Mirrorshades, burning chrome, and the vexed question of identity.
All profits will be split between LGBTQIA+ charitiesMermaidsandMind Out.
I’d like to begin this piece with a coming out of sorts.
“What better time to come out than Pride Month?
“, I hear you say.
“There’s no judgement here.”
“This is a place of love and support!”
But, I fear there is no pride to be taken in this admission.
For you see, dear reader, I am someone who unironically quite enjoyedCyberpunk 2077.
In this piece I want to go after something a little different.
The nature, properties, and origins of the self is a philosophical chestnut as old as Plato.
There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers.
It is an identity without an essence.
So how does cyberpunk fit in to all this?
As a non-binary trans person, encountering this sequence for the first time stopped me dead in my tracks.
and proceeds to reconfigure the colour of its fibre-optic undercut while hot-swapping its genitals to better suit the vibe.
What does it mean to think of subjectivity away from rationalist, bourgeois, or neo-liberal individualism?
What might it look like and feel like to inhabit an identity without an essence?
/ Very well then I contradict myself / (I am large, I contain multitudes)”.
