A letter from The Cyberpunk Project

Cyberpunk Understood

Cyberpunk.

It is not about promoting dark taughts or hoping for the less-human, more-tech future to come. It is not about how to kill people with high-tech mind-erasing, atom-degenarating, vacuum-sucking guns and toys. It is not about building concrete and steel, nor bowing before circuits and mechanics. They might come to us, as they might not. We predict them, because the world is pulling us there. But Cyberpunk is about attitude, about how one will face these elements, about to come.

Cyberpunk is more or less the way to survive in the Chaos of modern world. A cyberpunk would know people, their habits, their weaknesses. He uses them to survive in the situation. Hi-tech gadgets are just a part of the material a cyberpunk has access to. The handy objects he haves. The net connects people through distancies, where there's nothing else to do it. Computers help, but they are to serve, not to be own. Mastering technology surely expands the possibilities before one, they are helpfull in todays world, but they should be in control. A Cyberpunk uses technology, as far as it is the only powerfull source in material, that controls it. As long as people are moving more and more to the cyberspace, it can be fully used, to master the art of surviving in the world. Cyberpunk doesn't promote, as some may think, blasting people off with some "die muthafucka.." attached to it. Cyberpunk is way of thinging, way of surrounding the boundaries, as a cyberpunk doesn't respect them. Boundaries are trying to limit us. Cyberpunk is psychology of technology. Before electronics, people used whatever they could for the same thing, we use technology, nowadays. Technology is just a part of the surrounding, a tool. A cyberpunk should not be placed just and only in the hi-tech environment, when imagined. A cyberpunk is more the person inside. The one, who mastered technology to help him, make through. As the world is growing wider and moving in to the cyberspace, where there's more space, it is good to have some skills, which others dont. But it is the Human inside Cyberpunk. Sure, tech helps, but the mind and soul is what makes One, not the tech attached to the body or the beauty of visions before you, when in VR.

People dying to have some newer tech piece, or dreaming for an implant they don't actually need, are not cyberpunks. They are tech-junkies. As tech is power, it should be used to survive, not to obtain Power, nor to destroy, not as excentric wanna-have/let's have. Cyberpunk began as fiction, not as synonym for "Be a Techie". The movement formed after the sci-fi liked the fashioned taughts. The Culture taught tech should be controlled, as it is around us, as it might be used for good. Hippies wanted peace and moved out of the cities. Cyberpunks have their tech and live in the cities, but the Man remains - Peace and who doesn't want it - let him strugle. I didnt want much. Just those, who fanatically bow before tech, to recall, that it is not tech, that makes your chances in the future world, tech just enhances them, if you use it right.

It is really exciting idea to run across the street with leather jacket on, a gun handy, chasing some cyborg, who stoled your data, while the neon-lights flash in your mirror glasses, but it is fiction, ok? Fiction. A time that might come, but not to make your fun, but to make you find a way to survive in it.

Cyberpunks know there's something wrong and they use whats wrong. They use it to make their way trough the today to the tomorrow, but neither do both exist. You and Now is what counts. Technology is the Tool, Cyberpunk is the man behind it. The same man that used fire to lighten his cave and cook his meat. The same, who uses the net to communicate and suvirve, The Same, Who should not forget the main idea, which surely is not to have or become Technology it self.

- Christian Kirtchev, 5th of December 1999.