Cyberpunk Documentary

Perhaps the overriding theme of Gibson's work is the knowledge that, as Bukatman (1993: 5) (rather clumsily) puts it '[t]echnology and the human are no longer so dichotomous'. The boundaries between subjects, their bodies and the 'outside world' are, like everything else, being radically reconfigured (Haraway, 1991; Plant, 1993). The division between technology and nature is dissolving as the analytic categories we draw upon to give structure to our world - the biological, the technological, the natural, the artificial, and the human - begin to blur (Stone, 1991: 101-2). The mainstreaming of cosmetic surgery and the rise of biotechnology, genetic engineering and nanotechnology have led some to contemplate that the next 'generation could very well be the l ast...of "pure" humans' (Deitch, 1995). A programmatic users guide on new technological developments (Rucker et al., 1993: 100) puts it like this: 'We are already cyborgs. My mother, for instance, leads a relatively normal life thanks to a pacemaker. Beyo nd that, genetic engineering and nanotechnology...offer us the possibility of literally being able to change our bodies into new and different forms...a form of postbiological humanity can be achieved within the next fifty years'. Cyberpunk as Social and Political Theory
RJ Burrows, March 1995