Reimagine Cyberpunk

Chen Qiufan

As a subgenre of science fiction, cyberpunk has served as a projection of the information revolution in popular culture and aesthetics for half a century. The latest wave of this genre has reached China. The inherently Orientalist perspective of cyberpunk aesthetics has found new vitality in the more "Eastern" digitalized China after its journey through Japan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia. This new form of cyberpunk in China is characterized by a shift from cyberspace to a temporal "root-seeking," the emergence of socialist cyberpunk and the aesthetics of mega-infrastructure, and the pervasive infiltration of big data and surveillance systems into the daily lives of individuals and collectives, practicing the logic of cybernetic feedback loops in various dimensions such as the body, perception, emotions, and social relationships.

I will expand on the viewpoints put forth in the 2013 New York Times article "China's Cyberpunk: Cyber Yes, Punk No" by drawing upon the trends in Chinese science fiction over the past decade, reflections on Orientalism, and observations of technological society. I propose that in China, cyberpunk has transcended the realm of popular culture aesthetics and entered the domain of epistemology. In the near future, it will likely undergo an "ontological" shift, leading to a cyberpunk mode of existence. I will also suggest potential paths for the co-evolution of humans and machines and explore how we can use cyberpunk narratives to seek imaginative solutions for transitioning from Cybernetic Society 1.0 to 2.0 or even higher versions.

Chen Qiufan (a.k.a. Stanley Chan) (b. Shantou, Guangdong) is an award-winning Chinese speculative fiction author, and a translator, curator, Berggruen Institute Fellow (2023), and Research Scholar for MacMillan Center of Yale University (2023-2024). He focuses on issues of climate change and the environment, artificial intelligence and cybernetic society, and reflecting on how to incorporate ancient Chinese philosophies into the narrative framework for constructing a future technological society. His works include the debut novel Waste Tide and AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future (co-authored with Dr. Kai-Fu Lee). He has garnered numerous literary awards, including Taiwan’s Dragon Fantasy Award and China’s Galaxy and Xingyun (Nebula) Awards, Germany Best Business Book of the year 2022, France Grand Prix de Imaginale 2023, etc. His works had been translated into over 20 languages worldwidely.