The Computer-Forward Cyberpunk Icons of Eurythmics
- 2 minutes read - 269 words
Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart on a train in 1986, Stewart working a Tandy 200.
Look at these cyberpunk heroes.
He’s collapsed after the time-tunnel brought them back to this era, reading one of these “books” that he learned about on his PersoComp in school. While here, in the 20th century, he’s going to read about an artist whose music he’d only ever heard as a snippet – for that’s all that remained after the drone wars. He’s mirrorshaded-out like a William Gibson assassin.
She remains focused on the mission and is using this century’s primitive PersoComp – in this era they call it a Tandy 200 – to determine details about their assassination. Coaxing data using BASIC, she’s determining likely conflict vectors.
The Tandy 200, ready for its close-up.
In all seriousness, Eurythmics (David Stewart and Annie Lennox) look like they could have taken this shot in 2026 instead of forty years prior. In Reagan/Thatcher 1986 she’s programming (prepping synthesizer notes/timings?) or taking notes while riding on a train.
There’s really not much else I can add to how awesome Eurythmics were and still are. Catching their videos (or Bowie’s or Prince’s) back then was like seeing a show at MoMa, Cooper-Hewitt, or the Whitney tunneled 50 years backward in time to early MTV. I wasn’t sure I liked it, sometimes it was a bit scary when the short-haired lady was gesturing with a riding crop, but I knew, even then, that it was art. Just listen to those adversarially timed hand-programmed synthesizers in some sort of technological dialectic with modernity itself at the opening of “Sweet Dreams.”