Bruce Sterling is in peace with himself. He doesn't care anymore if people call his work Futurism, Design Criticism, Art or Literature or Science Fiction, Fantastic Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Literary Writing, Underground Writing, Cyberpunk, 80's Wave or New Wave, ... "As long as I know what I am doing, I am fine" he says, sweating profusely in a cafe in Vienna. 36° Celsius in June is anything but usual for this part of Europe. Times change and so does the life of 'Chairman Bruce', "the spokesperson for the cyberpunk literary flare", as Jon Lebkowsky from bOING bOING put it more than 10 years ago.

Together with William Gibson he is counted as the leading figure in Cyberpunk, a term that is generally credited to Bruce Bethke's story 'Cyberpunk', first published in 1983. The word 'cyber' refers to cybernetics, the study of information and control in man and machine, as Norbert Wiener defined it in 1948. The second concept 'punk' is commonly used since 1976, as a do-it-yourself style of music, characterised by independent and anarchist attitudes.

Nothing remains novel In the 80s the 'Hard Science Fiction' genre in the US reached its all time low. Writers who believed in anti-gravity, psychic power and "wrote about spacecraft orbital dynamics to an accuracy of .9999 tend to be pathetically naive about the hard realities of science and its relation to society", Bruce Sterling once said in an interview. The sub-genre Cyberpunk wanted to be different. Their fiction is driven by the near future and "to stem the impact of technology on society", a description Bruce Sterling, who will turn 50 next year, still pays tribute to. The term 'Cyberpunk', on the other hand, sounds outdated by now. "The clock only moves in one direction", he says in the interview. "Nothing reminds novel for ever. So you know just anything 'cyber', just the word cyber is very dated. It is like saying electro or atomic or streamline."

"Homo sapiens declared extinct" is a title Bruce Sterling used for an article about Posthumanities, a topic Cyberpunks were really into. The article got published in the American Science Magazine 'Nature' in 1999. "For a [Hard] Science Fiction Writer it just doesn't get much 'harder' than that", Bruce comments his debut in 'Nature'. In the meantime Mondo 2000, once the organ for Cyberpunks, was overshadowed by Wired Magazin, which - in 2003 - has also already seen its best years.

"What happened to us [Cyberpunks] basically is that we became respectful. Like, William Gibson writes New York Times Bestsellers and is reviewed in the London Review of Books. I fly in to give talks in Vienna and write magazine columns for Wired Magazin. Gibson got his doctorate in Design. I am really envious about that than I keep expecting somebody to give me a doctor. When I got to be Doctor Sterling, THE Cyberpunk, you know, THAT would be good. If I was from a small European country I'd want to be Minister of Culture, that would be so good. But you know we are old and grey. That is just the nature of business. Nothing remains novel for ever."

AD 2380 "'I can't understand what the fuss is about', Rita 'Cuddles' Srinivasan, actress, sex symbol and computer peripheral", says in Bruce Sterling's 'Nature' article. Today the same can be asked about the Cyberpunk movement, that had its fun in the 80s and early 90s. Bruce Sterling became the advocate of the movement which was brought to the public by William Gibson's book 'Neuromancer '.

Internet at this time meant being hooked up on a message board like Compuserve. Back at this "neolithic cyberspace dawn" - Gibson and Sterling were still using a typewriter - both managed to open up a new space behind the monitor for their readers. It was 1990 when the FBI started their 'Operation Sun Devil', and began to treat the computer underground as criminal. In the book "Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier" (1992) Bruce Sterling wrote about these operations that also took place in Austin, Texas, where he has a residence. The book is literary freeware and one of Bruce Sterling's already more journalistic-driven work. Open Source, Hackers, Netrunners, Deck Cowboys, Megacorps, and the belief "Information wants to be free" once drove this genre.

The future is now. Bruce Sterling nowadays prefers to write articles about: 'Information wants to be worthless'. "This idea is as powerful as the former one", he adds. "It is like Bill Gates still owns Window 3.0 but nobody will buy it ever. Even a perfect working copy. I can take out copies of Gate's Windows 3.0 and leave it on every table in here. Free. With an explanation how to use it and a 5$ bill attached and nobody will use it. And that is the real underside of information economics."

He holds speeches in front of open source geeks, telling them that their real threat is not Microsoft, but comes from groups like "Drink and Die", people who are organized software pirates. "They behave a lot like open culture people, but they are purloin other people's property. They are cracking it, they are breaking copy protection. They don't want to give you Linux or Suse or Red Hat or any of these other praiseworthy things. They want to give you Microsoft's property or the property of other companies. They derive a thrill by doing it and they are not nice guys. They have very aggressive names. They don't call themselves names like 'the universal bill of human rights' or 'Helsinki agreement', they get themselves names like: 'Black Ninja 415' or 'Total Destroyer'. I hang out with these guys and I am weary of their attitudes of self-righteousness merely because they don't happen to take money for their deportations."

Bruce Sterling grew up. He is no longer a 24 year old guy who likes to write under comical pseudonyms as Vincent Omniaveritas, Aubrey LaPuerta or Todd Refinery. He will still write Science Fiction, though. He has a contract to fulfil. Bruce Sterling is interested in writing a novel that can only be written in the 21st century. Some of the material can propably be found in his newest book "Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years", but his interest in 'Counter Culture' is over. "That's something for bored middle age housewives", he says. "It is like I Ching. Nothing more than a kind of weird remnant of the self-realisation movement and New Age stuff: fat dietism." What counts these days can't be called Cyberpunk anymore. The new term to use maybe is Open Source Culture. "Those guys got an agenda. They are going from A to B to C and they accomplish a lot. Open Source people are a lot more aggressive. They have got generally practical solutions to a lot of really pressing problems and that is a rare and viable thing."

spanish version The Bruce Sterling Online Index

El escritor considera que la contracultura es para amas de casa aburridas y rechaza el culto a la piratería

Bruce Sterling está en paz consigo mismo. Ya no le importa que la gente diga que su obra es futurista, criticismo de diseño, arte, literatura o ciencia ficción, ficción fantástica, ficción especulativa, escritura literaria, escritura underground, ciberpunk, ola de los ochenta, nueva ola... "Mientras sepa lo que estoy haciendo, a mí me vale", afirma, sudando profusamente en una cafetería vienesa. 36 grados centígrados en junio es una temperatura bastante inhabitual en esta parte de Europa. Los tiempos cambian y también lo hace la vida del presidente Bruce, el portavoz de la corriente literaria ciberpunk, como le calificó Jon Lebkowsky hace más de 10 años.

Se le considera junto a William Gibson una de las principales figuras del ciberpunk, un término adoptado a raíz del relato Cyberpunk de Bruce Bethke, publicado por vez primera en 1983. La palabra cíber se refiere a la cibernética y el control del hombre sobre la máquina, tal y como la definió Norbert Wiener en 1948. El segundo concepto, punk, se emplea de forma generalizada desde 1976, aplicado a un estilo musical autodidacta, caracterizado por actitudes independientes y anárquicas. Nada es nuevo siempre

En la década de 1980, el género de ciencia ficción hard alcanzó sus cotas más bajas en Estados Unidos.

Los escritores que creían en la anti-gravedad, los poderes psíquicos y "escribían sobre la dinámica orbital de las naves espaciales con una precisión del 0,9999%, tendían a ser patéticamente infantiles sobre la auténtica realidad de la ciencia y su relación con la sociedad", afirmó Sterling en una ocasión. El subgénero del ciberpunk quería diferenciarse. Su ficción hace referencia al futuro cercano y "al impacto que origina la tecnología en la sociedad", una descripción que Bruce Sterling, que el año que viene cumplirá 50 años, sigue considerando válida. Por otro lado, el término ciberpunk suena un tanto desfasado hoy en día. "Nada es una novedad siempre. Así que cualquier cosa que sea cíber, incluso el término cíber, ha quedado anticuada. Es como decir electro, atómico o aerodinámico".

El homo sapiens ha sido declarado extinguido fue el título elegido por Bruce Sterling para un artículo en la revista científica Nature en 1999. "Para un escritor de ciencia ficción dura es lo más alto a lo que se puede llegar", comenta Bruce sobre su debut en Nature. Mientras tanto, Mondo 2000, que antaño fue el organismo oficial ciberpunk, quedó ensombrecido por Wired Magazine, que en 2003 ya ha dejado atrás su época dorada.

"Lo que nos pasó es que nos volvimos respetables. Como William Gibson, que ahora escribe best sellers y le hacen críticas en la London Review of Books. Yo cojo aviones para dar charlas en Viena y escribo artículos para el Wired Magazine. Gibson se doctoró en diseño. A mí eso me da tanta envidia que sigo esperando que alguien me conceda un doctorado. Cuando me convierta en el Doctor Sterling, sabes, eso sí que será una maravilla. Si fuera de un pequeño país europeo querría llegar a ser ministro de Cultura, eso sería genial. Pero los años no pasan en balde. Ésa es la esencia de los negocios. Nada es una novedad siempre".

["...Nothing remains novel for ever." "'I can't understand what the fuss is about', Rita 'Cuddles' Srinivasan, actress, sex symbol and computer peripheral", says in Bruce Sterling's 'Nature' article. Today the same can be asked about the Cyberpunk movement, that had its fun in the 80s and early 90s. Bruce Sterling became the advocate of the movement which was brought to the public by William Gibson's book 'Neuromancer '.

Internet at this time meant being hooked up on a message board like Compuserve. Back at this "neolithic cyberspace dawn" - Gibson and Sterling were still using a typewriter - both managed to open up a new space behind the monitor for their readers. It was 1990 when the FBI started their 'Operation Sun Devil', and began to treat the computer underground as criminal. In the book "Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier" (1992) Bruce Sterling wrote about these operations that also took place in Austin, Texas, where he has a residence. The book is literary freeware and one of Bruce Sterling's already more journalistic-driven work. Open Source, Hackers, Netrunners, Deck Cowboys, Megacorps, and the belief "Information wants to be free" once drove this genre.

Bruce Sterling nowadays prefers to write articles about: 'Information wants to be worthless'. "This idea is as powerful as the former one", he adds. "It is like Bill Gates still owns Window 3.0 but nobody will buy it ever ...]

En la actualidad, Bruce Sterling prefiere escribir artículos titulados La información quiere ser sin valor. "Esta idea es casi tan poderosa como la anterior", añade. "Es como el caso de Bill Gates, que sigue siendo el propietario de Windows 3.0 pero nadie se lo comprará jamás. Ni siquiera una copia que funcione a la perfección. Yo puedo sacar copias del Windows 3.0 de Gates y dejarlas por todas estas mesas. Gratis. Con unas instrucciones de uso y un billete de cinco dólares adjunto y nadie las utilizará. Y ésa es la verdadera cara oculta de la economía de la información".

Da conferencias para un montón de tipos raros y les dice que a quien realmente deben temer no es a Microsoft sino a grupos organizados como Drink and Die, organizaciones de piratas de software. "Ellos se comportan como si pertenecieran a una cultura abierta, pero lo único que hacen es vulnerar la propiedad ajena. La crackean, rompen la protección intelectual. No quieren ofrecerte Linux, Suse o Red Hat ni ninguno de esos programas supuestamente tan valiosos. Lo que quieren es darte la propiedad de Microsoft o de otras empresas. Les divierte hacerlo y no son buena gente. Tienen nombres muy agresivos. No se ponen nombres como declaración universal de los derechos humanos o el acuerdo de Helsinki, sino cosas como Ninja negro 415 o Destructor Total. Yo he estado en contacto con esta gente y soy consciente de la actitud prepotente que adopta por el mero hecho de no cobrar por su trabajo".

Bruce Sterling ha madurado. Ya no es aquel joven de 24 años al que le gustaba escribir bajo seudónimos cómicos como Vincent Omniaveritas, Aubrey LaPuerta o Todd Refinery. Pero seguirá escribiendo ciencia ficción. Tiene un contrato que cumplir. Bruce Sterling está interesado en escribir una novela que sólo pueda haberse escrito en el siglo XXI. Parte del material probablemente pueda encontrarse en su último libro, Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years [El mañana ahora: imaginando los próximos cincuenta años], pero su interés por la contracultura ha terminado. "Eso es para amas de casa aburridas", afirma. "Es como el I Ching. No es más que un extraño remanente de la corriente de autorrealización y de la Nueva Era: dietas para gordos". Lo que importa hoy en día ya no puede llamarse ciberpunk. El nuevo término a utilizar podría ser Open Source Culture [cultura de libre acceso]. "Esa gente tiene un plan. Van de la A a la B a la C y consiguen grandes cosas. La gente de Open Source es mucho más agresiva. Tienen soluciones prácticas para un montón de problemas acuciantes y eso es algo viable y poco frecuente".

published elpais, 2003 english version (without cutting)

pseudos (audio/mpeg, 166 KB) from bruce sterling. some also seem to count bruces, as he signs at well. oh well, who cares. go to bs info.