Cyborgs & Robots 2

This week's reading "The Cyborg Mother: A Breaches Boundary" by Jaimie Smith-Windsor strikes a much more emotional tone to last week's Haraway piece. This weeks article and screenings (Sarah Connor Chronicles) have certainly raised the question on whether humans are already cyborgs, this has been addressed earlier in the course but now I truly feel the topic has come to the surface of our focus; and I have found the reading highly engaging in terms of the ideas explored.

Windsor writes of a highly personal moment in her and her baby's lives, I believe that the sincerity of the moment helped Windsor to explore the human cyborg beyond what she originally may have believed. Her maternal rights have been tested, and in essence nature has been brushed aside; one could argue that without today's technology would Quinn have survived? very likely not. "My daughter's birth was a post-human, cyborg moment. She became a cyborg [...] part human, part machine, never completely either". It is hard to come to come to terms knowing that your offspring is part machine, however despite the loss of biological consciousness and being, the human has been saved from death. This has certain comparisons with the Sarah Connor Chronicles whereby John suddenly feels empathy towards the Terminator, we ask ourselves why? From Windsor' argument we can conclude that when a machine has human emotional and physical features we sub-consciously gain an element of empathy, especially when the being in question is our offspring or has a close personal connection. What is more alarming in the SCC however is that Sarah Connor herself obviously feels the need to protect and nurture John, it is maternal and part of a symbiotic relationship. However as John becomes increasingly more involved with the terminator he becomes more pro-machine and starts to base his actions and feelings on a machine; one could argue he essentially becomes 'part-machine'. This threatens Sarah Connor's position in life, however we discover an interesting dualism. While technology improves or facilitates infancy it damages the natural bonds mother have with their children, yet without this technology there could possibly be no bond at all.

The article highlights the idea of the 'external' womb, we can see this in eXistenZ with the odd playpod being the organic device for future creation. As a mother Windsor becomes threatened and due to this suspicious of technology, what it effect it has on human offspring. She suggests that when allowing the womb to become external (through technology) the human body becomes subject to manipulation, you don't have to be a human rights activist to understand the highly controversial material that could arise from this; Genetic Engineering, Cloning, Bionic Advancement etc. They are areas that we have covered and by large panic society as we ever increasingly reach that state of the true 'cyborg', unable to distinguish ourselves not only from machine, but also from one another.

Sometimes a strange complex phenomena can arrive whereby humans or juveniles, because of their increased exposure to technology and machinery cannot distinguish between human/machine or themselves/machine.

"What happens when technology begins to work itself into the infantile discourse, severing the symbiosis between mother and child? What happens when the infant, instead, becomes incapable of distinguishing between itself and - the machine?".

Some argue that this is the way human's advance themselves, Warwick would certainly agree as his research facilitates these ideas, however Windsor is extremely negative, and like many people, is concerned for the lack of humanity in beings subjected to the morphology resulting from cyborg creations. "To become a cyborg is to commit suicide". This quote presents for me the final line in the argument, Windsor is strongly disturbed by the level of machinery applied to assist human beings, but she can't help feeling uneasy in her argument as after all, her child was saved by the same technology she denounces. This is perhaps the pitfall of technology, it can never be praised or damned, because essentially it fulfills so much that without we would be lost and broken; and to suggest otherwise is slightly hypocritical.

I found the reading deeply engaging and presents a real world scenario that truly outlines what it means to be, or be involved with, a cyborg. You can't help feeling uneasy at the events that she describes and how hopelessly reliant on technology we are.

Cyborgs & Robots 1

This week we look in more detail at 'The Cyborg', focusing on Donna Haraway's Manifest for Cyborgs. Cyborg have featured in a variety of representations already on the course; and the topic is quickly becoming more and more relevant to today's modern culture as we continually fuse technology with our organic material. The most improtant thing to consider when analyzing Haraway's arguments is that the piece is titled 'A Manifesto', by its true nature a manifesto is a political document, this essay is no different; it was written at a radical time in socialist-feminism movements, it was designed for longevity and revolution.

Haraway firstly states that a cyborg, by her definition, is "a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism". This would seem rational at first when considering the majority of cyborg representation to be in line with this explanation; it is largely correct especially when taking on board Johnny Mnemonic, Robo-cop, Screamers etc. They all feature cyborgs in this way, Haraway further suggests that as 21st century citizens we are all 'chimeras', and that we have become cyborgs through both 'imagination and material reality', for example, pacemakers, artificial limbs and other bionic technologies.

Where Haraway rightly or wrongly differs from other cyborg theories is her notion of a social cyborg; the idea that a cyborg is a symbol of changing social structures and the breakdown of borders and polarities; for example, masculinity vs femininity, black vs white, gay vs straight etc. Now when reading Haraway's argument there is I feel areas where she strays slightly from the original context of the cyborg; to assume that a cyborg represents "the utopian tradition of imagining a world without gender" is rather limited, for every cyborg we have seen, they are in fact gendered; whether the emphasis is on masculinity or femininity, there is simply still gendered society with cyborg's, for after all both have different physical features and therefore the technology used must be different. I do partially agree with Haraway's 'otherness' notion, though, the idea that a cyborg can eliminate the otherness of certain ethnic, disabled peoples etc; for everyone would assume very similar physical attributes, however if more in depth analysis is conducted there is controversial boundaries that provide flaws in this argument (e.g. Religious traditions - the mutilation of the human form). Even though Haraway is correct that a cyborg stimulates the pleasure in breaking down boundaries, I do not feel it is for the purpose of such sociological factors as gender.

One area of the text that I found to be very interesting and void of fault, I believe, is the area that she describes as the 'second leaky distinction':

"... machines were not self-moving, self-designing, autonomous. They could not achieve man's dream, only mock it. They were not man, [...] but only a caricature of that masculinist reproductive dream. [...] Late twentieth century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and artificial, mind and body, self-developing and externally designed [...] Our machines are disturbingly lively, while we ourselves are frighteningly inert". (p. 30)

This quote of course follows many popular cyborg theories, that technology has become so advanced that it is starting to become more powerful than us; the idea that the boundary between organism and machine is disappearing. This does frighten mankind, it is evident in the amount of films that display this fear - Gamer, and Surrogates both have a strong representation the nano-technologies; they both suggest the 'evil' capitalist exploits of these new technologies, their potential to invade our lives and society, breaking down the modern world. The film that displays the power of this concerns is The Matrix; the dystopian reality of how out of touch we are with what we have created. I particularly enjoy Haraway's idea that pre-cybernetic creations were only there to facilitate man's reproductive dream, It firstly seems a strong base for Haraway's argument for the un-gendered world post-cyborgs, however that does break down when understanding the true militarism and capitalism that fuels and funds cyborg technologies. But more importantly the idea finishes with the notion that machines are in some way achieving man's dream, but at the expense of man's freedom. Take Screamers for example, they were developed to help men achieve freedom and peace (admittedly they were created for a military purpose), but suddenly they learned how to modify and encroached upon man's freedom. Minority report offers us this in a different light - the pre-murder technology has helped man to achieve the elimination of homicides, yet as the technology develops it inevitably turns on us and restricts our liberties and brings down the society it helped to build.

This may be the reason for the mixed reactions to Andy Clark - who has decided to test cyborg and nano-technologies on himself; in an attempt to demonstrate the capability of the human form when advanced by technology. It is interesting reading Kevin Warwick's website page that even though his research is highly commended and generally seen as a massive contribution to the advancement in science and to mankind as a whole; he still works with Dr Daniela Cerqui about the social and ethical issues that arise regarding his research. It seems that even though one hand we are so excited and awed at such technology; it seems that inevitably we must have the other hand as well, the fear. The fear that what he is creating will infringe our human rights or damage our social structure.

After this week I did come away with this feeling that cyborgs are just going through a similar process that we as humans go through as we develop - we learn to talk and walk, and then 10 years later we are able to read competently and understand material we previously couldn't have. We develop the ability to create, to advance ourselves. Why is it strange to comprehend a machine doing this? In my eyes IT is still in it's early stage - a juvenile, if you will. There is much more that will be developed, and soon we will start to see this in our daily lives as technology moves at faster and faster rates.

Play 2: eXiztenZ

This week we take a look at David Cronenberg's eXistenZ (1999), it's important to note that the release of the film was set firmly in the shadow of the Matrix, and even though it was widely considered a financial failure and imitation, it does in fact provide us with just as much stimulating material as the Matrix - Essentially they deal with the same subject, the immersion of the self into a computerized world/program.

When reading Lia Hitchkiss' article "Still in the game: [...]", what struck me was the very beginning Cronenberg quote " he look[s] at each film as sort of a lab experiment". This is very true of eX as the film centres around the release of a new game - an experiment. Furthermore the film features spheres of experimentation (e.g. Gas' station, The Pod surgery room, etc), this follows nicely with the notion of cyberspace; essentially being a sub-genre of experimentation whereby humans use technology to advance themselves for better, and as displayed in eX, can also produce very negative effects on mankind.

One prop in eX that I found rather odd is the use of biological technology, the bone gun (which I came to the conclusion that it represents the true nature of the human race, that we will at every opportunity use technology to do acts of evil - the firearm is a fantastic example of technology being used in acts of violence). The Game Pod is an innovative way to connect the biological with the electronic, it represents a primitive form of nanotechnology as users nervous system is calibrated with this strange ugly fleshy pod. The 'umby' cord that connects symbolizes the real human biological tissue, the idea that we are connected to our mothers - and in fact gain our identities through this medium. Perhaps Cronenberg wanted to make a link between the womb (our unconscious environment, and a VR world; whereby we are 'unconscious' so to speak to the real world). He offers us the idea that once again in order to change our identities (to immerse ourselves in an avatar based game world) we must re-connect to the 'mother', "eXistenZ situates itself within the guardedly optimistic critiques of cyberculture whose excitement over electronic technology's potential to reshape identity [...] not only neurally but ethically". The potential to reshape our identities and live a life we want through our avatars (as explained wonderfully by the character Gas - played by Willem Defoe), brings with it excitement but also vulnerability. This is true of many technologies that leave amazed and advantaged yet in some ways left vulnerable - for example, question yourself, how dependent am I on my cell phone? If every cell phone in the world was taken away suddenly would the western world be able to function the same? imagine what we would lose and vulnerable to?

eX has a somewhat cruder method than what was present in the Matrix whereby a slick neck-spike was utilized, this may be a reason for it's lack of success; the film is creative and controversial but lacks finesse. Technology usage in eX is very masculine and sexualized, for example the penetration of the pod into the back; it's alarmingly true of many cyberspace technologies; whereby users must somehow penetrate themselves with the technology; Demolition Man (1993) does however present an opposing viewpoint; instead of being penetrated, the user must wear a helmet to in fact restrict any form of penetration, S. Bullock then reinforces this with her dialogue on AIDS etc. One could look back at eXistenZ and make a connection between that line and J. Laws' worried dialogue parts on port infection; there is an interesting concern that both films display over infection and mutation regarding penetrative technologies.

I personally found the film difficult to follow in the fact that we were, through the cycle of scenes, being challenged over what is real and what isn't. Even though this was very effective in challenging the viewer through what we deem to be real, narratively it felt disconnected at times. However eX does effectively show the dystopian (in terms of the breakdown of social behavior) impact of living in a continually more dissociated society, the assassins at the end succeed in their plan in an attempt to rid the world of the 'evil' of this alternative game world phenomenon. I found the article by Lia Hitchkiss to be very stimulating and provided many interesting thoughts on Cronenberg's works, which I deem to be a staple diet for the cyberspace junky. Even though eXistenZ was by large a faulted film, it should not be passed up as inferior or lacking in stimulating material, even though the sight of the game pods makes me physically nauseous, I do however consider it to be very clever in the context of birth and the human comprehension of thew real.