Frankenstein Webliography

From Frankenstein to the Visible Human Project, the body is continually reinterpreted as a limit to what it means to be human.

Feminists and technology theorists have continually redefined the body, alternatively accepting, hiding and controlling it. While some hope to embrace the entire body, others aim to control or even transcend it. The result is a continuing redefinition of the self and human identity. In discussing this area, we can draw upon a range of credible articles debating the future of the body and the motivations behind these redefinitions.

A useful point at which to begin exploring the psychological relationship that we have to our bodies is provided by Goldenberg et. al. [1] The authors use Terror Management Theory to suggest that changing, reinterpreting and hiding the body is what makes us human. Adopting Cartesian dualism, humans have consistently privileged the mind over the body in an attempt to distance ourselves from the vessel that is subject to death and decay, thus reminding us of our mortality. Additionally, most cultures place controls and regulations on the body, positioning it as a reification of beauty, spirituality and other abstract concepts. By adopting these cultural practices, the authors suggest, the human body becomes dissociated from other animal bodies, relieving us of our anxieties about our own mortality. One result of this is a stigmatisation of those whose bodies do not conform, who exhibit a lack of control and remind us of mortality. The other, suggest the authors, is that in rejecting our bodies we lose half of our identity as humans.

Shelley Jackson’s hypertext novel Patchwork Girl tells the story of Frankenstein’s female Creature, who is reanimated by Mary Shelley. In her speech ‘Stitch Bitch,’ [2] Jackson critically explores her work and explains how the narrative rejects society’s obsession with control and regulation of the body. Patchwork Girl normalises the self-as-assemblage, as the Creature is created from a variety of corpses, including that of a cow. ‘The body is a patchwork, though the stitches may not show,’ argues Jackson. [3] Indeed, she aims to reinstate the banished body and all its contradictions. In creating a new, multiple subjectivity, Jackson redefines the self:

I don’t want to lose the self, only to strip it of its claim to naturalness, its compulsion to protect its boundaries, its obsession with wholeness and its fear of infection. [4]

In embracing the body, Jackson aims to end marginalisation and reclaim our place as organic cyborgs, complete with mortality. In a similar vein to Mary Shelley before her, Jackson reinterprets the body as a limit to being human: the body is our strength and our weakness, not simply a vessel that we must strictly control.

In ‘Flickering Connectivities’ [5] Katherine Hayles provides further insight into Jackson’s claim that ‘Hypertext is the banished body.’ [6] Using medium theory, Hayles suggests that the hypertext medium demands cyborg reading practices by distributing cognition, and meaning making, between the author, designer, reader and computer. Further, the nature of digital texts allows easy copying, distribution and transformation, blurring identities of ownership and authorship. ‘Boundaries of texts are like boundaries of bodies,’ asserts Jackson, ‘and both stand in for the confusing and invisible boundary of the self.’ [7] Hypertext is not cohesive, sequential and unitary; rather, it overflows with choices and meaning. Similarly, the body is permeable and open to alteration. Hayles’ commentary provides a pertinent analysis of feminist reinterpretations of the body in the digital age. Jackson’s removing of these boundaries and limits on the body, Hayles suggests, will allow us to embrace our entire human identity.

Catherine Waldby’s analysis of the Visible Human Project (VHP) presents the body as moving in a different direction from that envisioned by Jackson and Hayles. [8] The scientific project scanned the bodies of two corpses, recreating them as digital code and virtual corpses. The result, contends Waldby, is greater control of the body and mortality. Because the bodies are built from binary code, they can be subjected to unlimited manipulation, allowing scientists to analyse the processes of life.

Unlike Dr. Frankenstein, who must suture together mismatched body parts in the clumsy world of physical space and material bodies, the VHP can clearly dismember and re-member its virtual bodies with a flick of the cursor. [9]

While the body is still not entirely banished, medical scientists have been able to use reproduction and simulation to overcome the barrier of death. Baudrillard argues that simulations make the real over in their own image. Waldby thus claims that the VHP allows scientists to make real flesh conform to the virtual model of the perfect, healthy body. Waldby’s article is enlightening when juxtaposed against Jackson and Hayles. Taking an opposing stance, Waldby pursues a vision of control over the body through technology.

Richardson and Harper provide a discussion of the body in cyberspace in ‘Corporeal Virtuality.’ [10] While some theorists present cyberspace as a Utopia, free from race, class, gender or bodily limitations, Richardson and Harper disagree. Instead, they use phenomenology to argue that our consciousness, perception and body are intrinsically linked, resulting in our corporeal schema. The way in which we perceive things is linked to our bodies. Our bodies, however, will adjust to, and include, modifications. Just as a blind man’s stick becomes part of his corporeal schema, technology will become part of ours. Virtual reality is reliant upon the body’s experience; cyberspace doesn’t lose the body, it just provides a new kind of embodiment. This is a useful alternative perspective on the role of the body in cyberspace; the body may be changed, but it is certainly not redundant.

The body has continually been reinterpreted as a limit to what it means to be human. In the digital age, this reinterpretation has taken divergent paths. Jackson and Hayles embrace the possibilities of the body and hypertext. Releasing the body from regulations will allow us to be truly human, they argue. In contrast, the Visible Human Project provides the means to further control our bodies. Here, being human is about transcending immortality. It appears that the future of the body is in our hands.

Notes

[1] Goldenberg, Jamie L., Tom Pyszczynski, Jeff Greenberg & Sheldon Solomon (2000) ‘Fleeing the Body: A Terror Management Perspective on the Problem of Human Corporeality.’ Personality and Social Psychology Review. 4 (3) pp. 200-218 http://psr.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/4/3/200 (accessed 22 August 2008)

[2] Shelley Jackson (4 November 1997) ‘Stitch Bitch: the patchwork girl.’ http://web.mit.edu/m-i-t/articles/index_jackson.html (accessed 22 August 2008)

[3] ibid.

[4] ibid.

[5] Katherine Hayles (2000) ‘Flickering Connectivities in Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis.’ http://www.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/text-only/issue.100/10.2hayles.txt (accessed 22 August 2008)

[6] Jackson, op. cit.

[7] ibid.

[8] Catherine Waldby (1996) ‘The Visible Human Project: Data into Flesh, Flesh into Data.’ http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/Readingroom/VID/wildbiol1.html (accessed 18 August 2008)

[9] ibid..

[10] Ingrid Richardson & Carly Harper (post-2000) ‘Corporeal Virtuality: The Impossibility of a Fleshless Ontology.’ http://wwwmmc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/VID/corporeal.html (accessed 18 August 2008)