Futurism and the Cyberpunk Genre

 

With the Industrial Revolution came the miracle and paradox of the 20th century. Never before in human history has technology reached such a state of rapid, clamoring, and all-encompassing advancement, to the point that with every new generation, the gap between the technologies they each grew up with only widens. With such a rapid shift in lifestyle, most notably towards the end of the era of massive population migration into cities in the early 20th century, many people had many responses. While some despaired, lamenting the loss of humanity’s connection to its roots, other movements took the shift in stride. I will focus on one such group, and juxtapose it against a similar, yet distinct modern movement known as the “Cyberpunk” genre, popularized by such films as Bladerunner, The Matrix, and Ghost in the Shell.

Futurism had a bit of an identity crisis when it first emerged. Critics of the movement declared it hardly distinct from previous movements, such as Impressionism, and merely an inferior sibling to the Expressionism movement, which also sought to portray urban life and the modern condition with an emphasis on “unreality” and expressing emotions rather than concrete, easily-digested scenes. Even so, Futurism carved a place for itself most notably in Germany, where German Expressionists borrowed many influences from Futurism in order to craft exceptional fusions of the two movements into their work.

While Futurism explores the urban world with a kind of manic, perhaps violent optimism, the Cyberpunk genre is largely far more damning of the future of urban life. While a Futurist may depict a battle scene with a kind of romanticizing panache, glorifying the meeting of technology with the most primordial drives of man, a work of Cyberpunk may focus only on the inhumanity of such violence, or perhaps how the fruits of such violence slowly strips the humanity from us all (as can be seen in characters covered in prosthetic limbs and cybernetic enhancements, quite literally replacing parts of themselves with technology).

I believe there’s two critical reasons behind these stark differences in ideology, despite a similarity in aesthetics: the World Wars, and several generations’ difference in time. To the Futurist, such sprawling urban life is still a relatively new and strange thing, an advancement for humanity away from the dangers and inconveniences of rural life. But to creators of Cyberpunk media, they, their parents, and their grandparents have very likely--if not lived in--at least were affected by cities and their massive population shift. The details of war can no longer be obfuscated behind firsthand accounts, they can be documented and viewed. Extreme poverty, while rarer than it’s ever been in the history of humanity, still haunts our thoughts, tempting our curiosities, as any horror we could wish for is right at our fingertips. With each generation, the tale becomes more complicated, shifts focus, simplifies. But with regards to Futurism, a key distinction is the framing of the future, and what it may mean for humanity, good or ill.