The cityscape of cyberpunk films is characterized by the pastiche of different oriental elements. The spatial construction of cyberpunk cities is not only an aesthetic statement, but also an expression of power structures and spatial politics. It reflects the fantasy and anxiety of Euro-centralism towards the "East", and this spatial imaginary is endowed with different connotations with the changing global cultural landscape. From the 1980s to the 1990s, the orient elements were presented as a kind of aggressiveness and anxiety brought about by the structural reset of globalized capital, which is a symbol of the Western fear of city cultural hybridity and racial cohabitation. Starting at the 1990s, the hybridized oriental space in cyberpunk films was imbued with a cultural resistance meaning, providing a realm of "heterotopia" imagination imbued with liberation for the Western subjects oppressed by the technologized urban machine. In the latest cyberpunk films, the once heterotopian oriental space has been emptied of its resistance meaning and, as a geographical consumption element, has been implanted into the visual spectacle created by digital technology.

cyberpunk city  /  oriental geography  /  spatial politics  /  hybridity  /  heterotopia