Arin 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Cyborgs

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

What is a cyborg? • Cyborg = 'cybernetic organism’ • Term coined by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline in 1960 to describe a lab rat with an osmotic pump programmed to dispense chemicals • an animal-machine hybrid entity that is part biological/organic and part machine

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Cybernetics - Norbert Wiener • “Cybernetics”studies organization, communication and control in complex systems by focusing on circular (feedback) mechanisms • Cybernetics is an interdisciplinary science that studies human and machine systems including: electrical engineering, biology, neurophysiology, computer science, anthropology, and psychology •

Sources: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBERN.html http://www.hyperdictionary.com

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Cybernetics - Norbert Wiener • Cybernetics aims to understand the similarities and differences in internal workings of organic and machine processes (action - feedback - response) and, by formulating abstract concepts common to all systems, to understand their behaviour. • Example: thermoregulation in humans and machines • Sources: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBERN.html http://www.hyperdictionary.com ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Cybernetics: Humans and Machines • In cybernetics, machines, organisms and many other types of systems are said to be analogous or 'isomorphic'. • This means that they are, in principle, the same - they function or behave in fundamentally the same way with respect to processes and feedback.

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Cybernetic Equation: Human = Machine • Computers are often imbued with human or biological qualities. (e.g. computers ‘think’, have ‘memory’, get ‘viruses’, etc) • Similarly, human processes are often seen analogous to computer processes. • e.g. we talk about humans being ‘programmed’ to act or behave in a certain way (programmed by our parents, culture, education etc) • DNA is described as being analagous to a computer program • Hardware (computer) - Software - Wetware (human)

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Cybernetic Equation: Human = Machine • This type of isomorphism can be dangerous if followed through to the conclusion that human processes are identical to machine processes and that human beings can be treated in the same way as machines. • [e.g. Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, Taylorism etc]

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

• In The Human Uses of Human Beings (1948), Norbert Wiener refers to the 'cybernation' of the world and his fear that that this would lead to a dehumanisation of human beings (e.g. automation replacing human jobs and humans being treated as just a cog in the machine) • According to Wiener we must consider the social dimensions of cybernetic systems and make sure that these systems are designed with human use in mind and for the benefit of humans.

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Who are cyborgs?

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Everyday human/machine cyborgs • Human life in the 21st century involves a close relationship with a myriad of technologies that we are finding it increasingly difficult to live without e.g. computers, phones, cameras, cars, television etc) • Computer systems link humans and machines in cybernetic feedback loops • This is the broadest possible definition of the cyborg ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Bio-medical Cyborgs • Cyborg technologies used to replace lost or impaired biological functions • Pacemakers • Artificial hips and other joints • Prosthetic limbs • Cochlear implants • Artificial skin and other organs ‘The elderly in society are becoming the first cyborgs’ ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Bio-medical Cyborgs • humans/animals born as a result of reproductive technologies including genetic engineering • pharmacological cyborgs - drugs used to optimise or enhance normal biological functions eg. sports medicine • Cosmetic surgery

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Examples of Cyborgs • Cyborg technologies used to amplify and extend human capacities • For example, the kinds of melding of machine and human that we see in VR technologies (eg fighter pilot training) • Telepresence technologies

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

The Cyborg and the Posthuman • Cyborg discourses are linked with the concept of the posthuman. • Our cyborg technologies are giving us the capacity to intervene in our own evolution both through technological augmentation and genetic engineering. • The re-design of the human is leading us into the realms of the posthuman and its associated unstable boundaries and shifting identities. ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

The cyborg crosses boundaries • The cyborg signposts the fact that the distinctions between machine/human no longer hold. The cyborg blurs boundaries between: • • • • •

Living Organic Natural Body Human

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Non-living Inorganic Artificial Machine Non-human

What do the theorists say? Marshall McLuhan "All media are extensions of some human faculty - physic or physical.” McHugh (quoted in Gray reading) "Soon perhaps, it will be impossible to tell where human ends and machines begin."

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

What do the theorists say? Donna Haraway "We are all cyborgs." Figuratively, we are "living through a movement from an organic, industrial society to [society as] an ...information system". [i.e. humans are being re-crafted by biological and communications technologies.]

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

What do the theorists say? futurologist Alvin Toffler: “…soon, miniaturised computers "will not only be implanted to compensate for some physical defect but eventually will be implanted to enhance human capability. The line between human and computer at some point will become completely blurred.”

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

What do the theorists say? N. Katherine Hayles According to Hayles we are moving from the humanmachine hyphen where the human is connected to the machine, to the human/machine splice where the human and the machine extend into each other and there is no clearly distinguishable boundary between them.

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first Bionic man.Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better . . . stronger . . . faster.

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Steve Mann •Steve Mann has been working on wearable computing technologies since the 1970s •Developed WearComp and WearCam technologies Image source: http://wearcam.org/index.html

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

•Worked at MIT from 1991 (→ seed ideas for Wearable Computing Group). Now works at University of Toronto.

Kevin Warwick Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, UK, has implanted computer chips into his arm allowing him to communicate with a computer. Image Source: http://www.kevinwarwick.com/

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Cyborgs in art: Stelarc • performance artist Stelarc has used technology in a variety of ways to amplify and extend his physical body

“The Third Hand” Image source: http://www.stelarc.va.com.au

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Stelarc • It is no longer a matter of perpetuating the human species by reproduction but of enhancing the individual by redesigning. Male female intercourse is replaced by human machine interface...We are at the end of human physiology.

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Stelarc • “It is time the question whether a bipedal [two legged], breathing body with binocular vision and a 1400 cc brain us an adequate biological form. It cannot cope with the...information it has accumulated. The most significant planetary pressure is no longer the gravitational pull but the information thrust. Gravity has moulded the evolved body in shape and structure and contained it on the planet. Information [technology] propels the body beyond itself and its biosphere. Information fashions the form and function of the post evolutionary body” (quoted in Dery 161)

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Stelarc • ...altering the architecture of the body [allows it to be] amplified and accelerated, attaining planetary escape velocity. It becomes a post-evolutionary projectile.

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Stelarc - Movatar

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Image source: http://www.stelarc.va.com.au

Stelarc - Extra Ear

Image source: http://www.stelarc.va.com.au

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Stelarc - Prosthetic Head

Image source: http://www.stelarc.va.com.au

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Patricia Piccinini Patricia Piccinini’s art comments on new biotechnologies such as genetic engineering, cloning and stem cell research

“SO2” (Synthetic Organism 2) Image source: http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Patricia Piccinini

Image from “TMGP” (The Mutant Genome Project) Image source: http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/ ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Patricia Piccinini

“We Are Family” Series - ”Game Boys Advanced” Image source: http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/ ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Patricia Piccinini

“We Are Family” Series - ”Still Life with Stem Cells” Image source: http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Patricia Piccinini

“Protein Lattice, 1997” Image source: http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/ ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Patricia Piccinini

“We Are Family” Series - ”The Young Family” Image source: http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/ ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Film example: Robocop Robocop, 1987, dir: Paul Verhoeven • The narrative is set in a near future Detroit. • Law enforcement has been privatised — taken over by the corporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP). • OCP is developing a new cyborg police officer called the “Robocop” - part human, part machine. • The robocop cyborg is build using the body of a police officer (Murphy) who is declared ‘dead’ after being severely injured in the line of duty. ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Robocop - central themes Dehumanisation threatened by the advent of the cyborg • The human is viewed as a product • Murphy’s memory is wiped so he can be re-programmed • Murphy is owned by the corporation OCP Reassertion of human identity despite technological transformations • Murphy re-asserts his human identity by reclaiming his human memories and human relationships ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

Terminator 2: Judgement Day • Terminator 2: Judgement Day,1991, dir. James Cameron Theme - the humanisation of the machine • The terminator ‘learns’ human values

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

References In ARIN 1000 Reader • •

Featherstone, M. and Burrows, R. (eds.), (1995) Cyberspace, Cyberbodies, Cyberpunk, London: Sage. (Definition of cyborg) Dery, M. (1996) ‘Cyborging the Body Politic’, in Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century, London: Hodder and Stoughton. Excerpts.

Websites • • • • • •

Principia Cybernetica Web- http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBERN.html Hyperdictionary - http://www.hyperdictionary.com Steve Mann - http://wearcam.org/index.html Patricia Piccinini - http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/ Kevin Warwick - http://www.kevinwarwick.com Stelarc - http://www.stelarc.va.com.au

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland

References Additional Readings in Fisher Reserve • • • • • • • •

•

Gray, C. H. (ed), (1995), ‘Introduction’, in The Cyborg Handbook, London: Routledge. Gray, C. H. (2001) Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age, New York: Routledge. Haraway, D. ‘Foreword’, in Chris Hables Gray (ed), (1995) The Cyborg Handbook, London: Routledge. Haraway, D. (1991) ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs’, in Simians, Cyborgs and Women, London: Free Association Books. Murphie, A. and Potts, J. (2003) Culture and Technology, Basingstoke: Palgrave. See Chapter 5 ”Cyborgs: the Body, Information and Technology”. Springer, C. (1996) ‘Muscular Circuitry’, in Electronic Eros: Bodies and Desire in the Postindustrial Age, University of Texas Press. Telotte, J. P. (1995) ‘Life at the Horizon: The Tremulous Public Body’, and ‘The Exposed Modern Body: Terminator and Terminator 2’, in Telotte, J. P. (1995) Replications: A Robotic History of the Science Fiction Film, University of Illinois Press. Tofts, D. et al (eds.) (2002) Prefiguring Cyberculture: an intellectual history, Sydney: Power Publications; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT.

ARIN 1000 Week 11 - Kathy Cleland