Critical Annotated Webilography by Crystal Tsang

After reading the question, I used Google and Google scholar to search my necessary readings and information about cyborgs. I inserted words such as “cyborgs”, “cyborg identity”, “cyborg moral” etc. It showed me some related articles. The following six articles will show the information about cyborg from different aspects. Almost article was related to the question “discuss ways in which the cyborg is still a transgressive figure” that about how cyborgs blurred our society norms and boundaries and beyond the moral standard of our society.

An article called “Cyborgs and moral identity” was first found. Gillett defined cyborg as “part human and part machine complexes which function as a whole.”[1] It provided a several real life cases to show the people how to become cyborgs. Humans wanted to satisfy with their desire, so they utilized technologies to help themselves. Although technology could help us a lot, our identity would be disrupted. Are we a human or a machine? Gillett pointed out his stands that cyborg was not work. Take a real life case from this article as an example, a patient called Henri-Charles who got a truly cybernetic brain. “Henri-Charle will come to exhibit may be cold, calculating, and robotic in ways that disengage him from the moral community at important points […]”[2] This mentioned human became a cyborg which was not like a human; they would be seemly ignored by the community. Gillett thought human soul was very important for human but Cyborgs did not have. The whole article presented us that cyborgs were bad to us because it invented our moral identity.

In “Information Systems – A Cyborg Discipline?” essay, Ramage used her experience as example to discuss the term “cyborgs”. She based on Haraway’s argument to define cyborg was to straddle the social and technical domain. Ramage also pointed out she had been a cyborg researcher before. “I chose the difficult middle way of being a cyborg, sitting between the technical and the social in a Department of Computing, writing about computers but being concerned for their effects upon people and organizations, an unholy and unclean mixture.”[3] It was because her background and interests are mixed with the technical (computer science) and the social (management, sociology). This kind of boundary-crossing cannot be escaped, it must rather be embraced. This raised a question by author who we are and what it means to be both human and machine in our perspectives.

In the Chapter “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” written by Haraway, she said the development of technology gives a society of cyborg. In late twentieth-century, machines made the difference between natural/artificial, mind/body unclear. It was because our machines had disturbed our life that we felt frightened. Obviously, we were cyborgs. She also pointed out three boundaries were transgressed. The first was between human and animal. The second was between organism and machine. Cyborgs were more lifelike. The third boundary was between physical and non-physical. Cyborgs were everywhere and some were invisible. She wanted us to think differently about the balance of power in human systems by thinking the boundaries between machine and human, man and woman, white and black and revolutionary and conservative.

According to scholarly reading “The Politics and Aesthetic in the Cyborg Era” by Kalem, we were living in a world which full of cyborgs and we may even become a cyborg in different types of cyborgs. Cyborgs were never separated from technology, from the complex techno-cultural world in which we lived. “A cyborg is not just a body of cybernetic organism but an open system that functions without fixed boundaries.”[4] Cyborgs blur boundaries such as natural/unnatural and made/born. It meant that cyborg can be transformed. The author pointed cyborgs were related to politics, art and aesthetics. The politics and the aesthetics became “one” in the cyborg era. Finally, because of the technology that we could construct a virtual reality which was cyborgs reality, it was reconstructing by interaction, so this constant process forms the politics and the art of cyborg.

In “Cyborgs”, Mertz provided a definition of cyborg that was “A cybernetic organism (cyborg) is a biological creature–generally a human being–whose functioning has been enhanced through integration of mechanical, electrical, computational, or otherwise artificial, components.”[5] Mertz discussed cyborg used in recent time from two aspect: technology and culture. In technology aspect, Mertz pointed out that “a cyborg’s machine elements must have a meaningful feedback mechanism with its biological aspects.”[6] Take an example that if we install an artificial wooden leg into someone, it will enhance motility. In culture aspect, “cyborgs simply represent an extension of the positive capabilities of technologies.”[7] Some people even named human which installed artificial things in medical uses as cyborgs. Also, social had a positive thinking on cyborgs because cyborgs were moving down normal status such as gender, class, race etc.

Potts mainly discussed the Viagra cyborgs in his scholar work “Viagra Cyborgs: Creating ‘Better Manhood Through Chemistry’?” and find out the answer if it can enhance masculinity. He thought cyborgs were divided in to ten types, included the retro-cyborg[8], the ultra-cyborg[9], and the semi-cyborg[10]. Author focused on Viagra users in this research. It took Viagra user – male as example to explain the term “cyborg”. For example, man ate Viagra in order to fulfill his loss of desire. Viagra was artificial things, made by technology. So, author defined that man was a retro-cyborg that use technology inside his body in order to restore his loss of desire. Also, Author thought male just like a machine, machine got problem then need a solution to solve it. Some Viagra users thought that using Viagra was better than natural. As it can be seen that Viagra user was blurring the boundary between natural/artificial. Finally, author mentioned not everyman accepting the medicine to increase manhood because they didn’t want to disturb their natural bodily.

In conclusion, these texts generally agreed that the definition of cyborg was part of human and part of machine. Gillett thought that human implanted technology invention will blur the boundary human/non-human. Cyborgs seemed disturb our identity in our reality, so he against the technology implanted into human body. Ramage used himself as an example to explain he was a cyborg standing between technologies and social, we can not escape that we are boundary-crossing always. Haraway said we were cyborgs and it blurred different boundaries. Kalem told us that we were living in a full of cyborgs era, and discussed the politics and art of cyborgs. Mertz discussed cyborgs in two aspects in recent era. Also, Potts used Viagra male users to explain they were cyborgs and blur the boundary natural/artificial. From these texts which discuss cyborg from different view and examples, these must provide useful and well-round information for me to do the essay question.

Footnotes

[1] Gillett G, Cyborgs and moral identity, 31 May 2005, p.1
[2] Gillett G, Cyborgs and moral identity, 31 May 2005, p.1
[3] Ramage Magnus, Information System-A Cyborg Discipline?, 17 july 2004, p.8
[4] Kalem Aylin, The Politics and Aesthetic in the Cyborg Era, 5 March 2009, p.2

[5] Mertz David, Cyborgs, 5 March 2009, p.1
[6] Mertz David, Cyborgs, 5 March 2009, p.1
[7] Mertz David, Cyborgs, 5 March 2009, p.2

[8] A reconfiguration, which as the name suggests, restores a lost form or function
[9] defined as an enhanced organism such as super-athletes who are transformed via drugs, foods,and body-sculpting
[10] an organism that is a cyborg intermittently; for example, dialysis patients or drug users

Reference

Gillett, G.. (2005) ‘Cyborgs and moral identity.’ Journal of Medical Ethics 32, http://jme.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/32/2/79 (accessed 3 March 2009)

Haraway, Donna. (1991) ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.’ http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html (accessed 5 March 2009)

Kalem, Aylin. (2009) ‘The Politics and Aesthetic in the Cyborg Era.’ http://www.bodig.org/texts/politicsaestheticsinthecyborgera.pdf (accessed 4 March 2009)

Mertz, David. (2009) ‘Cyborgs.’ http://gnosis.cx/publish/mertz/Cyborgs.pdf (accessed 5 March 2009)

Potts, Annie. (2009) ‘Viagra Cyborgs: Creating ‘Better Manhood Through Chemistry’

http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/BIOS/pdf/AnniePotts.pdf (accessed 5 March 2009)

Ramage, Magnus. (2004) ‘Information System-A Cyborg Discipline?’ http://oro.open.ac.uk/2669/1/IFIP82_Manchester.pdf (accessed 3 March 2009)