Johnny Mnemonic and Glenn Branca
Johnny Mnemonic has been one of my favorite movies since I saw it in the theaters too young in 1995. Probably as a result of this movie (or possibly a combination with other pop culture leavings), I dreamed of the internet as a physical space to float around in, turning data into highways and structures to interact with and get lost in, a connection not to the world but to an underbelly of the world. Electric currents flowing in a hidden river accessed through our brainwaves, creating proxies of ourselves that could reshape our bodies with our minds into things we liked instead of the confusing shape vessel that never felt like I had any control over. Bodies in capitalism adrift and set against images and sales pitches engineered to make us feel incomplete. I don’t remember when I expanded the love of this genre into cyberpunk novels, but this was the spark that informed my undying love of the genre that continues to this day.
I had this movie on VHS growing up, then DVD and finally blu-ray when the director Robert Longo tried to reclaim his only directed feature (that was bullied into changes he didn’t want by the studio) by stripping the color and blasting the contrast and releasing Johnny Mnemonic In Black and White.
Imagine you have a favorite movie that really impacted your view of the world (big corporations operating on a profit above all model will withhold progress and destroy us as much as possible if given the chance if it improves bottom line) and 25 years later it gets edited to look even cooler than you ever could have imagined. The influence of Alphaville suddenly booms, not to mention the painting series by the director himself titled Men in the Cities.
I hope you can secure a copy of this version of the film, but if not, the closest I could find is an internet archive file of a version that has most of the film in black and white and keeps the color in for the internet scenes or something like that:
Johnny Mnemonic in Black and Color
Probably about 6 or 7 years after my initial Johnny Mnemonic viewing, I started feverishly and excitedly exploring the music genre No Wave, and discovered the guitar composer Glenn Branca and became instantly obsessed. I somehow purchased the Enhanced CD of his seminal album The Ascension, and it blew my mind wide open to the possibilities of electric guitar, chiming, bleating and washing over a deconstructed landscape of rock music ensemble of 4 guitars in dissonant tunings, bass and drums. Beyond the well-constructed masterpiece of an album, this video was included on the CD ROM when I inserted it into my sketchy computer:
This footage put my rote guitar playing on a completely different path and toward a lifetime of aggressive electric guitar wrestling weaved with anti-capitalist performance that continues to this day. Opening up pathways to creativity, the ultimate gift one can give or receive in my opinion.
Here’s what I didn’t realize until years later: the album cover of The Ascension was completed by none other than the director of my beloved Johnny Mnemonic, Robert Longo. The direct link between these seemingly unrelated but massively impactful cultural artifacts in my life shot bolts of excitement and wonderment that are still reverberating.
A few months ago, I found a video created by author James Reich that follows similar pathways between Branca and cyberpunk and his explorations of commodification through dissonant guitars in a much more full and deep dive way that you deserve if you are into that sort of thing like I am:
