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.