Tag: cyberpunk

Futuristic Electronics of the Past

adohertyhLeave a comment

As games like Cyberpunk 2077 and recent shows like Andor have demonstrated, the appeal of devices that were designed to be futuristic, but during eras now left in the past, is revealing a kind of desire for an alternate history—a world in which this became the future.

A dictaphone is a fascinating example—a sleek, technological device for an era in which one would have had a secretary to transcribe their dictations.

DG 501

Minitel terminals, in particular, speak to an alternative world that might have existed in place of the World Wide Web we experience now.

Minitel 2

San Diego Cyberpunk

adohertyhLeave a comment

This view—past tall metal fences, over bright yellow industrial pipes and through palm trees, would fit well in the cyberpunk environs of Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City. Having not been back for several years, I was as entranced as ever by the strange mishmash that constitutes SoCal.

San Diego Cyberpunk

Pont au Double Light Stream

adohertyhLeave a comment

Paris is a city where relics of many eras coexist together: Notre Dame from 1345 above the Pont au Double from 1883 and the futuristic light streaks of a twentieth-century riverboat. Perhaps that’s why the city makes such an excellent setting for cyberpunk fiction like William Gibson’s Neuromancer.

Pont au Double Light Stream

Real Winter Arrives

adohertyh3 Comments

Real winter arrived with a horrible stillness. When the temperature is -25ºF, nothing moves and nothing melts and every bit of solid water stays just where you leave it. Even the tiny twigs and branches were stuck in its embrace.

I wanted to look back briefly on the structures of St. Lawrence University’s campus under lockdown from heavy snow. The oldest buildings, like Herring-Cole Hall, are naturals.

Golden Light in Snow

This little shed is in odd scale with the buildings around it, but its little puddle of light fits perfectly with the evening.

Wee Shed

I’ve always grown to love the mid-twentieth-century buildings like the ODY Library. The lights, snow, and scaffolding among the trees put me in mind of Soviet science fiction.

Snow-DY

Here is another example from around the same time period, Bewkes Science Hall. In my mind, authors of speculative fiction must be hiding behind the drawn blinds and imagining snowy, cyberpunk futures of the late 1990s.

Asimov Glow

San Francisco Is Alien

adohertyh3 Comments

At the moment the sunset sets behind the hills, the sky above San Francisco is still gold, but the massive structures and high-tech vehicles of the city below are activating their illumination machines and preparing for night beneath the marine layer. If the Bay Area is a loose solar system of different worlds, San Francisco must be its cyberpunk crown jewel.

San Francisco Is Alien

Cyberdojo

adohertyh1 Comment

The University of British Columbia’s campus has the odd quality that many modern campuses do. The vast majority of the buildings are post-war additions, and carry the strong characteristics and visions of each of their respective architects. This particular building caught my eye for the way it integrates a Japanese-style bridge, pool, and island into the courtyard of what could otherwise be a glossy but unremarkable structure.

The combination makes me think of the entrance to some sort of futuristic dojo in a cyberpunk novel. No wonder William Gibson calls Vancouver home.

Cyberdojo