Cyborgs and a Post Human Future? Ctrl Alt Delete Logging On To Cyber Society ctrl alt del.png [USEMAP] Cyborgs http://realtorscarlsbad.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/1305549021-58.jpg http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRRTPlxMo8V8yi3slVA8AMq5vzgfNUYJtT7Xe-663D5vWSErkbKrA http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSAYxXhPvNLee7T9DyN111G58o-8SmTXwH8-Mkq68AxTuDLgu6dEg [USEMAP] Cyborgs in Sci-Fi • •Demonstrating the power of man and science over the natural world •Metropolis 1927 •Six Million Dollar Man & Bionic Woman •Blade Runner • [USEMAP] Types of Cyborg ? •Cyborg – cybernetic organism •Hybrids of human-machine •How are people using technology to explore being cybernetic organisms (cyborgs), hybrids of the human and the machine? (Film) •Cybernetic systems constitute cyborgs by using biology and technology •Separable cyborg (pilot-aircraft, ear-hearing aid) Steve Mann (Film) •Invasive cybernetic technologies – Kevin Warwick (Film) • [USEMAP] Prosthetic cybernetic technologies - Stelarc •‘The body needs to be repositioned from the psycho realm of the biological to the cyber zone of the interface and extension – from genetic containment to electronic extrusion’. • •It cannot cope with the quantity, complexity and quality of information it has accumulated…, it is biologically ill-equipped to cope with its new extra-terrestrial environment’. (Stelarc, 2000, p.560-1) [USEMAP] A. Murphie & J. Potts - ‘Cyborgs: the body, information and technology’ •Awareness of patterns of control that constrain us can lead to change •Cyborg culturally significant metaphor for crossing boundaries of human and non-human – powerful site of resistance to binary systems that structure our worldview •Subversively blurs boundaries between oppositional concepts in which one may be marked as superior • [USEMAP] Breaking down binaries •Human/nonhuman •Culture/nature •Male/female •Technology/biology •Divine /man made •Reality/ representation •Subject/ object Vs. [USEMAP] Donna Haraway ‘The Cyborg Manifesto’ •Haraway’s hybrid bio-technological world •Cyborg as the “disassembled, reassembled postmodern collective and personal self” that empowers us through the negotiation of culture and identity •Extends the idea of ‘bodies’ beyond accepted norms, especially in terms of gender •Existence on the boundaries of human and machine [USEMAP] Cyborgs, sex and gender •Cyborgs challenge gender binaries and support the idea that gender is socially acquired. • "There is nothing about being female that naturally binds women. There is not even such a state as 'being' female, itself a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual scientific discourses and other social practices"-Haraway, "Cyborg Manifesto" (155). •Gender as language, codes and signs. •The cyborg transgresses gender sterotypes and is a liminal being with it its own subjectivity. • [USEMAP] Haraways ‘Informatics of Domination’ •Old New • •Representation Simulation •Bourgeois novel, realism Science fiction,postmodernism •Organism Biotic Component •Depth, integrity Surface, boundary •Heat Noise •Biology as clinical practice Biology as inscription •Physiology Communications Engineering •Small group Subsystem •Perfection Optimization •Eugenics Population Control •Sex Genetic engineering •Labour Robotics •Mind Artificial intelligence •Second World War Star Wars •White Capitalist Patriarchy Informatics of Domination [USEMAP] • • • • Hierarchal Systems of Domination Informatics of Domination [USEMAP] Non invasive •how the boundaries of technology and humanity are blurring together privacy, identity and connectivity •mobile technology •user experience design •information dispersal, storage and retrieval •physiological effects of technology on mental processes [USEMAP] Merging Humans and Technology (Lim 2010) [USEMAP] Cyborg- Online identities •Heightened connection to machine •Online identities - Multi identity, partiality •The internet allows for the deconstruction of binary genders •The new identity is formed from the relationship between the original identity and the internet. It is a cyborg identity, part machine, part human •The user as a cyborg • • • [USEMAP] Issues •Technology is increasingly integrated with the human body. •Technology is used to augment or replace the things we used to do ourselves. •What is the morality of such changes? •Do our values change when we are hybrid human –machines, Does becoming cyborgs alter us?? •Do we need to ‘control’ or ‘regulate’ the development of cyborgs? –If so how? And who decides this? •Are we now post-human? • [USEMAP] Post Humanism •What is posthumanism? –Emphasising the new – •The new is characterised by speculation –eg. We may imagine a future where people are genetically modified to try to ensure health, but such a future may need health surveillance and interactions throughout life –Advent of the consumer/leisure/information societies –Change, keeping up with developments seen as essential, rather than just a fad or a freaky idea • [USEMAP] Post Humanism •Joanna Zylinska ‘ethics of cultural studies’ (2005) –Political, social, and (moral)philosophical implications of posthumanism –Different ways of characterising the human •Virilio’s concerns –Suspicious of modern/postmodern –Not fragmented communities –The Transplant Revolution •Collapse of the distinction between the human body and technology –Rejects Cybersex: technological replacement of emotions • • • [USEMAP] Post Post Humanism? •What is the status of the posthuman? –Is it Different? •Why is the concept of technological futures often portrayed as a negative? •Is it so different from present day? Are we already there? •What happens after? •Is post human ‘after’? Or just another false dawn? •If concept of ‘human’ is contested then why should PH be any different? • • • – • [USEMAP] Selected Sources •Benedictus, L. (2006) Last.fm, Martin Stiksel [WWW] Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1939028,00.html (Accessed 6 November 2006). •Gray, C. H. (2003). "Posthuman Soldiers in Postmodern War." Body and Society 9(4): 215-226 [politics]. •Haraway, Donna (1991) ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ in Haraway, Donna J (1991) Simians, cyborgs and women. Reinvention of nature, New York: Routledge, pp 149-181. •Lim K., 2010 The Social Cyborg http://www.slideshare.net/brainopera/the-social-cyborg-from-perfect-memory-to-networked-consciousne ss •Lister, M. (et al.) (2003) New Media: A Critical Introduction, London and New York, Routledge. •Mitchell, W. J. (2003) Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City, • Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press. •Moores, S. (2005) Media/Theory, London and New York, Routledge. •Murphie, A. and Potts, J. (2003) Culture & Technology, Basingstoke, • Palgrave. •Petersen, S. M. (2007) Mundane Cyborg Practice: Material Aspects of Broadband Internet Use, Convergence 13:1. pp.79-91. •Stelarc (2000) From Psycho-Body to Cyber-Systems: Images as Post- Human Entities, in Bell, D. and Kennedy, B. (Eds) The Cybercultures Reader, London and New York, Routledge. • • •