A science-fiction subgenre characterized by countercultural antiheroes trapped in a dehumanized, high-tech future.

The word cyberpunk was coined by writer Bruce Bethke, who wrote a story with that title in 1982. He derived the term from the words cybernetics, the science of replacing human functions with computerized ones, and punk, the cacophonous music and nihilistic sensibility that developed in the youth culture during the 1970s and '80s. Science-fiction editor Gardner Dozois is generally credited with having popularized the term.

The roots of cyberpunk extend past Bethke's tale to the technological fiction of the 1940s and '50s, to the writings of Samuel R. Delany and others who took up themes of alienation in a high-tech future, and to the criticism of Bruce Sterling, who in the 1970s called for science fiction that addressed the social and scientific concerns of the day. Not until the publication of William Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer, however, did cyberpunk take off as a movement within the genre. Other members of the cyberpunk school include Sterling, John Shirley, and Rudy Rucker.

Encyclopedia Britannica

Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction. It originally referred to a school of American science fiction writers but has come to mean a sub-genre of science fiction culture in general. It is also sometimes used to refer to various technological sub-cultures, especially those using information technology, like the hackers.

The term cyberpunk was first coined by Bruce Bethke in his short story Cyberpunk published in 1983. "Cyber" was derived from cybernetics, a control theory that studies, for example, human/machine interaction and is often used in connection with information technology. "Punk" was taken from from punk rock music, suggesting an urban anti-establishment sensibility.

The term first appeared in a critical text and gained wider publicity when science fiction critic Gardner Dozois used it in his article Sf in the Eighties in Washington Post in 1984. He used the term to categorise young American science fiction writers Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, George Slusser and Pat Cadigan writing a new kind of high-tech science fiction.

Before cyberpunk became established as a genre, it existed as "The Movement", a literary community of young writers disappointed with the state of the mainstream science fiction. The writers, most notably Bruce Sterling, Rudy Rucker and John Shirley exchanged ideas, short stories and articles through a newsletter called Cheap Truth edited by Sterling who remains the leading theorist and advocator of the genre.

The two defining moments in the birth of the genre were the publications of Mirrorshades, an anthology of cyberpunk short stories edited by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson's debut novel Neuromancer.

With the publication of Neuromancer in 1984, cyberpunk emerged into the public consciousness and captured the attention of the media. The novel won all three most prestigious science fiction awards; Hugo, Nebula, Philip K. Dick on the year of its publication. It was critically acclaimed both for it's use language as well as it's credible speculation and visionary power. The novel established the themes and also the stylistic traits that came to characterize cyberpunk fiction; a "street-level" point-of-view, fragmentary narrative and fast paced plot. It is, perhaps, most famous for popularizing the term "cyberspace", that was coined by Gibson in an earlier story called Burning Chrome.

Although Gibson himself has been unwilling to categorize himself as a cyberpunk writer, stylistic and thematical discussion of the genre has largely centered on Gibson, more specifically his so-called Sprawl trilogy, Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive.

The publication of Mirrorshades; an anthology of short stories by the first wave of cyberpunk writers, in 1986 was the establishing the genre as a whole. The preface of the anthology, written by Sterling, contained the first concise definition of the genre. It tried to establish the ideological and stylistic essence of cyberpunk and place the genre in the tradition of science fiction.

Following the publicity created the publication Neuromancer, cyberpunk moved beyond it's literary origins. The term became widely used in the media during the 80's and it's meaning was extended to a whole range of technological sub-cultures, most importantly the hackers. It also started to influence the whole spectrum of science fiction culture; movies, comics and roleplaying- and computer games.

Although the term has been widely used in media, popular culture and literary theory to refer to a certain kind of high-tech science fiction appearing from 1980's onward, it has never been uncontroversially defined. Some critics dismiss the term as an artificially created marketing device while others argue that cyberpunk is by nature undefinable.

Although there is no objective definition of cyberpunk, it is possible to distinguish certain traits shared by works that are considered to represent cyberpunk. >>>

The purpose of this multimedia project is to give an overview of cyberpunk appearing in literature, movies and computer games.