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Okay, tbh, I'm going to vote against all map points on the de rigeur "tech metropolis" list. TOKYO, HK, SHANGHAI, SHENZHEN, SEOUL, or <insert yet-another East-
by 19eightyfour 10y ago
Okay, tbh, I'm going to vote against all map points on the de rigeur "tech metropolis" list.
TOKYO, HK, SHANGHAI, SHENZHEN, SEOUL, or <insert yet-another East-Asian megacity here.>
No to all of them. Why? They're really more capitalist mega-aggregations of labour and value...tech, either consumer-side or industry-side and any, cyber-punk under-side to these places is really, despite their (arguably somewhat faded) romance, these days is a side effect ( okay, maybe 1990s-era Harajuku FRUiTS style aside ).
I'm going to vote for someplace in Africa as actually the most cyberpunk.
I've never been there, but bear with me. High mobile phone usage but lots of shanty towns, mobile finance but still open air barter markets. And they do a lot of destroy/recycle/resell of tech ( old computers, old tvs, old batteries, old ships ). It's technologically advanced, but it's also still animist and voodoo. The internet didn't just "get adopted", it got "inhaled" and started changing everything, because things were still flexible enough to be changed.
Look maybe I'm just TOOMA, and someone who actually knows and has lived there can set this perspective straight. But for sake of freshness of updating the conception of "cyperpunk" I'm going against the grain of passing the crown around the clique of Asian megacities, to someplace maybe a little more grungy, maybe a little more deserving of the mantle of "cyberpunk".
A place where you could still imagine, perhaps, an organic "phreaking" culture existing even today, accompanied by reverse engineering and zines, distributed by bicycle couriers to people cool enough to be included in such secrets.
I know Africa is not glittering spires of glass and steel, but is that really so cyberpunk in our current time? Isn't the essence of cyberpunk something a little more bustling but raw-and-real, and digital but down-to-earth?
- stuxnet79 10y agoHere's a cyberpunk short story called VIRUS! that is set in Accra Ghana http://www.afrocyberpunk.com/virus/ http://www.afrocyberpunk.com/virus/ I've been following the author for some years but I believe he has yet to complete a full manuscript. In general I agree with most of what you have said. The Sprawl Trilogy is almost 30 years old, a completely different era. A re-evaluation of what "cyberpunk" means in this day and age is necessary in my book.
- 19eightyfour 10y agoThank you, I'd like to read this. Added to my reading bookmarks. :)
- detaro 10y agoAsian cities get closest to the visual aesthetic associated with the word, which is why they are cited often, but I think you are right when talking about everything else. South America might have some candidates as well?
- 19eightyfour 10y agoI even think the visual aesthetic needs revising. It was written about in an age before it existed, in an aspirational sense. Now we've achieve the forms of the aspirations, but we've missed out on the substance that was supposed to come with them. Our cities are marvels, but they lack richness in many ways. A richness that the infinite nets of cyberpunk promised us we'd be able to plug into. So I think a return to something more organic, to pick up some things we might have left behind in our headlong rush, might be needed, to actually get to where we were going.
- pdexter 10y agoWhere in Africa? Africa is huge, many different cultures and types of cities.
- Cyph0n 10y agoKinshasa, Lagos, Cairo, and Johannesburg would be good candidates I think.
- jvdl 10y agoYeah... I don't think Johannesburg conforms to your ideas at all.
- Cyph0n 10y agoI didn't write the top-level comment. I'm also not intimately familiar with any of these cities, so don't take my word for it.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 10y agoNever been there, but Johannesburg looked pretty cyberpunk in District 9. Accordim to Neill Blomkamp, during the winter season, Johannesburg "actually looks like Chernobyl", a "nuclear apocalyptic wasteland".
- wj 10y agoMaybe Lagos? Lots of people. Wealth. Corruption. Cyber-criminals. Mumbai could be another dark horse.
- xyzzy4 10y agoI spent a few months in India and I thought it was extremely cyberpunk. I can see Africa being similar.
- 19eightyfour 10y agoI've never been to India nor had an interest, I'm somewhat sorry to tell you. But I think I probably ought to check it out at some point hearing your comment and other things. Thanks!
- arcanus 10y agoSouth Africa. In townships in South Africa you can see high tech low life everywhere: abject poverty but people still find ways to get old flip phones working or running a TV in a home with no electricity: just directly plugging it into a generator. Nearby, there can be mansions with well-educated folks who hold the typical lawyer/consulting/banking/software set.
- 19eightyfour 10y agoI didn't necessarily have anywhere specifically in Africa in mind but I was not thinking about South Africa. Tho if SA is included, definitely something like what Neil Blomkamp made SA look like in District 9, Chappie, et al, is sort-of cyberpunk to me. Love his aesthetic in those movies. Tho that's not exactly what I was going for here.
- dennyabraham 10y agoCyberpunk connotes overcrowded cities where human life is commoditized and tech is widespread. Huge cities in Africa or India are much closer to unevenly distributed technological dystopias than the tech hubs other folks have suggested.
- 19eightyfour 10y agoWow, thanks for agreeing with me. That's a great way to put it actually.
- kkajanaku 10y agoUnder this definition Luanda would make a great candidate. The most expensive city in the world, ahead of Hong Kong, Zurich, and Singapore on Mercer's Cost of Living ranking. A two bedroom apartment will cost on average $6,800 per month, while the GDP per head is just $7,700 per year. It is also on track to become a megacity by 2030, full of glittering spires of glass and steel.
- 19eightyfour 10y agoThat's totally true as well. I didn't even think of that last night. People often think Asian megacities or US megacities as the most expensive. But that's not true. It's actually cities in Africa. I guess another valid point is the problems African cities are dealing with are sort of indicative of what's projected that most mega cities will deal with in future. A huge income gap, lots of overcrowding and some kind of constant security and resource problems.