Jamie Reid Punk Art History

The punk artwork was very influential to the cyberpunk era, through the art made at the time from music covers or poster designs. Jamie Reid being one of the key leaders in punk art. Working with the “Sex Pistols” from collaborations with Malcom McLaren after 1976, Jamie Reid made some of the most iconic poster designs of the 20th century. These were often very politically anti-establishment and specifically anti-monarchy infused. Many of his designs were black and white with very specific use of typography using mixtures and collages of fonts and sizes from different newspapers that have been merged together. One of his most iconic designs were for “Anarchy in the UK” featuring a ripped-up flag with typography and “God Save The Queen” most

The cyborg bartender ‘Ratz’ is described with a “pink plastic” (Gibson, Neuromancer, 1984) glove that against the darkened setting of the first setting puts very artificial taste to the mood. In discussion about cybernetic enhancements you see so many examples of this in films including ‘Robocop’ [1987], ‘The Matrix’ [1999] or more recently in ‘Blame’ [2017] or Ghost in the Shell [2017]. With the exception of Robocop that has taken the cyborg enhancements to the extreme these films have merged the enhancements for a poetic effect particularly ‘The Matrix’ being one of the most true cyberpunk films has followed the original style with it’s organic shape and black colours that have made the machines in this world almost appear biological and thus the inclusion of the human mix have fitted so well to human biology it’s unsettling yet subtle, in fig. you see Neo’s spine that has been so elegantly patterned with smaller machinery. This plays so well with the aesthetic as well to the narrative because of the unsettling nature and relevance to how connected humans are to machine in present

You see this also with the use of harsh lighting that is described; harsh green or red lighting is a common description to Gibson’s settings and a lot of the descriptions give so much essence to the comic book artwork of the 1960s particularly the works of Jack Kirby or Jim Steranko, it’s almost psychedelic with these clashing colours but also, it’s hard not to imagine these settings to a graphic level. The novel was even adadapted into a graphic novel series by Tom De Haven and Bruce Jensen in 1989. These asethetics are not only relevant to William Gibson’s novels but can easily be described about Bruce Sterling’s or Pat Cardigan’s works of the 1980s and 90s all stemming from Neuromancer. The aesthetic to a cyberpunk story is very unique against other movements or styles although many literature or films have used this aesthetic but is easily placed under a non-cyberpunk