Reality bytes

Meanwhile, Japanese photographer Takehiko Nakafuji's Night crawler, Hong Kong, Tokyo, a visual representation of a city's deformation and regeneration that was shot post-2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster and pre-2020 Tokyo Olympics, reflects on Japan's capital city. "Tokyo continues as a demon city of swirling energy, an ever-transforming monster, spinning out of control," he posits. "Everything is nihilistic chaos."

Korean artist Lee Bul's After Bruno Taut, at once ancient and futuristic, shows us that utopia and dystopia are often one and the same. Note how she equates the material transparency (shimmering glass skyscrapers) with invisible corporate power and a pervasive surveillance society where no one can hide.

The more cyberpunk's futures turn into reflections of our unremarkable, quotidian daily experiences, the more today's science fiction is left in an awkward relationship with the future. Instead of forward-facing narratives, contemporary sci-fi has become dominated by crisis modes and generic fantasies of perpetual disaster.

But whichever chronology and geography of cyberpunk you explore, it's hard not to ignore the allure of its seductive ubiquity. From metropolis to monster; from Maria to cyborg; and from neuromancer to near-dystopia … here's to the future.

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