CY8ERPUNKS

Timeline

Era 5 · 1997–2004

Network culture & the critique

  1. 1997

    Sadie Plant, Zeros and Ones

    (1997). Cyberfeminism proper; the woman-machine relation.

  2. 1997

    Radiohead, OK Computer (1997)

    The mainstreaming of tech anxiety. (1998) — the single best book on the mystical/religious underside of cyberculture; strongly recommended for the editorial register.

  3. 1999

    The Matrix

    (March 1999) and ** (Cronenberg, 1999). The Matrix is the peak of the aesthetic and the beginning of its decay into a set of visual quotes.

  4. 1999

    Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace

    (1999). Architecture as regulation. Essential.

  5. 2001

    Creative Commons founded

    (2001, Lessig et al.); ** (2001). Wikipedia launches (Jan 2001) — the free-information thesis as a working institution.

  6. c. 2003

    Cory Doctorow, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

    (2003, first CC-licensed novel from a major publisher); (2005) — the definitive AI-and-uploading cyberpunk novel. Stross is the bridge from 80s cyberpunk to the current AI moment and is probably underused in our canon. Also Doctorow's Eastern Standard Tribe (2004).

  7. 2004

    O'Reilly Web 2.0; the platform era begins. This is where the Barlow thesis actually dies

    The network becomes the product.