Cyborgs and the posthuman future

Expansion of human capabilities through technology

Source: Google Images

Cyborg = Cybernetic Organism

Organism (natural)• Complex, inflexible feedback loop• Too much change – organism will die

Cybernetic (artificial)• Flexible feedback loop• Responsive to stimuli,

able to adapt to surviveWhat does it mean

to be human?

Metropolis (1927)• Maschinenmensch (German for ‘machine-human’)• Given human appearance to deceive others• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DukMPx6Fn_c

Source: http://www.putlearningfirst.com/br/grape/metromaria2.jpg

The Terminator (1984)

• Fear of artificial intelligencegaining agency and posinga threat to the human race

• Part machine (internal artificial, enhanced endoskeleton)

• Part human (outer (organic external casing)

Blade Runner (1982)• Replicants are cyborgs with advanced intellect,

emotions and human appearance• Protagonist questions differences between

androids and humans

Source: http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/560-blade-runner.jpg

Battlestar Galactica (2004)

• Cylons – part machine (internal robotic structure), part human (humanoid appearance)

• Raises philosophical and moral questions

Li Wei

Wires, acrobatics and other tricks to make people appear to defy gravity

Subjects reach beyond the limitations of science and the body

Stelarc – “augmenting the body’s architecture”

• Seeks to free body from gravity• Augmentation of body – ear on

arm project, extending body beyond boundaries of skin and physical space

“What becomes important now is not merely the body's identity,

but its connectivity – not its mobility or location, but its

interface.”Source: http://v2.stelarc.org/projects/earonarm/index.html

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 is marked as superior

MAN

NATURE

HUMAN

WOMAN

CULTURE

NON-HUMAN

Donna Haraway‘The Cyborg Manifesto’

• 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 Western origin myths – especially in terms of gender

• Existence on the boundaries of human and machine – introduces fluidity and playfulness in enactment of identity

Hierarchal Systems of Domination

Informatics of Domination

Informatics of Domination• Natural processes and systems are codified and

standardised within a system “in which all resistance to instrumental control has disappeared and all heterogeneity can be submitted to disassembly, reassembly, investment and exchange” (Haraway 1991, 164).

• Cyborg politics resist attempts to unify and control human experience with a common, operational language.

Eg. coding of the human genome reduces the complex make-up of humans down to their DNA.

The posthuman future• Displacement of human beings from position of

superiority in Western thought• We are attached to miniature, ubiquitous computing

devices that augment our abilities every day.• No longer simple to contrast human with non-human

Manuel de Landa• Rejection of linear narratives of history• Humans do not overdetermine trajectory of events:

critical moments emerge from self-organisation of matter and energy

Sadie Plant• Rejection of meta-narratives• Cross-referencing historical footnotes to understand

contribution from lesser-known voices – particularly women in computer science

N. Katherine Hayles

• Bodies defined by presence/absence – undermined by patterns/randomness in information flows in networks

• Bodies collective networks of information, no longer sites of social stability

• Cyborgs help us understand dispersal of bodies within networks – subject to change and manipulation through cybernetics

• Is it important to connect with the ‘natural’ world without the influence of technology? Or is this an idealistic view of a world long gone?

• Can you think of some examples to support Haraway’s argument that the cyborg is a potential site of resistance to Western systems of organisation and control?

• Do you agree with the ‘posthuman’ idea that the cyborg will displace the superiority of the human

in the trajectory of history?

• “We are all cyborgs”. Agree or disagree ?