Cyborg or Cyber?
Howdy, time for my Friday the 13th Blog-a-Rama & what better topic than cyborgs! The talk in yesterday's tute on cyborgian cosmetic 'modification' (or rather mutilation) and the recent posts by Julia, Wade, and Matt got me thinking about a few cyborg counter arguments. In "A Manifesto for Cyborgs", one of Haraway's main claims is that once an individual is a partially technological being, they can exist outside of the realm of gender as the melding of tech with flesh blurs the boundaries and destabilises the binary. One thing in the tute we noticed was that today's cosmetic cyborg culture is still predominantly 'feminine' with the 'make me into a synthetic beauty queen' type programmes and the spread of Western, gendered physical/human ideals. Daniel S. Halacy, Jr., one of the grandpappies of cybernetic theory could see back in '65 the misuse of cyborg-tech, he called it 'cyborgian vanity', which I think still has currency today with the naturalisation of cosmetic surgery (the lunchtime botox session). Technology certainly is changing our sense of physical standards, one just has look those makeover programmes offering an assembly line of cosmetic cyborgs all with the same artificial look. I think it also goes beyond the idea of cosmetic-tech in that if you're not even a lil partially technologised with mobile media you remain out of the social 'loop', below the dehumanised!
Danielle DeVoss asserts that images of cyborgs, especially on the Internet, are 'actually "cyber" bodies', that is, masculinist fantasies of mechanised femininity underscoring the fixed nature of gender and power. She draws on images of 'fembots' designed for 'pleasure' ('available flesh under that metal exterior'), and points out that while they are 'hi-tech bodies', they really only 'mesh hegemonic constructions with mechanical possibilities'. The 'cyberbody' falls short of the cyborg's social/political potential in that the cyber exits only in the mediated realm of cyberspace where the images are just bits on a screen, but they reflect the not-quite liberated/'post-gender' nature of technology.
Taking a slightly different angle, Francis Fukuyama is the neo-con who reckons there's an ever-increasing population of medical cyborgs in Our Posthuman Future. He's especially worried about the folks keen on extending their lifespan and those who freely trade their 'humanness' for 'unnatural' bio-tech enhancements: 'Medical technology offers us in many cases a devil's bargain: longer life, but with reduced mental capacity; freedom from depression, together with freedom from creativity or spirit' (pg. 8). One thing I agree with is his linking of the cyborg to an Orwellian surveillance society. The tech-human hybrid with their mobile media is always part of the network, constructing their own mediated identity while also reducing it to a 'personalised' series of electronic bits.
Stella
(Check out the DeVoss article, most of sites used are now defunct, even the cyborg personality index! “Rereading Cyborg(?) Women: The Visual Rhetoric of Images of Cyborg (and Cyber) Bodies on the World Wide Web.” CyberPsychology & Behavior 3.5, 2000.)
Danielle DeVoss asserts that images of cyborgs, especially on the Internet, are 'actually "cyber" bodies', that is, masculinist fantasies of mechanised femininity underscoring the fixed nature of gender and power. She draws on images of 'fembots' designed for 'pleasure' ('available flesh under that metal exterior'), and points out that while they are 'hi-tech bodies', they really only 'mesh hegemonic constructions with mechanical possibilities'. The 'cyberbody' falls short of the cyborg's social/political potential in that the cyber exits only in the mediated realm of cyberspace where the images are just bits on a screen, but they reflect the not-quite liberated/'post-gender' nature of technology.
Taking a slightly different angle, Francis Fukuyama is the neo-con who reckons there's an ever-increasing population of medical cyborgs in Our Posthuman Future. He's especially worried about the folks keen on extending their lifespan and those who freely trade their 'humanness' for 'unnatural' bio-tech enhancements: 'Medical technology offers us in many cases a devil's bargain: longer life, but with reduced mental capacity; freedom from depression, together with freedom from creativity or spirit' (pg. 8). One thing I agree with is his linking of the cyborg to an Orwellian surveillance society. The tech-human hybrid with their mobile media is always part of the network, constructing their own mediated identity while also reducing it to a 'personalised' series of electronic bits.
Stella
(Check out the DeVoss article, most of sites used are now defunct, even the cyborg personality index! “Rereading Cyborg(?) Women: The Visual Rhetoric of Images of Cyborg (and Cyber) Bodies on the World Wide Web.” CyberPsychology & Behavior 3.5, 2000.)
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