Cyberdelic (from "

cyber- Internet-related prefixes such as '' e-'', '' i-'', '' cyber-'', '' info-'', '' techno-'' and ''net-'' are added to a wide range of existing words to describe new, Internet- or computer-related flavors of existing concepts, often electronic product ...

" and " psychedelic") was the fusion of

cyberculture Internet culture is a culture based on the many way people have used computer networks and their use for communication, entertainment, business, and recreation. Some features of Internet culture include online communities, gaming, and social media ...

and the

psychedelic subculture Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic ...

that formed a new

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

in the 1980s and 1990s. Cyberdelic art was created by calculating

fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illu ...

objects and representing the results as still images, animations,

underground Underground most commonly refers to: * Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth Underground may also refer to: Places * The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston * The Underground ...

algorithmic music Algorithmic composition is the technique of using algorithms to create music. Algorithms (or, at the very least, formal sets of rules) have been used to compose music for centuries; the procedures used to plot voice-leading in Western counterp ...

, or other media. Cyberdelic

rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...

dance parties featured psychedelic trance music alongside

laser light shows A laser lighting display or laser light show involves the use of laser light to entertain an audience. A laser light show may consist only of projected laser light beam, beams set to music, or may accompany another form of entertainment, ty ...

, projected images, and artificial fog, while attendees often used

club drugs Club drugs, also called rave drugs or party drugs, are a loosely defined category of recreational drugs which are associated with discothèques in the 1970s and nightclubs, dance clubs, electronic dance music (EDM) parties, and raves in the 1980 ...

Advocates

Timothy Leary Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...

, an advocate of

psychedelic drug Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips").Pollan, Michael (2018). ''How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science o ...

use who became a cult figure of the

hippies A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

in the 1960s, reemerged in the 1980s as a spokesperson of the cyberdelic counterculture, whose adherents called themselves "

cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyber ...

s", and became one of the most philosophical promoters of personal computers (PC), the Internet, and

immersive virtual reality Immersion into virtual reality (VR) is a perception of being physically present in a non-physical world. The perception is created by surrounding the user of the VR system in images, sound or other stimuli that provide an engrossing total enviro ...

. Leary proclaimed that the "PC is the

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...

of the 1990s" and admonished

bohemians Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...

to " turn on, boot up, jack in". In contrast to some of the hippies of the 1960s who were

antiscience Antiscience is a set of attitudes that involve a rejection of science and the scientific method. People holding antiscientific views do not accept science as an objective method that can generate universal knowledge. Antiscience commonly manif ...

and

antitechnology Neo-Luddism or new Luddism is a philosophy opposing many forms of modern technology. The term Luddite is generally used as a pejorative applied to people showing technophobic leanings. The name is based on the historical legacy of the English Lud ...

, the cyberpunks of the 1980s and 1990s ecstatically embraced technology and the

hacker ethic The hacker ethic is a philosophy and set of moral values within hacker culture. Practitioners believe that sharing information and data with others is an ethical imperative. The hacker ethic is related to the concept of freedom of information, ...

. They believed that high technology (and smart drugs) could help human beings overcome limits, that it could liberate them from authority and even enable them to transcend space, time, and body. They often expressed their

ethos Ethos ( or ) is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology; and the balance between caution, and passion. The Greeks also used this word to refer to ...

and

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

through

cyberart Cyberarts or cyberart refers to the class of art produced with the help of computer software and hardware, often with an interactive or multimedia aspect. Overview The term "cyberarts" is vague and relatively new; nevertheless much of the work d ...

and

reality hacking In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of ''hack'' and ''activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in hack ...

. R. U. Sirius, co-founder and original editor-in-chief of ''

Mondo 2000 ''Mondo 2000'' was a glossy cyberculture magazine published in California during the 1980s and 1990s. It covered cyberpunk topics such as virtual reality and smart drugs. It was a more anarchic and subversive prototype for the later-founded ''Wi ...

'', became a prominent promoter of the cyberpunk ideology, whose adherents were pioneers in the IT industry of

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

and the

West Coast of the United States The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S ...

. In 1992,

Billy Idol William Michael Albert Broad (born 30 November 1955), known professionally as Billy Idol, is a British-American singer, songwriter, and musician. He first achieved fame in the 1970s emerging from the London punk rock scene as the lead singer o ...

became influenced by the cyberdelic subculture and the

fiction genre. The result of his passion for the ideals behind the culture resulted in his 1993 concept album, ''

Cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyber ...

'', which Idol hoped would introduce Idol's fans and other musicians to the opportunities presented by digital technology and

. Timothy Leary and other members of the cyberdelic movement were contacted by Idol, and participated in the album's creation. The album was a critical and financial failure, and polarized online

communities of the period. Detractors viewed it as an act of

co-optation Co-option (also co-optation, sometimes spelt coöption or coöptation) has two common meanings. It may refer to the process of adding members to an elite group at the discretion of members of the body, usually to manage opposition and so maintai ...

and opportunistic commercialization. It was also seen as part of a process that saw the overuse of the term "cyberpunk" until the word lost meaning.alt.cyberpunk: Frequently Asked Questions
project.cyberpunk.ru (2004) Alternatively, supporters saw Idol's efforts as harmless and well-intentioned, and were encouraged by his new interest in cyberculture.

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After the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

of the late 1990s burst in 2000, the

techno-utopianism Technological utopianism (often called techno-utopianism or technoutopianism) is any ideology based on the premise that advances in science and technology could and should bring about a utopia, or at least help to fulfill one or another utopian ...

that prevailed in the cyberdelic counterculture waned while

technorealism Technorealism is an attempt to expand the middle ground between techno-utopianism and Neo-Luddism by assessing the social and political implications of technology, technologies so that people might all have more control over the shape of their futu ...

grew. Most cyberpunks realized that the PC, the Internet, and other new technologies did not really bring the radical social, political, and personal changes they thought they would, specifically the " cybersociety" - a postpolitical, non-hierarchical society made possible by

cyberware Cyberware is a relatively new and unknown field (a proto-science, or more adequately a "proto-technology"). In science fiction circles, however, it is commonly known to mean the hardware or machine parts implanted in the human body and acting as ...

, in which the computer-literate, super-intelligent, open-minded, change-oriented,

self-reliant "Self-Reliance" is an 1841 essay written by American Transcendentalism, transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid confor ...

, irreverent

free-thinker Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods ...

is the norm and the person who is not internetted and does not think for themself and does not question authority is the "problem person". Disillusioned, R. U. Sirius condemned cyberdelic

escapism Escapism is mental diversion from unpleasant or boring aspects of daily life, typically through activities involving imagination or entertainment. Escapism may be used to occupy one's self away from persistent feelings of depression or gener ...

References

External links

Beyond Cyberpunk!:The Web Version
, by

Gareth Branwyn Kevin MaloofBranwyn, Gareth"We Did It! Thanks to All My Backers" ''Sparks of Fire Press'', Arlington, VA, USA, August 20, 2013. Retrieved on 10 June 2015. (born January 21, 1958), better known by his pseudonym, Gareth Branwyn, is a writer, editor, ...

. (''ca'' 1991) An online version of the original

HyperCard HyperCard is a software application and development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard combines a flat-file database with a graphical, f ...

stack about cyberdelic culture. Was updated in '93 with new material. ;Media
Tim Leary and the Cyberpunks
, Allan Lundell, ''YouTube'', February 11, 2009. Timothy Leary describes the cyberdelic/cyberpunk movement in context of the ''

'' album, by Billy Idol.
Timothy Leary Interviews Billy Idol - In Concert with The Ramones
(1993), an interview discussing the cyberpunk counterculture for the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

television show, '' In Concert'', hosted by the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

.
Lecture for the Whole Life Expo in Los Angeles
(November 1989), a Timothy Leary lecture on connections between psychedelic and cybernetic cultures, hosted by the

. {{Cyberpunk and derivatives Computing culture Counterculture Cyberpunk culture Cyberpunk themes Psychedelia Subcultures

Advocates

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See also

References

Further reading

External links