physical form and mind is so true to ours; blood, emotion, intelligence etc. The fact that we can be tricked by our own minds when presented with something physical, one has to question whether this would be the case if we were 'plugged' into VR, having our minds separated from the terrestrial plane from which we base our judgements on. Yet the key thing to remeber is that screamers does not however feature a VR environment, or a 'jacking in' of characters.

Cyber punk as a genre I find a paradox of popular science-fiction theory, for example many sci-fi stories are set in utopian societies and settings (admitedly they later present a problem with this), however cyber-punk is often represented as dystopian representing a future dark underworld as a reaction against the norm. Peter's reading suggests that in traditional sci-fi the boundaries between humans and the other are reformed and somehow glorified, she adds that cyberpunk is the breakdown of this feature (think of the replicants in Blade Runner). She separates the natural body from the modified body, when thinking of Johnny Mnemonic he largely has a natural body, and is of course biological like us bar the fact that he can load information from an electronic source directly into his brain. Peter's later identifies the enhanced body, this is where boundaries are extensively stretched (e.g. Wolverine, Robocop etc). The general overall idea of cyber punk regarding the human form is the fact that the mind can continue to exist even if the body has died or broken.