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Overview: (from the Conspiracy Research site)

What is truth? This question has become the primary quest of Cyberpunks as they journey through the darkest part of the technological underworld, the outer most fringes of the law, and the desolate wastelands of the Real, gathering what they see and know to create their own self-mythology so that they might understand what is its happening to them and all of humanity.

It is a quest for knowledge, and the subsequent redistribution of that knowledge will include the entirely of all human history, culture and religion. When it is known, when we KNOW ourselves, then that which was separated and opposed will become connected, and the demonic world of technology and the pastoral world of nature will be as one.

 

Cyberpunk films, music and art are a completely unique art form which
has emerged from twentieth century history, a counter-culture movement
which has always prophesied the Internet revolution and the subsequent
redistribution of knowledge. Some call it some call the gnostic revelation
at the end of time, and say that cyberpunk culture and mythology is at
the forefront of that revelation.

This is a compilation where fragments of the history of that revelation,
as well as the authoritarian forces which oppose it. Its subjects include
copyright law and P2P history, bit torrent and the end of Prime-time, the
BBS and the history of hacking, information networks and the morphogenetic
field, holographic reality and the world mind, Internet publishing and cyber-
dissidence, video games, cyberpunk fiction, films and western mythology.

 

Sounds like a pretty lofty goal Conspiracy Central set for themselves for the creation of this compilation. They’ve certainly managed to gather enough material for one to peruse… and, hopefully, learn from. Conspiracy Research have several DVD-sized compilations that, put together, are known as “The Induction Series.” The series has two “branches,” power and authority. The Cyberpunk DVD is part of the “Power” branch. This disk, and the whole series, are meant to be “a self-induced initiation into self-knowledge and power. The Revelation will not be televised.”

The Cyberpunk DVD’s contents has some of the most basic and mandatory materials (Neuromancer, Snow Crash), even if in somewhat different forms. Some items definitely has a place in this collection (The Cyberpunk Educator, the files about hackers). One file, the “Mythology” file, seems to be empty. Either the Conspiracy people couldn’t find enough to put into a file, or the file was left intentionally empty so one can input his/her own cyberpunk mythos. I’d have to say that the file is meant for one’s own input.

With what is offered, could there be room for additional, relevant material? There is, short of ripping the entire Matrix trilogy (Conspiracy Research didn’t want to do DVD rips). Having the Neuromancer audiobook is good, but having it as an e-book would be better. I would have included other books like Bruce Sterling’s The Hacker Crackdown, Secrets of A Superhacker (a sort-of how-to book for newbie hackers, or IT people who want to stop them), and Cyberpunk Handbook: The Real Cyberpunk Fakebook to the mix. There’s some articles from Cyberpunk Review that could have been included like What Is Cyberpunk? and The Man-Machine Interface Perspective of the Matrix Trilogy. Additionally, some examples of cyberpunk art and music would go far with this collection.

Then again, the Gnostic Cyberpunk DVD isn’t meant to be a comprehensive course in cyberpunk media and legend; Only a glimpse into our mirrorshaded world to whet a person’s appetite for virtual destruction, and hopefully, trigger their curiosity to make them search for the answer for themselves.

The Story Isn’t Over. That’s according to Chris Carota, the conspirator behind Conspiracy Central, who described his site this way:

Back in late 2003 / early 2004. I saw conspiracy central as the ultimate cyberpunk creation, a “channel” which acknowledged the black iron prison.

In his blog, he explains how his own site scared him, and how, from that fear and watching The Cyberpunk Educator, he found the courage to face the dark world and to share what he learned from his experience. He doesn’t know what he’ll be like after his quest, because like he said, “the story isn’t over.” And with current technology so close to the future tech from Neuromancer, cyberpunk’s story isn’t over either, it just started writing a new chapter about its invasion of reality.

Conclusion: If you’ve been following cyberpunk since the eighties, you may feel that this DVD may not be for you, but there may be something thing here that veterans have not considered before. Newbies may benefit more from this collection, especially if it leads them to do more research. There’s plenty to check out, but definitely room for expansion, probably once next-generation rewritable DVDs are affordable enough for people to do such expansions. Definitely something to check out while not surfing Cyberpunk Review.

Created by USC Fine Arts and Animation student, Andy Huang (see interview here), Dollface gives us an interesting addition to the “face represents the soul” type robot-yearing-for-humanity situation. Great animation, interesting build-up. The ending is pretty telegraphed, but what do you expect for this type of story.