Cyberpunk, Architecture and the Third Space
Henry Made a Video Essay.
Late last year, my old boss was curating a series of articles for one of Australia’s Architecture magazines. The theme of the issue was around, as most issues in architecture are these days, sustainability.
He approached me one day and said “Henry, you’re into sci fi, do you know about Solarpunk? Do you want to write… I dunno, something about Solarpunk and Architecture?”.
Now, As a fan of Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot books, and the transcendently good This is How You Lose the Time War , I think I know a little about Solarpunk in terms of its rise and current popularity, but I wouldn’t call myself an expert. When I write it tends toward the bleaker end of the spectrum, and I think I’m inspired by Cyberpunk and Techno-thrillers more than I am probably any other genre.
Still, I gave it a go. I wrote a few hundred words about the way solarpunk grows out of the darkness of cyberpunk, and how it allows us to explore a world where we are free to find our own self-fulfilment rather than eke out
Due to a comedy of errors, it ended up that I’d written it in vain - my boss had found someone who had already written the article he specifically wanted, and my 800 words never found its home. It’s probably for the best, as the article ended up being presented alongside images produced by Midjourney, something I’m known to have feelings about.
Still, the idea of writing about architecture and how it’s presented in my favourite genre stuck with me. And honestly, any reason to re-read Neuromancer and re-watch Blade Runner and The Matrix is good enough for me.
I paid attention to the architecture of these spaces, and I saw the connection to a bunch of topics I’d learned in architecture school, and I started to wonder.
Then I started to write, and the 800 word article turned into an 8,500 word exploration of the way the oppressive architecture of cyberpunk is showing us what could happen to our cities in real life.
If you’ve read anything I’ve put on here before, you’ll know what a fan I am of video essayists such as Dan Olson, Hbomberguy, The Morbid Zoo, Lady Emily, Munecat, and others. I thought that the topic of architecture lent itself to the video essay format quite well, so I thought “How Hard Can It Be?”
Very hard. I had never used editing software. I’m awkward in front of a camera. I fumble a lot of lines. I didn’t really understand how to organise my clips and all that sort of stuff. It was a huge learning experience, but we got there, and I gotta say I’m pretty proud of the result.
So here it is - my first YouTube video. Bon Appetit.
Don’t forget to be like the underwater werewolf writer: Lycan Sub Scribe.
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