We invite you to read our interview with Michał Wojtas, author of the book Cyberpunk 1982-2020.
The Last Tavern: The book is written from a very external perspective – you don’t mention your own relationship to cyberpunk. Have you been interested in it before, or just for the book? What are your favorite tracks or works of this trend?
Michał Wojtas: I decided that in the text, which is to present a cultural phenomenon in a cross-sectional way, and at the same time provide the reader with entertainment, my private opinions or experiences are of little importance. I doubt that anyone would reach for such a book because I am writing about cyberpunk from a personal perspective. I was interested in it before, but I was not always aware that the film or comic book I like can be classified as this genre. Consciousness only appeared when I was preparing the outline of the book and the list of titles that I must or at least should read.
My favorite cyberpunk image is a metropolis, especially the Asian one, shown in Ghost in the Shell and Akira . I like urban landscapes – and in this respect, there is nothing more amazing than Tokyo: a sea of concrete and glass with a few holes filled with green parks and a huge volcano in the background. I like the noise of traffic and the feeling of anonymity in streets filled with people. The painting created by Neal Stephenson in Zamiecia also appealed to my imagination : franchises in which you not only buy, but most of all live, which create micro-states in the American suburbs. I believe that this image deserves to be adapted for a computer game, preferably an RPG.
OT: Who is this book for? Was it supposed to be a commentary on CD Projekt’s game from the beginning , or was it created from a different motivation? Aren’t you concerned that its strong link to Cyberpunk 2077 will limit your ability to reach non-gaming nerds? On the other hand, aren’t you concerned that it will become one more advertisement and not be treated as a serious cross-sectional text?
MW: Only the last of eight chapters is devoted to the game and my book is by no means a commentary on it. Of course, the premiere of this title is the best possible opportunity to tell the story of cyberpunk, show how it has aged or changed, and sell the book. I hope it will be valuable to several different groups of readers: those who are waiting for the game and want to find out where the visions came from, which they will surely find in Cyberpunk 2077For those who have been interested in the genre for a long time, but not necessarily in computer games – for them there is a chapter on how their favorite science fiction brand has manifested itself in games over the last forty years. Probably many people from this group could say more about cyberpunk than I do, but they may be interested in content that is not directly related to novels or films, for example chapters on how this genre fits into the processes of globalization, or how our world unnoticed turns into a dystopia . I think that the book will also be interesting for people who have not had any contact with games or cyberpunk literature so far.
As for CD Projekt, their product does not need advertising – it rather attracts people and creates a synergy effect, which I partially use. This company has enough graphic material to publish their own books or graphic novels very closely related to the game – and they would probably sell well. However, she will not write a book like me, because it is not her core business . To make sure my book isn’t an add-on to Cyberpunk 2077 , just open it and look at the table of contents.
OT: How did you choose the heroes of the chapter with the faces of cyberpunk? Why, for example, Wachowski’s are not in them? Haven’t you wanted to write more about Pondsmith and his games?
MW: It is difficult for me to explain it unequivocally. When it comes to choosing the heroes of this chapter, I did not have a single criterion. William Gibson had to be there, because his novel began the media career of cyberpunk. I wrote about Katsuhiro Otomo because I am very impressed with his comics and films. I am impressed by Ridley Scott as a man of many different talents, and I added Keanu Reeves to that list because I wanted someone from outside the writing / directing ghetto. I had a good feeling about it, because I wrote a chapter about him, even before he appeared at E3 as an announcer. At the same time, I wrote a bit too much and there was not enough space for other people, which I am writing about at the end of the chapter. Mike Pondsmith and Wachowskie appear on the occasion of their works. If that’s not enough, then I’m sorry about it.
OT: You often hear about the death of a cyberpunk, but also about his rebirth. To what extent do you think Cyberpunk 2077 fits into the broader trend of renewed interest in this science fiction genre? Or maybe we should only talk about post-cyberpunk?
MW: The death of cyberpunk and postcyberpunk was already talked about in the mid-1980s. Writers such as Gibson quickly got tired of the fact that huge amounts of pop culture merchandise, often simply imitating them, were sold using this label, which they did not invent themselves. style. Consequently, the attractiveness of subsequent copies of Neuromancerit ran out pretty quickly and something new was needed. The prefix “post” has been added to everything for years, so it’s no wonder that it was added to “cyberpunk” and the resulting word was used to describe people writing fiction about the Internet, modern media, the power of multinational corporations – from a slightly different perspective than Gibson and his group. These are just labels, and the essence of cyberpunk is still viable. Especially that after forty years we notice (if we want) that surveillance of individual people has never been easier than now, the gap between the richest and the poorest is widening, the climate catastrophe is looming and the lifestyle changes we are used to with it. Certain images that we associate cyberpunk with have become obsolete (for example, hardly anyone uses CRT or Nokia 8110 monitors,Matrix ), but a dystopia set in the near future with colorful neon signs and dark alleys typical of the genre is still in demand. My guess is that CD Projekt in its game will neatly ignore outdated or funny cyberpunk themes and inspire many people to use this aesthetic. Then it will not be a problem for, for example, Netflix to adapt the vision of the city and its inhabitants from the game to the script of the series.
OT: What type of character are you going to complete Cyberpunk 2077 for the first time ? Do you prefer heroes that use force solutions, or those that have a more subtle approach?
Which vision of cyberpunk do you think is the most likely? Assuming, of course, that we no longer live in a technologically modified reality, or – going further – a complete simulation …
MW: I’m definitely not going to start playing with a muscle guy following the rule: “Destroy first, think later”. In RPGs, I usually build characters who often use social skills, have decent charisma and intelligence. I also do this to get to know the story told by the writers through the mouths of NPCs. From what we have seen in the promotional materials for Cyberpunk 2077 , we will have more than enough opportunities for such interactions. I still have to consider how many points I want to invest in purely hacking skills that should have a lot of opportunities to use. Not that I don’t like combat – of course it’s always nice to shoot a well-designed weapon, throw a grenade or two at someone’s feet.
I would leave the question of living in a simulated reality to someone who deals with metaphysics. I feel very well in reality myself and I am completely not drawn to virtual worlds directly connected to my senses. I like it on my computer screen every now and then – but knowing that I can go out to the kitchen for tea at any moment. For people much younger than me, goggles or other gadgets are obvious and the next generations will no doubt get used to them and for many people the synthetic experience will be very important. More than this vision, however, I fear the fact that in my lifetime, Europe will have to deal with enormous migrations caused by the desertification of many regions on Earth. This is a much more serious problem.
OT: Which element of cyberpunk reality would you like to see / implement in reality, and which should we be afraid / avoid the most? Maybe even one that we are dealing with today, although we may not fully realize it (such as algorithms filtering the content that Facebook users see on their “board”)?
MW:Quite honestly, I wouldn’t like to see or experience any of them. Dystopias work in book pages or on the screen. Worse if we have to face them in reality. A year ago, we might have thought it would be fun to see a series about what would happen if suddenly everyone in Europe had to stay home. Now we have it “in real life” every day and we will face the effects of this scenario for a long time to come. We can find many other crises in cyberpunk works: wars, artificial intelligence seeking to exterminate people, ecological catastrophes, economic catastrophes leading to a ruthless struggle for survival. I don’t want to be involved in such scenarios, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to realize that in terms of information distribution we already live in a dystopia and it will only get worse. One thing I will definitely never agree to is that my brain connects directly to some digital device – no matter what benefits it offers me. Like most people in their thirties, I find that I am conservative in many ways and that I am not and do not want to be ready for many inventions.
OT: (Maybe in conclusion) We already know that the world in 2019 was slightly different from the vision from Blade Runner . Or maybe you are tempted to make your own forecasts for the future? Are we doomed to live in a cybernetic dystopia?
MW:Gibson said many years ago that “the future is here – only it is not evenly distributed.” This sentence is more true today than ever. I am not an analyst and I do not read economic or technological forecasts on a regular basis, but computers will undoubtedly take over more and more tasks from people every year, and inevitably will have an increasing impact on our lives. We are already communing with them at every step, because more and more devices are connected in the “Internet of Things”. More and more systems are able to learn and are much more efficient than people who need to rest, get sick or have trouble concentrating. The promotional materials of companies that work on such projects, but about the most advanced projects, usually get to the public information,
There are many books on this subject every year, and I would prefer to give the floor to specialists when it comes to fortune telling. In general, humanity is doomed to very close cooperation with computers, but fortunately everyone still has a choice in this matter. All forecasts may turn out to be outdated in a few months. How the new mutant influenza caused a recession in three months shows that in our modern and optimized world there is great potential for dystopian scenarios.
We would like to thank the author and Wydawnictwo Znak for the opportunity to conduct the interview!
The latest book by Michał Wojtas Cyberpunk 1982-2020 can be found here