"What is a cyborg?" This question should probably begin with Donna Haraway, which stated in her paper in 1985 that "A manifesto for cyborgs: Science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the 1980s" lead in the academic discourse on cyborgs, hybrid creatures who blur the limitations between the various boundary projects of modernity, including human and machine, human and animal, male and female, and so on. For Haraway, the postmodern “self” is no longer characterized by a singular, unified identity, but it’s a collection of politicized and fractured cyborg “selves.”[1]
David Stonehouse has written an article called “The Cyborg Evolution”[2] in 2003. It is mentioned that Kevin Warwick, the professor of cybernetics, imagines that people can be able to upgrade their own intelligence and can even go travel to other countries just by downloading to their brains directly, and for Warwick, this situation is a not-too-distant future as he believes this cyborg evolution is predictable and essential to our survival as a species. In March 2002, Warwick had also done an experiment by implanted an electrode in his wrist, and it was success as the implant can collected the signals pulsing through nerves and transmitted them back to his computer, while his computer can send the signals directly into his central nervous system also. Few years later, Warwick tried the experiment again, the result was less ambitious by implanted a different silicon chip in his arm, but it could proved that a chip inside the body could send signals, which has crossed the boundary of human and machine.
In the article of “Creating the ideal post human body”[3] , Giuseppe O. Longo has investigated a number of interrelated issues, like the ways in which cyborg narratives portray sexual dynamics between cyborgs and “non-enhanced” humans, or how such narratives engage with the mind and body dualism etc. The author has chosen these texts under consideration because it is being allowed to compare diachronically a series of male perspectives on the sexing, gendering, and eroticization of both the male and female cyborgs, and narrative dramatization of the separation of both the mind and body and also the fusion with technology. Furthermore, the concern the author is the erotically charged relationship with technology, especially in relation to sexual dynamics between biological human and cyborg beings. This would shift the boundaries between conscious and unconscious, and also the presence of self and other.
In the view point of the author, the female cyborg is figured as monstrous by the male dominated culture and must reassemble herself within and against the depiction of monstrosity, and by her self definition, she needs to actively settle the obstacle she faced. This perspective is found in a comic studies which is called “The Exotic Other Scripted: Identity and Metamorphosis in David Mack’s Kabuki” by Jim Casey and Stefan Hall[4]. Kabuki is a multi-volume series of comic books drawn by David Mack, and the storyline is primarily focuses on the creation and recreation of self, the formation and transformation of identity. The female in the comic has creating an appearance that they are between a spare, and a solid, muscular, athletic look. As a cyborg, this could see that except crossing the boundary of human and machine, it has also crossed the gender between male and female.
Sherry Turkle’s ideas about cyborg identity are very closely connected to Donna Haraway as described in the book of “Cyborg Manifesto” as mentioned in the article of “Human Identity in the Age of Computer”[5]. Turkle also sees the positive aspects of the identity that is constructed, fluid and fractured, therefore she has attempted to manifest a cyborg myth based on both science fiction and social theory in her essay. Through Haraway’s perspective, the cyborg personal and social identity manifests itself not in blood and physical appearance, instead it is in choices and attractions, and she has the ideas of replacing this natural order with a new order based on affinity. Besides, cyborgs stand at the borders between man and animal, animal and machine, physical and non-physical. Many modern communication technologies and biotechnologies are the cyborgs tools for crossing these borders, it can no longer be argued that we are completely human creatures anymore, and it is the boundary transgression that we need to accept as a part of our daily life from now on.
Haraway defines cyborgs as "creatures simultaneously animal and machine, which populate worlds ambiguously natural and crafted" (Haraway 1991, 149)(i). In the article “The Created Co-Creator Meets Cyborg”[6] by Philip Hefner, a professor emeritus of systematic theology, has deal with different themes that emerges from Haraway’s analysis of cyborg. He is stated that the origin of the idea of cyborg is already a crossing of boundaries. Cyborg, in other words, was born in the dreams of scientists of a man-machine that could function in the transboundary situation of extra-terrestrial space, while the idea is based on the movie, “Blade Runner”. The boundary between human and technology is transgressed in the very idea. Furthermore, Philip Hefner analyzed that the most powerful thing that happens in the cyborg boundary-crossing is that the dualisms we often use to distinguish human being, nature, culture, and technology are rendered antiquated. And the dualisms are becoming our ideas, but not in our experience.
Science is doing more to displace the boundaries between human and machine. Scientific research would lead us to think of ourselves more and more, while computers themselves are being used to model and human intelligence. Nevertheless, cyborg is still a transgressive figure at this period of time as it has disrupted the persistent dualisms of crossing the boundaries between human and machine, human and animal, male and female. I am also agreed with the recognition of Haraway, that the cyborg is, after all, a creature that has its origins in literature.(ii) It is an ironic truth that the cyborg is a fictional concept that becomes embodied even as we leave our bodies to combine our identities with the computers.
Reference:
[1]Cyborg 101. San José State University. Retrieved on 1 March 2009.
< http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/butryn/whatisa.htm>
[2]Stonehouse, David. “The Cyborg Evolution.” The Sydney Morning Herald 22 March 2003. 2 March 2009.
< http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/21/1047749931869.html>
[3]Ross, Charlotte. “Creating the ideal posthuman body? Cyborg sex and gender in the work of Buzzati, Vacca, and Ammaniti.” The Gale Group 22 Jun 2005. 3 March 2009.
<http://www.articlearchives.com/humanities-social-science/literature-literature-genres/619308-1.html>
[4]Casey, Jim and Stefan Hall. “The Exotic Other Scripted: Identity and Metamorphosis in David Mack’s Kabuki.” Image TexT VOL.3. NO.1.(Summer. 2006). 4 March 2009. < http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v3_1/casey_hall/>
[5]Turkle, Sherry. “Human Identity in the Age of Computer.” Chunk Meyer 20 Apr 1997. 5 March 2009. < http://fragment.nl/mirror/Meyer/CyborgIdentity.htm>
[6]Hefner, Philip. “The Created Co-Creator Meets Cyborg” The Global Spiral 29 March 2004. 5 March 2009. <http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/ArticleDetail/tabid/68/id/8780/Default.aspx>
(i)Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. New York: Routledge, 1991.
(ii)Turkle, Sherry. “Human Identity in the Age of Computer.” Chunk Meyer 20 Apr 1997. 5 March 2009. < http://fragment.nl/mirror/Meyer/CyborgIdentity.htm>
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
As my topic is not about cyborg,Viven's webliography gives me a concept of what cyborg is.The first article,"The Cyborg Revolution" may be interesting for the beginner to read.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Exotic Other Scripted: Identity and Metamorphosis in David Mack’s Kabuki”,it would be better for you to talk more about the finding from the authors.
Besides, choosing a big contrst of opinion of different scholars will make your webloigraphy more interesting.
Since my topic is also not cyborg, I also get some concepts about cyborg. It's a well-structured webliography with clear introduction and conclusion.
ReplyDeleteFuthermore, the articles which Viven has chosen briefly descibes the ideas of cyborgs but it can discuss more about how cyborg is still a transgressive figure with more examples.
I think Viven had done a great job. She had demonstrated some new idea of cyborg, which I have never thought before.
ReplyDeleteSince my topic is not cyborg, Viven's work gives me some general ideas about cyborg. I think she did quite well of this webliography, there are clear summaries of these five articles and clear introduction and conclusion.
ReplyDeleteI suggest Viven to relate these articles to each other,e.g. what elements in one of the article are the supplements of another article.And some errors in places can be cleaned up with proofreadings.