Angelo's Corner

 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