tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post9188886901855660947..comments2024-03-28T11:31:11.928+00:00Comments on Penny Red: Cyber without punk?Penny Redhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07677315565893516941noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-24063034775271669402009-11-03T21:27:13.018+00:002009-11-03T21:27:13.018+00:00I have so many comments to make on this, you raise...I have so many comments to make on this, you raise some interesting issues, but after deliberating how to project myself, i found all trains of thought lead to this:<br /><br />Get your self inflated head out of your arsehole, you are looking far to much into this.<br /><br />Cyberdog was new to the scene when I started clubbing in 1998, before they appeared, we used to make our own costumes, it became easier to buy cyberdog when they showed up, BUT until that day, we were never called cyber kids, that tag was applied after the brand became staple, just like how you use a hoover, and not a vacuum cleaner. The people that bought it way back when, did so to be part of the scene, not to feel like they are participating - from what I can tell from your ramblings- in some psudo marxist community drive to the future.<br /><br />The most annoying thing is you sully the good name of the finest scene writers ever to grace us by suggesting that in some way we are living to their ideals....<br /><br />That my friend, is called progression of society, without it we stagnate, it is not special to 'Cyber kids'Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00109907220404758118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-80439467164019141332008-01-21T18:43:00.000+00:002008-01-21T18:43:00.000+00:00Hey there!! Itsw stephen ( black spikey hair , bla...Hey there!! Itsw stephen ( black spikey hair , black shorts and hatebreed t shirt) who you got talking to in CyberDog TODAY ( 21-1-08 ) i was telling you i work for sky in films etc. <BR/><BR/>Loved the blog on cyber punk etc. very good :-) Dont think im smart a#enough to provide an in depth analysis such as the others on here however i would love to discuss more over a drink in camden or wherever you like this week :-)<BR/>07527895221 txt me or something?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-62918785176862850842008-01-08T07:36:00.000+00:002008-01-08T07:36:00.000+00:00Maybe intense factionalising is what's really poin...Maybe intense factionalising is what's really pointless. I'm not a goth, not a punk, not a cyber anythign raver or hacker. Doesn't mean I'm not politically aware and active.<BR/>And in terms of cyberdog, I think you are describing a movement defined by fashion and few habits, not politics.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04862151942332400732noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-57429381636256594202008-01-07T14:41:00.000+00:002008-01-07T14:41:00.000+00:00I don't think there is any intrinsic connection be...I don't think there is any intrinsic connection between a look/style/scene on the one hand, and a set of political propositions on the other.<BR/><BR/>Giving one's approval to something on the basis of its 'look', of its fitting the parameters of a certain scene, rather than its actual content, is a first step down all sorts of bad paths. Its a natural, human thing to do, but one has to work to minimise its effects.<BR/><BR/>The important thing is building practical things that are structurally independent of capitalism, and point beyond it. The style and feel of these things, the scene around them, will evolve naturally.<BR/><BR/>That's so important.TheMediumDoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07409082183928292139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-51937882190177347422008-01-07T12:15:00.000+00:002008-01-07T12:15:00.000+00:00Did you read the long, rambling and overemotional ...Did you read the long, rambling and overemotional post I made a while back about similar issues I have with rave culture? After I made that, I came to think that I was really wrong to blame the culture for 'losing its way' - because ultimately most subcultures are so much a part of the broader culture they pursue much the same goals - gratification and a good time. I think its perhaps wrong to judge people who we might consider to be scenester idiots. There's nothing to say they don't strip the day-glo off and go campaigning. Ultimately, the club nights and so on are just great big parties. Being a raver/cyberpunk/goth/punk/whatever is not the sum of anyone's identity; I'm political, but I'm not a political raver, or a political bisexual, or a political student.lizziwighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14514043163790626639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-59151097109892253292008-01-05T08:25:00.000+00:002008-01-05T08:25:00.000+00:00"No political challenge can be met by shopping." -..."No political challenge can be met by shopping." -- George Monbiot<BR/><BR/>FWIW, real hackers don't shop at Cyberdog: real hackers wear jeans and T-shirts they got free at Linux conventions. If they buy clothes at all, they do so on-line, at <A HREF="http://thinkgeek.com" REL="nofollow">ThinkGeek</A>, or at their favourite webcomic's online store. While it's no longer true that all hackers cultivate "a certain relaxed contempt for the meat", as Gibson put it, many of the <A HREF="http://stallman.org" REL="nofollow">great hackers</A> display an almost pathological unconcern with the surface appearance of things. This is not a coincidence :-)Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07136909835648629963noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-9402287884478016152008-01-04T03:25:00.000+00:002008-01-04T03:25:00.000+00:00It's been considered that the current rise of Stea...It's been considered that the current rise of Steampunk is a reaction to this kind of thing.<BR/>Steampunk people, in general, *will* have read Gibson and Heinlein. Rather than looking into a dark future, they're taking a different one and creating it as though this future we live in should't exist. They love their aesthetic, but they want functional things as well. As well as people just making things look pretty (datamancer’s lovely computer mods), there are people genuinely making retro tech, stuff that'll survive if everything goes wrong so that they can still have their morning tea- actual steampowered and clockwork things. They may not be so political as the cyberpunk literature was, and I know that they're a hell of a lot more interested in Zeppelins and creating giant automata than a new world order, but they're so far looking much more dedicated to their revolution than the cyberkids ever did.<BR/>Since the dark glamour of hacking doesn't seem to have fixed things and the world is continuing on its way down, these guys will at least have indoor lighting and hot water after things go completley wrong.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06830936498218038505noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-27492172158100769762008-01-03T23:30:00.000+00:002008-01-03T23:30:00.000+00:00One might suggest that trading in identity-as-comm...One might suggest that trading in identity-as-commodity is particularly symptomatic of late 20th Century capitalism, which has at its fundamental assumption that everything can be valued, bought and consumed. After Marx, we are all economic vectors...<BR/><BR/>I don't know if cyberculture ever really *had* a project that it could reclaim, like most alternative clutures it's always seemed to have enjoyment as its prime focus while remaining vaguely leftist, possessed of a politics generally seen most clearly through a cloud of cannabis smoke. I don't think that's a bad thing, but I think the claims of wanting to change the world need to be examined somewhat cynically. <I>Yes</I> we'd want to change the world, but can we have some more MDMA first?<BR/><BR/>(I'm given to wonder occasionally about the soporific effect of serotonin-spiking drugs on thinkers & interestingly askew people, as there's no other demographic for whom they're as effective or important. After a life spent wrong-footing it, a sudden feeling of joy & acceptance...)<BR/><BR/>I've always been sort of sympathetic to the belief that people ought to be reading the philosophy behind the look, but I'm increasingly skeptical of the connection between philosophy & style. Is cyber style really rooted in cyberpunk or simply a desire to look different in unison? (I have respect for a 15 year old cyberkid on his own in Aldershot, somewhat less for a neon pile of rutting hormones in the corner of slimelight...) Is response to an aesthetic predicated on political commitment or can that response be authentic in itself? *Especially* in the case of a kid growing up & already implicated in the digital age at an unconscious level...?<BR/><BR/>*Do* we want to change the world? Or do we want to fuck in the ruins? I think that' a legitimate question to be asking.<BR/><BR/>You might -- if you don't know her work already -- enjoy <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Haraway" REL="nofollow">Donna Haraway</A>'s work, I think it provides a good starting point for rearticulating a cyberpunk free of some of the more common difficulties encountered in Gibson etc...<BR/><BR/>xxx Jjameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00269353194686537572noreply@blogger.com