As a kid, I am sure everyone has experienced trying to run away from your own shadow, no? What makes the memory all the more laughable is that we would normally do it under direct sunlight; when the the sun is the brightest and our shadow is the blackest. The relationship between light and shadow is a directly proportional bond almost as if in a symbiotic relationship. Now imagine Night City, one of if not the most infamous cyberpunk city names, a civilization where the lights burn so bright it can practically blind you or mock you. To the people living on the top floors of the towers, the silver spoons, their perspective of night city is a setting of great accolades and technological progress for the elite. The people in the slums will disagree as their only knowledge of the lights is a mocking reminder of how dingy and suffocating the streets are for them. Just as shadow is tethering to the flame, the slums are tethered to the towers, acting as a void of darkness that illuminates the Night City.
In Blade Runner, the opening sequences of the movie depicts the towers of buildings and a bright geisha on one of the sky scrapers. Funnily enough, the movie spends the majority of its runtime in poorly lit streets and houses, and whenever there is an illuminating light source it is either coming from the towers or in the boss’s headquarters/master bedroom. Finally, whenever the antagonists find their target’s house up a long staircase corridor, the geisha tower can be seen at the top of the tower, practically looking down upon all of its inhabitants. Similarly in Neuromancer, Chiba City uses excessive neon lights to the point of sensory overload to depict the lively, chaotic, and dangerous nature of the city. Although not neon lit, the matrix cyberspace also shows characteristics of bright vitality due to its idealistic reality of a super efficient and progressive world. The Matrix is the closest the depiction of what would happen if light existed without shadow, and the idealistic nature of the matrix tends to leave out the harsh and pervasive nature of the cyberpunk world.
In both works, the lights and towers are almost personified in a way, and its probably the most defining character of the genre. A place recognized for its color, but also has the power to oppress, uplift, and judge others. The greatest form of mockery that can be achieved in this reality is that in the face of death or tragedy that the main characters have to ensure, the lights still burn because it simple does not care. But as much as the lights and technology suppresses the lower class due to the exponentially increasing rift in classes, the towers would cease to exist is the trenches were not so deep. Comparatively, the slums would never be so suffocating if not for the walls of the towers.
