Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a visual and narrative aesthetic born in the science fiction of the 1980s that later unfolded into an independent style of digital art, illustration, concept art and design. Its worldview is summed up as "high tech, low life": it portrays a near-future dystopia in which all-powerful corporations, artificial intelligence, the cyborgization of the body and total networks coexist with decay, poverty and social alienation. The visual language of cyberpunk is recognizable by the rain-soaked nocturnal megalopolis flooded with the neon glow of acid-pink, cyan and violet signs, by the contrast of darkness and artificial light, glitch effects, holograms, hieroglyphic inscriptions and a dense layering of technological "junk." Composition is often built on the verticals of skyscrapers, reflections in puddles and a smoky perspective that swallows space. The aesthetic took shape under the influence of William Gibson's fiction and the novel "Neuromancer," while its canonical visual image was set by Ridley Scott's film "Blade Runner" and Japanese anime and manga, notably "Ghost in the Shell" and "Akira." Today cyberpunk lives vigorously in digital painting, video games, motion design and art generated by neural networks. As a style it combines a fetishism of technology with a critique of dehumanization, offering a bleak yet visually seductive mirror of the anxieties of contemporary civilization.