JenniCAM

After reading about JenniCAM, here are a few thoughts…

The JenniCAM website can be seen as an extension of women’s magazines. Some theorists have seen these as blurring the public/private dichotomy by bringing traditionally domestic areas (cooking, fashion, family) into the public sphere. Some feminists argued that this was empowering by giving the feminine sphere legitimacy. Others, however, felt that these magazines simply reinforced stereotypical gender constructions, making it harder for women to break into the traditional public spheres of politics, law and “hard” issues.

To me, the JenniCAM site reflects the same dilemmas. In criticising the site, are we maintaining that the feminine, domestic and physical bodies belong only in the private sphere? Or in endorsing the site, are we accepting that the major role for women is related to the domestic and sexualised embodiment? The reality is that each user will bring their own meaning to the site; if users intend it to be, then it can be seen as surveillance or pornography. Others might read it as artistic or empowering. To me, the fact that Jenni is in control is important. Thus while it might be banal, I’m still reluctant to criticise the site.

What does everyone else think?

Workshop Response to Menu-Driven Identities

Question 1.
The very first step when signing up for Second Life is to choose your avatar. The website is structured so that the online representation comes before the mundane and necessary real life details (such as date of birth and gender). Gender, skin colour and age varies amongst the Avatars, however there appears to be no Asian or elderly representations. The “More…” section located underneath the Avatars reassures the prospective users that “You will always be able to change the look of your avatar” whether it be gender, skin colour or shape. The structure of the sign up page assumes that users are desperate to change their appearance and escape from the reality of the everyday.

Question 2.
The sign up page on the lavalife website features an attractive, young, heterosexual, Caucasian couple. However the site itself caters for people of varying ages, races and sexual orientations. Information such as age, height, ethnicity and religion are used to construct the user’s identity. It is assumed that these details will assist people in determining whether they are compatible with someone.

Workshop: Menu-Driven Identities

Question One: Hotmail and Yahoo! request the user’s full name, country, gender and date of birth. However, they only provide a set list of choices, thus making many assumptions about their users’ identities. ‘Country’ doesn’t include non-territorial options, such as for the Roma people, and those with non-specific genders are ignored. Similarly, there is no option for those who do not know their date of birth (like those who had their birth certificates confiscated by authoritarian governments). While Second Life allows you to choose an avatar, it still wishes to know your real-world details. Of course, this information is invaluable for targeted advertising.

Question Two: Lavalife

Lavalife profiles use categories that Lavalife thinks singles would consider important, such as age and religion. Again, these categories are also important for advertisers. The categories seem to offer few choices; for example, body types were slim, average, few extra pounds, fit and muscular. Importantly, however, there is a space for users to write about themselves, while many choose ‘prefer not to say’ for some categories, relegating the importance of these aspects in some way.

Workshop to menu-driven identities

participant: Joanna

Q1. Categories available are name, country, gender and DOB. The presumptions that these categories make about the users can be seen in the advertising that would be sent to each member. Knowing a member is a woman of a certain age and nationality, they can tailor their advertising directly to that member, and as time progresses and they learn more about the member, then the advertising can become more personalised.

Q4. I think the secondlife website is inherently racist as the avatars available are so limited. I haven’t played secondlife, but I’m guessing that “starting look” means you can later alter how your avatar looks, but assuming that the people who join are only either slim young white/black male or slim, young white/black female is not only inherently racist, but also ageist and sizeist. There are so many other possible ways people can look and the options are just not there. They are also assuming that this is how we want to look, and provides an excellent example of the fact that even on the internet you have to look a certain way to be socially acceptable.

My webliography- sorry it's so late!

Webliography: Question 3

Donna Haraway’s figure of the cyborg has been reproduced and reinterpreted through a range of different mediums and genres since it was first introduced in the 1980’s. Although this is the case, the figure of the cyborg isn’t limited to Haraway’s definition; numerous feminist writers such as Anne Balsamo and Chela Sandoval have contributed to discussions about ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ and concepts such as cyborg feminism. Through the five articles I’ve located, a vast range of viewpoints have been explored in regards to whether the figure of the cyborg contributes to the emancipation of women in terms of science and technology. Furthermore, many writers argue that the interpretation of the cyborg in popular culture, science fiction and academic writing detracts from this concept and prevents empowerment. The five articles I’ve located present a perfect array of perspectives in regards to the figure of the cyborg and its adaptation beyond ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’.

The first article by Joan Blauwkamp and Nicole Krassas would be an excellent starting point in answering the question at hand. The article begins by touching on Haraway’s definition of a cyborg, a ‘cybernetic organism, combining biological and mechanical parts’. By touching on Haraway’s definition of a cyborg, I would attain the necessary background information in order to conduct a comparative discussion. The article then presents an array of interpretations of the figure of the cyborg by feminist writers such as Jennifer Gonzalez. According to Gonzalez, the cyborg in popular culture cannot be considered an opportunity for emancipation; rather, the cyborg erases differences between genders. Furthermore, the opinions of Jenny Wolmark and Anne Balsamo are expressed. The article also presents numerous in depth case studies such as an analysis of Dana Scully from the X Files, as well as analyses of cyborgs in Marge Piercy’s novel He, She, and It, and two Star Trek series, ‘The Next Generation’ and ‘Voyager’. Overall, the article serves to challenge Haraway’s claims. Through presenting case studies and alluding to other feminist writers’ perspectives, the article suggests that the figure of the cyborg is concerning, that it fortifies gender boundaries rather than breaks them. Being an online source, it is important to address the reliability of this paper. The article was located on an academic database and it states that the article was to be presented at an annual meeting of The Midwest Political Science Association in 2006. Due to its scholarly nature, the paper would be useful in answering the question, however one would need to be wary of evidence of bias. Furthermore we know nothing about the authors and their academic credentials so we should be especially discerning when reading the article.

The second source by Anne Balsamo takes my research a step further. Balsamo’s novel, a limited version published online via Google Books, provides a theoretical analysis of the body, the way it can be ‘represented according to broader cultural determinations’ and the way in which the body ‘becomes a bearer of signs and cultural meaning’. Balsamo cites numerous anthropologists and philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Bryan Turner, Mary Douglas and Marcel Mauss. Douglas offers an excellent argument when addressing the gendered body and its construction in culture, stating that the body and its social dimension are intrinsically bound. Balsamo then continues to address Haraway’s ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs’ and the challenging task of reading cyborgs. The article concludes with Balsamo citing Andrea Huyssen, who claims that ‘the crisis of modernism pivots on the problematic of otherness’ and agrees with Haraway, that cyborgs are particularly emblematic of postmodern identity. Although the limited online version of Balsamo’s novel doesn’t focus on Haraway’s figure of the cyborg, I still find it useful in attaining a deeper understanding of traditional representations of the gendered body and its relationship with culture, identity and technology. In answering the essay question I would endeavour to read the entire novel for a more specific focus on the figure of the cyborg. Due to the online article being a limited version of a novel, and written by a well-known feminist writer, I trust the source’s credibility.

The third article, a limited, online version of a novel by Chela Sandoval, shows another way in which feminists have taken up the figure of the cyborg. The article makes a comparison between Haraway’s cyberfeminist theoretical framework and ‘technologies and techniques from U.S third world cultural forms’, such as ‘women of colour’ and ‘mestizajie’, people of European and Native American origin who adapt to live in Latin America. The article compares feminists of colour as keeping intact ‘shifting and multiple identities’ and cyborgs, similarly as ‘resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy and perversity’. Sandoval refers to Haraway’s use of the term ‘joint kinship’ as ‘analogous to that called for in contemporary indigenous writings’. Further comparisons are made between traditionally oppressed and marginalised groups such as women of colour and Haraway’s figure of the cyborg. I found this article interesting as it presented a completely different take on cyberfeminism and Haraway’s theoretical framework. Similarly with the previous article I addressed, in answering the essay question I would seek to read the entire novel to attain a better understanding of Sandoval’s comparisons. Furthermore, being an online version of a published text by a reputable publishing house, I believe the source to be credible and relevant.

My fourth chosen paper addresses the way in which cyberfeminism can be expressed as a ‘risk’. I chose this article as I appreciated its local, modern take on the subject of Haraway’s figure of the cyborg. Numerous Australian writers are cited such as Susan Luckman. The article stresses the importance of risk taking for women when interacting with technology, and highlights the successes of risk taking hypertext writers such as Teri Hoskin and Melinda Rackham. The article also suggests that the risk in cyberfeminism is the ‘construction and power of women, as the core value of feminism’ being endangered. Furthermore, the article states that in the ‘context of feminism or cyberfeminism, the risks taken by women do not allude to mastery or consolidation, but to transformation and re-evaluation’. Although this article is relevant on a local level, it is not particularly reliable. No mention of the author is made or the author’s credentials. Furthermore, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where this article has come from. All that I could gather was that it came from an Australian website called ‘Flytrap’, which hosts a range of other academic articles on a range of technology related topics. The information presented in this article, whilst useful and local, cannot be valued as highly as my other scholarly articles.

My final article, written by Francesca Myman, is an in depth case study of the figure of the cyborg in the 1927 film, Metropolis. The article serves as a critique of the sexualisation of the female robot Maria. Here, the reader can see the way in which the female cyborg was represented in the 1920s, before the term cyborg came to fruition. Myman states that the nature of the robot ‘casts a negative light on the general cultural construction of the femme fatale’. My final article presents a useful, in-depth study of the figure of a cyborg before Haraway introduced the term, and the way in which a modern feminist writer has interpreted this figure. Although this is the case, the credibility of the article is perplexing, it appears the article is off the author’s private website. With no mention of credentials or purpose for writing the piece, we once again must be discerning when reading and using the information.
In conclusion, the five articles I chose gave me a range of viewpoints in regards to the adaptation of the figure of the cyborg beyond Haraway’s ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs’. Due to the articles’ online nature, it was important to be discerning when analysing their content.

Cyberstalking- Gender and Computer Ethics

Summary:
This article argues that the application of feminist theory would be beneficial to the "newly emerging discipline of computer ethics", resulting in an increased understanding of both women's and men's experiences of 'cyberstalking'. The article seeks to explore how computer ethics has responded to "new social and ethical dilemmas" that have resulted from the widespread adaptation of information and communication technologies.

Through her article Alison Adam strongly argues that the inclusion of feminist theory would counter the technological determinism inherent in current views of computer ethics which suggest that computer ethics are siginificantly different from other technologies. Further to this, her argument suggests that feminist ethics can be used to understand computer ethics problems such as the "emergence of cyberstalking" and the extreme forms of harassment on the internet.

This approach to understanding computer ethics argues that the biggest imbalance that exists in the use of information and communications technologies is the difference between men's and women's access to and usage of computers. Through this argument the author suggests that a feminist approach to computer ethics could create "gender-equal ethics, a moral theory that generates non-sexist moral principles, policies and practices".

The new feminist approach is then used to consider online sexual harassment, describing it as "unwanted explicit attention which can be applied by men and women." However, the article then goes on to claim that online sexual harassment is generally the behaviour of men, as a direct result of a society where power relationships put men into superior positions.

Adam uses three examples of cyber-stalking in her article to suggest that cyberstalking incidents merely mirror the harassment experienced by women in the 'real world'. In the cases of Jayne Hitchcock, Stephanie Brail and an unidentified women, men obtained the individual's details and posted them online. Far from advocating the need for the introduction of feminist theory into computer ethics, these cases seem to be simply an expression of the innocence and naivity of computer users in the 1990s.

The article highlights the fact that, whilst both men and women can be victims of stalking and cyberstalking, the majority of reported cyberstalking cases involve women as victims and men as perpetrators. This clearly fails to achieve the identified goal of creating "gender-equal ethics". The article merely reverses the traditional views of computer ethics and does not provide a balanced argument.


Question
Do the views outlined in the article published by Alison Adam reflect the current situation in regards to online harrasment and cyberstalking or have changes in technological advances made this issue one of the past?

Question 2.

Source One [i]
“The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine”
This article written by Catherine Waldby seeks to explore how medicine’s biotechnical innovations are continuously manipulating the forces of life through the use of bioinformation. Furthermore, Waldby suggests to her readers that the well published concept of the biotechnological “Adam” and “Eve”, created by the Visible Human project has been used by many media sources to present audiences with the “new genesis”. The concept of the “ visible man” and the “ visible woman” have made science palatable for popular readership and have helped shift the focus of origin away from the domain of god/ religion towards that of mechanically conceived nature. According to the writings of Waldby, this technological transformation has ultimately resulted in the disablement of the user’s embodied identity and agency, setting about social change. The publication argues that there is a great confusion between “life” and the “illusion of life” as well as the reproduction of an image and the reproduction of life.
The publication is a balanced, well-researched paper that uses a number of reputable sources to establish its argument and possible counter-arguments. It explores how the creation of virtual identity has resulted in the change of social norms and understanding of identity and existence.
Source Two [ii]
Review of “The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine” by Stuart J Murry
This publication written by Stuart J Murry analyses Catherine Waldby’s “ The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Post-human Medicine” and agrees with her understanding of the notion that the Visible Human Project managed to create “Surrogate” for his actual body. Murry argues that the VHP is just one of many technological advancements that blur the line between the organic and mechanic and between the actual and virtual. This is demonstrated in the division between life and death which has become destabilised by the introduction of new technology which preserves life in situations where it would not have existed before. Through his argument Murry seeks to explore what a “life” or “subject” really is, thus highlighting Waldby’s argument that the distinction between nature and artifice are collapsing and flowing into each other. The newly created virtual world created by Waldby is argued t o be a place of subjective projection and identification where readers are introduced to the “posthuman” thought.

This article expands on writing of Waldby and it highlights her main arguments which are lost in the size and complex language of her publication. I believe that the source would be an ideal reference to identify the authenticity of her arguments and to support the notions being presented.

Source Three [iii]
“How BIOTECHNOLOGY is transforming WHAT we believe and how we LIVE.”
This article establishes how ongoing developments in technology have lead to a social change in the way that individuals identify their religion as well as their identity. The article claims that the introduction of new technologies has lead to changes in psychological and sociological aims. These changes are illustrated through the use of examples of technological developments which have influenced the way that individuals perceive certain elements of life. Primarily, changes in medical science such as the introduction of birth control pills in the early 1960s brought with it a growing acceptance of contraception and family planning, this in turn gave women more control over their bodies and gave the women’s movement a rise to social prominence. Notably, values regarding sex, family and population growth today are dramatically different as a result of the changes which resulted from the development in medical science. Furthermore, the development of the Pill has lead to the invention of subsequent technologies such as ultrasongraphy, which have themselves sparked greater social changes. Ultimately the article demonstrates that society as we know it today will change tomorrow as a result of the technologies assimilated into our culture today adding to the argument that the change in technology is constantly redefining what it means to be human




Source Four [iv]
Transcendental Philosophy and Artificial Life.

“The publication written by Gary Banham intends to establish a connection between artificial life and certain kinds of interpretation of the transcendental philosophy. The overall argument of the publication suggests that the underlying conceptual approaches to artificial life have serious deficiencies and that there is a connection between the project of artificial life and new interpretations of transcendental philosophy. Further to this the article provides its readers with some history of technology, however the main value of the article lies within its explanation of the processes undertaken in the creation of the Visible Human Project. I did not find this article of particular value as it was hard to read and understand and was not easily linked to the central topic. It is filled with complex theories and not enjoyable.

Source Five [v]
“Defining Life, Explaining Emergence”
This article utilises the current understanding that science has of “life” in order to fully apply the principles to the notion that a new form of life is emerging through the introduction of Artificial Intelligence. The source makes a specific argument that Artificial Life demonstrated that science can computationally imitate emergent processes of construction which are sources from nature as the creation of higher levels of organisations. Through this it is argued that something that can be constructed by the replication of the natural process should be able to be explained. The article provides a basic discussion on the current understanding that society has on the philosophy of life. The article was very useful as it discusses the principles underpinning society’s attempt to define life and its focuses on “A-life” as a desirable form of life educates the readers about the effect that technology is having on the understanding of life.


[i] Catherine Waldby, “Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine- Digital Eden and the reproduction of life.” Available from http://books.google.com.au/books?id=queDwq2Ac-YC&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=The+Visible+Human+Project+and+the+Reproduction+of+Life&source=web&ots=KeEow-rO5g&sig=UPj0oB4REMbfAoGHNpJuON7pxg0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result , accessed on 27th August 2008.

[ii] Stuart J Murry “ The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine” review, available from http://reconstruction.eserver.org/021/revVisibleHP.htm , accessed on 27th August 2008.

[iii] Fred Edwords, “ how BIOTECHNOLOGY is transforming WHAT we believe and how we LIVE” available from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_5_59/ai_55722249/pg_2?tag=artBody;col1 , accessed on 27th August 2008

[iv] Gary Banham, “ Transcendental Philosophy and Artificial life.” Available from http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Cmach/Backissues/j003/Articles/banham.htm accessed on 27th August 2008.

[v] Claus Emmeche , “Defining life, Explaining Emergence” available from http://www.nbi.dk/~emmeche/cePubl/97e.defLife.v3f.html#strategy accessed on 27th August 2008.

Webliography

“From Frankenstein to the Visible Human Project, the body is continually reinterpreted as a limit to what it means to be human.” The spaces the bodies in Mary Shelley’s 'Frankenstein' and the Visible Human project occupy, represent the human body differently and construct different limits about the definition of ‘humanness’. In order to address these issues, certain online resources will be useful.

In Robert Anderson’s article, ‘Body Parts That Matter: Frankenstein, or The Modern Cyborg,’ he focuses on the space Frankenstein’s monster occupies and equates the monster with the ‘cyborg’ as defined by Haraway, ‘a creature in a post-gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality, pre-oedipal symbiosis, unalienated labour…’ He talks about the monster’s engagement with borders and boundaries and argues that the border war between masculine and feminine gives us our politics. It is in this way that the representation of the monster as the ‘other’, within a space of blurred distinctions, allows us to understand what it means to be human in a Cartesian sense. We create a binary which defines what ‘is human’ by understanding what is ‘not human’ or ‘other’.

The material included in this online resource is very appropriate to the research being undertaken as it is quite detailed and refers to pivotal authors within the topic such as Donna Haraway. It was written in 1999 so it is relatively recent, and there is a list of sources provided within the site so that its perspectives and arguments may be further assessed or verified.

In Catherine Waldby’s article, ‘The Visible Human Project: Data into Flesh, Flesh into Data,’ she refers to the Visible Human Project, and focuses on the relationship between technology and the body as ‘one of the defining concerns of contemporary intellectual and ethical practice in both the sciences and the humanities.’ The body in this sense becomes an economy, and when referring to Braidotti, an analogy is made between this mathematicisation of the body and the realm of pornographic representation. Braidotti defines pornography as, ‘a system of representation that reinforces the commercial logic of the market economy.’ The body becomes a visual surface of exchangeable parts and is reduced to a ‘techno-economy’.

The ‘virtual space’ which the VHP (visible human project) occupies, allows programmers to have complete control over the human body and as Baudrillard argues, ‘make the real over in their own image, force its compliance’. This virtual simulation of the human body generalizes the body and presents a ‘perfect mathematical model’ of what the body should be, representing the body in a Cartesian sense as scientific and rational. It seems to define ‘humanness’ and the body as a perfectly mastered machine.

This online resource is extremely appropriate to the research being undertaken. It is very credible as at the time it was written (1996), Waldby was a professor within the Communications and Cultural Studies program at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia. She has also extensive publications in the areas of feminist theory, sexuality, social aspects of AIDS, and the biopolitics of medicine. The article is a draft for her book which could be a negative aspect as her thoughts may have changed between the draft and publishing of the finished product. The list of sources provided at the conclusion of the article are very useful and provide further information about the topic.

A second article by Waldby is, ‘Revenants: The Visible Human Project and the Digital Uncanny’. Here she focuses on the new biotechnologies such as the Visible Human Project which aim to make the living body more productive and manipulable. The body then becomes the object of terror and fascination, because there is a prosthetic enhancement through it’s invasion and vulnerability. Again this seems to represent the body as a ‘hard edged, incorruptible and well defined space, devoid of the visceral ambiguity and sticky body fluids of the fleshly, living body’ reducing it to the rationalistic, scientific body in the Cartesian sense. Humanness here is reduced to a mechanical existence, one which can be mapped and manipulated in a virtual space.

Waldby’s credentials make this work very reliable. It provides a very detailed discussion about the Visible Human project and it’s implications for feminism and representations of the body and thus incredibly appropriate to the kind of research being undertaken.

In Donna Haraway’s prolific work, ‘The Cyborg Manifesto’, she regards the Cyborg as creature of social reality and fiction. Her essay neither critiques nor celebrates cyborgs, but aims to unravel layers of meaning around their reality. She focuses on the deeply implicated concepts of nature and culture as neatly divisible fields. What we regard as ‘natural’ is dependant on the opposite category of what we regard as ‘not natural’. Language, gender and sexual practices are put into these categories. The idea of the Cyborg collapses notion that we can be natural, we are all cyborgs already and the gap between machine and human begins to close. Haraway’s work is very important in the way we define the body and humanness in that it reinterprets the Cartesian way of thinking in binaries. The binary of ‘human’ and ‘machine’ is blurred and the ‘Cyborg’ is considered an intrinsic part of who we are as humans, a defining factor of ‘humanness’.

Haraway’s work is very credible and is known as the essential essay championing ideas of the ‘cyborg’. It is extremely relevant to the research topic as it provides essential information about how the body has been reinterpreted and represented which is very important when discussing Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Visible Human Project. The online source is also credible because it is provided by the Stanford Education department which is a well known Tertiary education provider.

Finally, Jane Maree Maher’s ‘Feminism, Science, Rhetoric’ analyses works by other authors in relation to reproductive technologies and scientific pursuits and the way they impact upon representations of the body. She refers to works by Angela Wall in the journal ‘Wild Science’ and Wall’s examination of projects such as the Visible Human Project. Wild Science considers how science and embodied experience intersect. She focuses on the conformity of the contributors when they argue against the potential epistemological reductions that certain scientific methodologies will cause.

The online source is very credible as the author, Jane-Maree Maher teaches at the Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research at Monash University in Melbourne, a very reputable tertiary education provider, in the fields of women's studies, cultural studies and literary theory. It is also useful as by analyzing these other works, Maher provides the names of other authors who have published relevant work about this research topic however, because it is only an analysis is may not be detailed enough to use in it’s own right.

The human body has been constantly reinterpreted about what it means to be human. By looking at Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Visible human project, the shift in focus on the body as ‘natural’ and not ‘other’ in the Cartesian sense to a more unnatural body which may exist in a virtual space is evident. As Haraway writes in her essay, ‘The Cyborg Manifesto’, ‘we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.’

By Tatijana Vukic


References

Anderson, Robert W (1999) ‘ Body Parts That Matter: Frankenstein, or The Modern Cyborg?.’ http://www.womenwriters.net/editorials/anderson1.htm (accessed 28 August 2008)

Haraway, Donna (1991) ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.’ http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html (accessed 29 August 2008)

Maher, Jane-Maree ‘Feminism, Science, Rhetoric’ http://aspen.conncoll.edu/politicsandculture/page.cfm?key=104 (accessed 29 August 2008)

Waldby, Catherine (1996) ‘The Visible Human Project: Data into Flesh, Flesh into Data.’ http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/VID/wildbiol1.html (accessed 28 August 2008)

Waldby, Catherine (1996) ‘Revenants: The Visible Human Project and the Digital Uncanny.’ http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/VID/Uncanny.html (accessed 28 August 2008)

Tute Week 6 - Deborah Lupton "The Embodied Computer/User"

This week I'm writing about Deborah Lupton's article in the course reader.

I'm not sure of everyone else's reaction to the opening paragraph but I found it thoroughly contrived and desperately seeking personified analogies between the computer and humankind. Not to say that Lupton's observations are untrue; but they are certainly characteristic of most technology and definitely not limited to the computer.

Nowadays, many appliances and machines have faces, voices, smiles and sounds. Cars, fridges, microwaves, and in particular mobile phones are all prime examples. I think Lupton's opening argument is probably more suited to a generalised characterisation of modern technology and appliances than to the computer specifically. The aspect of feeling the computer as an extension of the self goes likewise for most ergonomic technology. A knife or fork for example feels as much like an extension of the body as a computer keyboard (and similarly allows the completion of tasks in shorter time and with more success than without the technology - imagine carving a roast with your bare hands...).

As for involving oneself emotionally with a piece of technology (or indeed any inanimate object) the computer is really no different to those other technologies I mentioned earlier (in particular the mobile phone and car) although we might also include photocopiers, vending machines, ATMs, uni-card autoloaders...(all definitely high on the list of machines that cop a torrent of abuse when they disobey our commands or fail to respond). All of these are definitely dealt with emotionally when they don't work according to their specifications or are unable to assist us in our daily tasks, however, the communication ends there. We rarely thank a computer or phone or ATM for completing a task. We recognise that while a human has designed and constructed each piece of technology, no amount of thanks or praise of that particular machine can improve our service next time or make the machine 'feel' anything. While the computer may 'greet' Lupton with a 'cheerful sound' this interpretation of a mechanical process (obviously aimed at serving this idealised interaction) is merely a subversion of the true banality of daily routine.

Moving on, I disagree again with Lupton's characterisation of the computer - for what other appliance has not also been anthropomorphically portrayed and advertised?! Think of countless examples of cars being shown to have the human qualities of being able to predict behaviour, respond to changes in stimulus, and remember settings. I remember very clearly a long running advert where a man is shown to hug his beloved Mazda (and is berated by his wife for it: "Steve..!") before being hugged back by the little red vehicle! A similar degree of anthropomorphism occurs with whitegoods and mobile phones. It's merely a marketing strategy overanalysed by scholarly writers.

I'll post some more thoughts later but thought I'd leave off with a little video clip (the one on the right) to a song called "Computer Love" by band TZU from their album of the same name. (Not my usual taste in music but an amusing song and clip all the same...)

Assignment One

Question Two: “From Frankenstein to the Visible Human Project, the body is continually reinterpreted as a limit to what it means to be human” Discuss Critically.

My first reaction to this question was to take an in depth look at speculative fiction, not just Frankenstein but also stories such as, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The reason for this is a large portion of this genre consists of hypothetical investigations into how future technology, both external uses in the world around us, such extrapolations of computers and their use, and also invasive technology/techniques to the human such as the extension from pacemakers and artificial hearts to entire replacements of the human body. These books offer a unique insight into the future possibilities for the interpretations of what makes us human. After that I tried to research the meanings of current ‘real life’ phenomena that are changing our conception of what it means to be human, and how that relates to our perception of the human body and its interpretation in the current day. All of my research was done using Google scholar, through the UWA intranet (meaning some sites may only be gained with free access when using university computers, you however should not have to log in at any stage).

The first interesting article I discovered was Mark Mossman’s “Acts of Becoming: Autobiography, Frankenstein and the Postmodern Body”. The relevance comes as Mossman begins each of the first four paragraphs with “[m]y body is a postmodern text” The young English professor starts his writing about his disability, the sixteen operations he has undergone and how he is at the end stage of renal failure, and the issues of self-awareness in writing about himself as a text. More importantly as he goes, he discusses the attitudes of those around him, as his disability is not immediately obvious, and the change as their awareness grows about how he differs from the norm and how the students have to attempt to “account for the difference”, reconsidering their assumptions about the human body. Mossman goes on to tie this experience to his idea of a postmodern text by discussing it in conjunction with Frankenstein’s monster, and how when teaching, “[his students] claimed that the creature was not a ‘monster’; calling it one, was the whole problem”.

The second paper I found focused purely on Shelly’s work. Horror of a Split Conscience by Vrankova was a fascinating read, following Mossman’s article into the ideas of humanity and appearance, within the examples shown by Frankenstein’s monster. This monster, she says, is an outsider not dissimilar to Grendel in Beowulf; destined not to be part of society, due to his monstrous beginnings (through unnatural life in the former case, unholy lineage in the latter) causing a wretched appearance of the body, and thus being shunned by humanity. While Vrankova states that the creature “desires for friendship and envy”, its “horrid” appearance makes that an “inaccessible Paradise”, for society could not interpret the creature as human due to its body. She argues that Shelley treated the monster as very much human, using tactics such as symbolism as well as the eloquent speech of the monster to render his mind human, perhaps in an attempt to make the reader reconsider what exactly is human.

A preview of the book Retrofitting Blade Runner by Judith Kerman was also available online. This book consists of a collection of essays exploring both the movie and the original Philip K Dick novel, and investigates our perceptions of humanity, our treatment of “other people when they define them as not-human” and especially “humanity of the enemy”. These are important in Dick’s world creation, where all living things are treated with almost religious import, yet the artificial humans created are hunted down and killed without a second thought. Kerman, in her introduction, suggests that the story begs the question, “if human culture creates artificial life, does such life deserve to be embedded in the same ethical discourse which we apply to naturally evolved life, and especially human life?” This is a question worthy of analysis when considering the limitations of humanity.

A paper by K. Michael and M.G. Michael titled Micro chipping people: the rise of the electrophorus was the next text I thought would be suitable for analysis in this context. It discusses the implications of automatic identification (auto-ID), “the process of identifying a living or nonliving thing without direct human intervention… allowing automatic capture of data”. While currently we have separate devices such as ATM and identity cards, there is an increasing idea of making these more invasive, especially on the emerging idea of human implants to carry this information. While the article appears to have the aim of allaying privacy concerns and legal implications, it does state that “technology is increasingly becoming an extension of the human body”, raising the question: once these technologies are universally enforced, would the body no longer be interpreted as fully human, by society, should you be without them?

As my last reference, I found the text Lacerations: The Visible Human Project, Impossible Anatomies, and the Loss of Corporeal Comprehension by Eugene Thacker. This article, while initially focusing on the “revolution in medicine” that this project led to, goes onto explore how it changed our perceptions of the human body, not just by increasing our understanding of it. The text goes on to analyse the idea of “digital anatomy” and questions “is the body a cadaver?” and “in what sense can a ‘virtual’ body be said to exist?” An in depth analysis of this article brings us back to the idea of the postmodern body and, I think importantly for my essay, to critically consider whether we are currently reinterpreting the definition of the human body so that one can exist without physical form and still be human.

These would be five major online sources I would use in my critical analysis to write an essay about reinterpretations of the human body. These in no way cover the entire breadth of my argument, and I would like to have used more articles about speculative fiction’s interpretations; after all, there are millions of other ideas such as Neuromancer , not to mention other ideas that can be seen throughout our history, as our perception of body has changed.

This is posted without a bibliography in order to save space and prevent duplication of information. The full bibliography is on the hardcopy submitted.

What does it mean to be human?

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

My main tool in researching this subject was Google and although it returned many findings not all were valuable sources of information. I then turned my search towards Google Scholar using search phrases such as “Frankenstein human”, “Visible Human Project human”, “Frankenstein Visible Human Project humanity” and “Frankenstein human nature.” I found that Google Scholar brought up some findings but not as many as I had hoped therefore I returned to Google and once I had got past all the commercial sites I found some good pages with relevant information.

Robert W. Anderson’s Article, Body parts that matter: Frankenstein, or the Modern Cyborg? [1] talks about Frankenstein’s monster and how this “transgender man”[2] gives us a post-modernist view of the monster. The monster is constructed surgically and is shunned from society. In society today exactly the same applies to males who have become females through surgery and vice versa. This does not mean that these human beings are any less human because of alterations to their body – they still have the ability to think, act and feel the world around them. Anderson argues that “the monster is a man made gender rather than a natural gender.”[3] I found it interesting that Anderson talked about the reactions society had Frankenstein – the fact that he was beaten up for being abnormal shows us that what is “normal” can be defined by society as a whole. “The monster…exists as a category of ‘Other’ on to which the anxieties of the ‘normal’ are displaced.”[4]

Stuart J. Murray examines the way that Catherine Waldby views the Visible Human Project. He discusses how the inside of the body becomes deprivatized due to the Visible Human Project – what should be a private space no longer is. Waldby argues that, “Translating Jernigan’s body into information renders it strangely atemporal…without worldy context, not only on display but able to be integrated into interactive virtual surgeries, and otherwise virtually reanimated.”[5] The body becomes something else in the virtual – it can be seen from different viewpoints and angles and manipulated to serve the world of medicine. The Visible Human Project is infinite and therefore not really representative of ‘true’ human form but an altered form. Murray discuses “value” and “worth”[6] in determining humanity. I found this idea thought provoking as it raises the question of personality and the fact that “a human life is meant to count as something; its rhetorical value is often priceless.”[7]

Neil Osterweil writes a short article entitled, Artificial Intelligence, Real Issue: Smart Box or Real Boy? [8] Osterweil asks the question, ‘Is independent reasoning life?’ Does something that can function and ‘think’ on its own at any time make it human? He compares Shelley’s Frankenstein to Steven Spielberg’s film AI in which both characters desired affection and love and they both desperately desired to be a part of ‘normal’ society. I thought about this point for a while and it occurred to me that incorporating these ‘monsters’ into society may mean that society is no longer ‘normal’. If we do not view these creatures as human then surely they can never be incorporated into human everyday society. This article although interesting may be bias due to the fact that it is an opinion and Osterweil does not list references but it does raise some interesting points to think about and follow through with other research.

Culture Machine: Generating Research in Culture and Theory [9] is an article by Eugene Thacker and he asks the questions, “When the body is technically understood through an informatic logic, in what sense can a ‘virtual’ body be said to exist?”[10] Thacker discusses the history of the body and how bodily views have changed over time as medicine has advanced. What we know now we did not know during Medieval times – the concept of blood pumping around the body was completely alien to these people yet is a known factor now. This raised the question in my mind of what we may consider as ‘human’ in twenty years time. With ever changing technologies the Visible Human Project may be a version of humanity in the future if it is not seen that way now. Thacker states that there are two consequences of digital anatomy. The first being, “technically optimized bodies”[11] and the second, “producing a set of norms that is in excess.”[12] Thacker shows us that accepting different forms of what is human will always have effects.

Verena Kuni’s Article shows how humanity is unbreakable even after death. “Because the body donor in the <> was made this offer while he was still alive and he consented to the deal, in <> he resecures – at least virtually – the unity of his contour.” [13] Kuni raises an interesting point here – Jergen knew about his ‘life after death’ and therefore he obviously had feelings towards this – does this not mean that his virtual life is still human? His assembly in the virtual world is exactly as it was in real life but it is simply in virtual space. Kuni talks about “liberating the body from its bond to the materiality of the organic.”[14] I think this viewpoint is far stretched as I don’t believe we are bound to our organic nature but it is who we are and part of what makes us ‘human’. It is still an interesting point to put into contemplation though. This article was interesting but I did find that Kuni contradicted herself in some ways - Kuni goes on to argue that the ‘Visible Human’ cannot be human because “it is impossible to establish communication with it.”[15] This article must be read with care as it is opiniated and hence should not be taken for face value. It does raise interesting points that could be further researched and talked about.

It is interesting to note how what is deemed ‘human’ differs from person to person. I believe that there is no set answer to what is ‘human’ but that each and every person can make up their own mind in relation to their life experiences and beliefs. Humanity in my opinion embodies life, communication and emotion. I also believe that the view of ‘human’ is going to change increasingly over time as technology advances beyond what we know now. The fact that prosthesis does not change a human nowadays into a non-human form but 20 years ago may have seemed unnatural shows us just how much people’s views are changing as we head into the future.


BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, Robert W., Body parts that matter: Frankenstein, or the Modern Cyborg? www.womenwriters.net/editorials/anderson1.htm, May 1999.

Kuni, Verena, Cyborg configurations as formations of (self-) creation in the imagination space of technological (re)production, Media Art Net, http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/cyborg_bodies/mythical_bodies_II/

Murray, Stuart J., Catherine Waldby: The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine, http://reconstruction.eserver.org/021/revVisibleHP.htm

Osterweil, Neil, Artificial Intelligence, Real Issue: Smart Box or Real boy?, WebMD, http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/artificial-intelligence-real-issue, 2001.

Thacker, Eugene, Culture Machine: Generating Research in Culture and Theory, http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Cmach/Backissues/j003/Articles/Thacker/Impossible.htm, 1999.

Waldby, Catherine, The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine, New York and London, Routledge, 2000.

FOOTNOTES
[1] Robert W. Anderson, “Body parts that matter: Frankenstein, or the Modern Cyborg?” (May 1999) www.womenwriters.net/editorials/anderson1.htm (accessed 19/08/2008)
[2] Anderson.
[3] Anderson.
[4] Anderson.
[5] Stuart J. Murray, “Catherine Waldby: The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine”, http://reconstruction.eserver.org/021/revVisibleHP.htm (accessed 26/08/08)
[6] Murray.
[7] Murray.
[8] Neil Osterweil, “Artificial Intelligence, Real Issue: Smart Box or Real boy?”, WebMD Feature (2001), http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/artificial-intelligence-real-issue (accessed 24/08/2008)
[9] Eugene Thacker, “Culture Machine: Generating Research in Culture and Theory” (1999), http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Cmach/Backissues/j003/Articles/Thacker/Impossible.htm (accessed 25/08/08)
[10] Thacker.
[11] Thacker.
[12] Thacker.
[13] Verena Kuni, “Cyborg configurations as formations of (self-)creation in the imagination space of technological (re)production”, Media Art Net, http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/cyborg_bodies/mythical_bodies_II/ (accessed 26/08/08)
[14] Kuni.
[15] Kuni.

Critical Annotated Webliography

2. Our perception of ‘what it means to be human’ can be derived from historically developed idioms of human desire; including concerns of community, intellect, emotion, aspiration and adaptability. The body is somewhat conjoined with these ideals, providing us with resources to commit to creating a certain contentment of these ‘human’ concerns. Therefore, if the body’s physical potential is revolutionized through the application of technology, it can be assumed that the plight of the human is also revolutionized. This, in time, alters the limitations that were previously placed on humans.

If the body is continually reinterpreted as a limit to what it means to be human, it is relevant to consider the prevalence of the body being objectified in isolation to the human condition. Body iconography is an ideology that is frequented in many cultures throughout history. The varying concepts of the body as an object reflect both an isolation of the body from the human being, as well as the strong link between the body and human identity. In both Frankenstein and the Visible Human Project, the body is objectified as something to be examined, dissected, trialed and experimented with. As a medical tool, as in the VHP, or as different parts of a biological machine lying on a table, as in Shelley’s tale, the body does not emit human qualities. However, the ethical questions raised by both of these texts derive from the importance of the body in establishing identity. This enforces that we cannot deny that the body holds limitations on what it means to be human.

The relationship between the body and the human identity is commonly expressed in the arts and cultural practices around the world. In A note on Gender Iconography, Ardener outlines some instances where the link between the body and representation of sexuality is apparent. Firstly, she notes the strong feministic pride of the Kom, Bakweri and Balong communities in Africa. It is seen as a defamation of the entire female gender group of the community if any part of the female anatomy is slighted. However, Ardener also acknowledges that recent British and American ethnography appears to be revolutionizing the correlation between the female sexual anatomy and the concept of self. Writers, such as Germaine Greer and Simone de Bouvoir, call for a demystification of the body, where “the woman does not recognize herself in the vagina, which is why she does not recognize its desires as her own”1. These two instances of gender and body relations can be used as contrasting examples which recognize the body as a limitation of what it means to be human.

Apart from associations with sexuality, the body also represents other aspects of the human condition. This is reflected in the chapter The Body in Medicine, where Lupton identifies the implications of the clean body, disciplined body, sporting body, commodified body, and the dead body. The medical body is also interpreted, where the medical encounter is considered a supreme example of surveillance and disownership of the body. This is reflected in the case of the Visible Human Project, where the body is examined and repossessed by the computer interface that displays it, and its many users. Repossession of the body by the doctor, or the medical system, is also obvious in severe cases of illness and disability. This text can provide evidence of the body acting as an apparatus that limits the freedom of the patient, sportsman, consumer, etc. It also shows that technologies are needed to bypass the limitations that the body has incurred on human life.

It is clear that the juxtaposition of technology with biology has been a vivid topic of interest in the arts. Texts by Sawday and Caldwell further enforce this occurrence in more historical literature, where age-old perspectives of science and humanities are pooled together in an effort to understand the human condition. Sawday’s The Body Emblazoned heralds the ‘Renaissance culture of dissection’ – an artistic following that illustrated the realm of human dissection, and the body as a sacred and desired object. Through the examples of art and literature offered by this text, the evolution of how the interior of the body represents the human identity can be understood.

Caldwell’s text Literature and Medicine in 19th Century Britain takes this body/identity relationship to another level, examining the later Romantic literary texts, such as Frankenstein, alongside biomedical lectures. The link between literature and medicine is noted as Romantic Materialism, which also discusses the reaction against 18th Century Mechanism, known as the Vitalist Movement. This source can therefore introduce the question of whether a scientific explanation of life would threaten common cultural understanding, such as the domain of religion and traditional concepts of genesis.

Dewey’s text The Culture of Biomedicine: Studies in Science and Culture also acknowledges the relationship between science and culture in defining what it means to be human. However, it questions the ethics of technology’s intervention on the natural, highlighting the fact that society has suffered ecological and psychological crises due to the institutionalization of powerful scientific and technological means. It claims that interference of technology has resulted in the displacement of the human condition, manifesting in societal problems such as depression and the failure of social policies. And by warning the readers of the paradox of “what we create will destroy us”, the text sets up an opposition between natural and technological processes. This text’s ideology, also apparent in Frankenstein, can be used to suggest that the limitations of the body are necessary for the continuation of humanity.

The above texts aim to assist in the definition of ‘what it means to be human’, and how the body has a tendency to place limitations on this concept. Through an examination of historical and current literature, it is evident that not only the limits have to be defined, but also what are the most relevant aspects of ‘being human’ that are being restricted. And as our concept of humanity adapts to the infusion of technology, it is important to reconsider the importance of biology if technology has the power to free us of our somewhat humanistic bonds.

Footnotes

1. Shirley Ardener, A Note on Gender Iconography: The Vagina, 124


References

Ardener, Shirley (1987) "A Note on Gender Iconography: The Vagina" http://books.google.com.au/books?id=__cNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA113&dq=A+Note+on+Gender+Iconography&lr=&sig=ACfU3U2Q1-yqG2phPMficUMZCbaYAczN0w (accessed 24th August 2008)

Brock, Dewey Hayward "The Culture of Biomedicine: Studies in Science and Culture" http://books.google.com.au/books?id=aq14DQ_H9j4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+culture+of+biomedicine&lr=&sig=ACfU3U1ZnCT7-hoRqUCqApGeNtjTIV28Wg#PPA70,M1 (accessed 23rd August 2008)

Caldwell, Janis McLarren "Literature and Medicine in Nineteeth-Century Britain: From Mary Shelley to George Eliot" http://books.google.com.au/books?id=yw_Neqf81XUC&printsec=toc&dq=literature+and+medicine+in+nineteenth&lr=&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0 (accessed 26th August 2008)

Lupton, Deborah (2003) "Medicine as Culture: Illness, Disease and the Body in Western Societies" http://books.google.com.au/books?id=OYZTBcOwcGQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Medicine+As+Culture&lr=&sig=ACfU3U3Yd-rSr7QYqeZDmqQAy8y-SJV0Tw#PPA22,M1 (accessed 24th August 2008)

Sawday, Jonathon (1995) "The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture" http://books.google.com.au/books?id=qXyavI6vVgMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Body+Emblazoned&lr=&sig=ACfU3U2UEcnDsWBhBZ6cFQmisx23LRepsg#PPR5,M1 (accessed 26th August 2008)

Annotated Webliography

Question 2.

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


When speaking of what it means to be human we must be careful to address this as a question in itself. As the body is reinterpreted constantly, what it means to be human changes just as frequently. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Visible Human Project manipulated the human body in order to reinterpret the role and ambitions of the human being. Although these are both courageous and practical ways of delving into the desire for more knowledge of the human body and its relationship with technology, an unseen consequence resulted in limits being applied to what it means to be human. Taking apart and displaying the human body in the Visible Human Project meant that humans were able to literally view their physical limit within cyberspace. This transfers to the defining of what it means to be human, thus creating boundaries that we believe determine our identity.

The Nation Master Encyclopedia website shows contemporary film Edward Scissorhands [1] and its reinterpretation of the human body. It shows the merging of the human body with a foreign, perhaps slightly primitive technological object. As a result limitations are placed on what it means to be human. On the site director Tim Burton says of Edwards’s scissors “They're both simple and complicated, creative and destructive. It's that feeling of being at odds with yourself.”. This reference would be used to show the struggle between human and technology, even in its simplest form. Much like Frankenstein, Edward Scissorhands has been created in the human image and yet is hindered by his technological enhancements. The fact that Edward cannot be assimilated into our society shows there are boundaries and expectations as to what ‘human’ really is. The quest for continual human improvement through new technologies falls short in this film yet it is something that society is continually searching for.

In reality it is extremely difficult to define what human is in order to be able to put limits on it. With increased interest in elective surgeries to alter the human body such as plastic and bypass, it is becoming harder and harder to define the human body as something that has been untouched by technologies. An online media release about a recent competition to win a boob job in a men’s magazine highlighted surgeon’s concerns about the risk of self diagnosis [2]. This suggests how widespread and easily accepted plastic surgery has become signifying that reinterpretation of the human body may soon be a thing of the past as it becomes harder to define ‘human’ rather then it’s limits. Perhaps scarier then this is the fact that alterations to the human body are occurring at earlier stages of development. Stem cell research is “important in helping to repair and replacing tissue damaged by disease or injury” [3] and in essence aims to build a future where the human body will be able to regenerate, potentially extending life expectancy rates. This ties in with Judy Wajcman’s notion of the ‘cyborg’[4]. The debate surrounding stem cell research has highlighted many ethical objections as discussed in an article issued by the Australian Government[5]. Altering or destroying an embryo or foetus in order to create potential cures lends to the idea of creating the invincible human and therefore reinterpreting or altering what it means to be human. This in turn is surely going to alter the limits that the body can reach.

Douglas C. Long, author of the online essay Descartes’ Argument for Mind-Body Dualism[6], talks of René Descartes, the great philosopher and his theory concerning the separation of the mind and body. Descartes claimed to be “entirely and absolutely distinct” from his body, reasoning that there was a separation between the body and the soul. He believed that his “essence is thought” rather then the more contemporary, public opinion that may relate ‘essence’ to the body. This online essay communicates issues of embodiment through more historical thought processes. Long’s essay could be used in a research paper to demonstrate that the body has been reinterpreted continually throughout history. Even though the mind, as Descartes saw it, seemed to be free of limitations, the body was seen as a shell, making the human body or part of what it means to be human seemingly irrelevant.

It is essential when answering questions about the body’s limitations and what it means to be human that we define what these actually are. In this case it is almost impossible to grasp a description that may be static in any way. The reinterpretations of the human body are no longer only found in films such as Edward Scissorhands. What it means to be human is continually changing especially given today’s advancements in technology and our desire to extend and enrich the quality of our lives. Whether it be external, such as plastic surgery, or internal enhancements, such as work done with stem cell research, it is becoming harder and harder to place limitations on the human form.



References

(2007) Edward Scissorhands. NationMaster Encyclopedia.
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Edward-Scissorhands#References (accessed 25 August 2008).

(2007) Shame on you – lads’ mag breasts gimmick plumbs new depths. Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons, (August 2007). http://www.plasticsurgery.org.au/default.asp?itemid=91 (accessed 24 August 2008).

Ethics of stem cell research. Biotechnology Online (An Australian Government Initiative).
http://www.biotechnologyonline.gov.au/human/ethicssc.cfm (accessed 25 August 2008).

Long, D. (1969) Descartes’ Argument for Mind-Body Dualism.
http://www.unc.edu/~dlong/DESCARTES_MS_WEb.DOC (accessed 25 August 2008).

Moser, A. (2006) Four of the Nation's Preeminent Research Institutions Announce Stem Cell Research Alliance. Burnham Institute for Medical Research, (March 2006).
http://www.burnham.org/default.asp?contentID=149 (accessed 24 August 2008).

Wajcman, J. (2004) The Cyborg Solution. Self. Net Unit Reader, July 2008, 1.




Footnotes:

[1] “Edward Scissorhands” http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Edward-Scissorhands#References (2007)
[2] “Shame on you – lads’ mag breasts gimmick plumbs new depths” http://www.plasticsurgery.org.au/default.asp?itemid=91 (2007)
[3] “Four of the Nation's Preeminent Research Institutions Announce Stem Cell Research Alliance” http://www.burnham.org/default.asp?contentID=149 (2006)
[4] Judy Wajcman, ‘ The Cyborg Solution’. Self. Net Unit Reader, 2004, p1.
[5] “Ethics of Stem Cell Research” http://www.biotechnologyonline.gov.au/human/ethicssc.cfm
[6] Douglas C. Long. http://www.unc.edu/~dlong/DESCARTES_MS_WEb.DOC (1969)

Critical Annotated Webliography - Q2

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

The first thing that comes to mind when faced with this question is: What exactly do we know to mean being human? We call ourselves human because we are naturally borne by humans. We have emotions, we have instinct, we have adaptability, and we have the ability to think on our own. Is that all that gives us our human identity? In answering this question I would question human identity and how fixed the boundaries of our identity are.

In Aleksandar Boskovic’s [1] article, he examines the techculture Philip K. Dick builds through the characters of his stories. The boundaries between cyborg and human are hard to draw, as is played out in one of his films, Blade Runner. Boskovic talks about identities being the main issue of Dick’s works, and how it can go beyond the borders of disciplines as we know them. Simply put, it is hard to define “Human or Cyborg” because certain characteristics that contribute to each can be interchanged between both identities, so much so that one can almost come close to saying “human = cyborg”. From here, I see that it cannot be assumed that everything with the basic characteristics of a human is human; it seems to be dependent on what we base the assumption of “being human” upon. This article will support my stand that there is a constant shift in identities, and that human identity is limited to what we define it to be.

Grayson Cooke [2] backs up that stand of shifting cyborg identity to human identity, when he looks at the existence of cyborgs in relation to humanity. He elaborates how with increasing technologisation of life and the introduction of virtual reality, the “Cyborg” – hybrid of human and machine (as defined by Haraway [3]) – is losing its original meaning as it becomes more of a subject with fluid, changing identity. He explains that this shift is a result of humanity’s ability to incorporate forms of being into its matrix. What might have once been considered to be “cyborg” before is now slowly being adopted by humans, then substituted and incorporated into “human identity” as we know it. Simply put, cyborgs are becoming “humanised”. The difference that once made Cyborgs stand apart from Humans is no longer there, because humanity is accepting the Cyborg ways as part of their own now. If that is so, then Cooke would be right in suggesting that cyborgs simply cease to exist; or are now just plainly known as humans. This write-up explains comprehensively how the boundaries of human identity are ever-changing, ever-shifting.

Chuck Meyer’s article [4] also touches on the points brought about from the previous articles, but also provides one other reason that causes the shift in boundaries of human identity. Science, he says, has been leading humans to think of themselves more as programmed creatures (with regards to the Human Genome Project)while computers are used to model human intelligence. He mentions how computers seem to be becoming extensions of our bodies as we rely heavily on technology to interact with the world. With the increase of scientific research and technological advancement, it is only too soon when the line between machines and us becomes blur.

Additionally, Charles T. Rubin [5] gives me an extreme view in his writing on how the human race seems to be causing its own extinction through “the combination of transforming ourselves voluntarily into machines and losing out in the evolutionary competition with machines”. This article made me question if humans seemed to be becoming “monsters” (as like Frankenstein); creators of undesirable robotic characters of our future, a future in which we may cease to be the superior beings and where artificial life and bodies overrule our imperfect human ones. Are we being human, or inhuman?

Rubin also quotes in his article roboticist Hans Moravec, who describes the essence of humans to be “the pattern and the process going on in one’s head and body, not in the machinery supporting the process”; in other words, how bodies are but mere poorly designed machines, and that our identity can exist independent from it. Ben Best’s article [6] supports that view when he touches on where identities exist in humans. He says that identities - made up of mind, self and will - come from the continuity of memory over a continuous passage of time. With self, you have the personal identity of a person. If you duplicate a person, you get 2 selves which technically can be at the same place at the same time, but it is not possible for identity to be that way because memories will be split – it is not possible for memories of both selves to be in the same location. From this article I would relate it to the Visible Human Project, and question if the death of Jernigan meant that his identity was dead too. If identity is argued to be not present, then that would lessen the boundary of humanity that is said to be of the VHP. This article is worth further analysing in approaching the question and looking at identity from a different context – if a body had to be present or not.

I quote from Rubin’s article “If there is any likeness at all between the machine and its embodied precursor, the closest analogy to that relationship might be between adults and the babies they once were. It seems we have no readily recoverable memories of our infant period; I have only the word of others that that picture of a little baby really is a picture of me. From a subjective point of view, the relationship is highly tenuous”. Simply put, humans are causing this shift of our very own human identity; being the architects of, what might seem to be, our own demise.

References

1. BOŠKOVIĆ, Aleksandar.“Identities and differences: Philip K. Dick through popular culture” <http://www.gape.org/sasa/kdick/dickpaper.html>. Accessed 24^th August 2008.
   
   
2. Cooke, Grayson. “Human - 1 / Cyborg - 0: A Personal History of a Human-Machine Relation” <http://www.nobleworld.biz/images/Cooke.pdf >. (2006). Accessed 24^th August 2008.
   
   
3. Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. <http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html>. (1991). Accessed 23^rd August 2008.
   
   
4. Meyer, Chuck. “Human Identity in the Age of Computers – Cyborg Identities”. <http://fragment.nl/mirror/Meyer/CyborgIdentity.htm> (1997). Accessed 25^th August 2008.
   
   
5. Rubin, Charles. “Artificial Intelligence and Human Nature”. <http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/artificial-intelligence-and-human-nature>. (2003). Accessed 25^th August 2008.
   
   
6. Best, Ben. “The Duplicates Paradox (The Duplicates Problem)”. <http://www.benbest.com/philo/doubles.html>. Accessed 26^th August 2008

Annotated Webliography

After reading the articles in the unit reader and identifying key words and authors, I began by searching for articles that would help develop a convincing argument for the question. I divided my research into two sections; the first searching for articles that discussed how cyborgs have been incorporated into popular culture, and the second looking for articles that examined how the cyborg has been taken up by feminists and how its use has been either positive, negative, or a combination of the two. Below are the best five articles from my research.

Brenda Brasher[1] provides an examination of the implications of technology on religion. Brasher begins by examining cyborgs; their creation, development in popular culture, and, as figures often desiring human qualities, how they pose significant religious questions by providing a scale upon which “humanness” is measured. Questions regarding religion and the issues that arise in technology are also examined. Brasher discusses that although religion and the web are not completely disconnected, religious websites, forums and discussions that occur online do not address crucial issues surrounding religion and technology, such as moral dilemmas and issues of user privacy. Considering the important role religion has traditionally played in society, its attention to these concerns is paramount. This article raises interesting questions regarding the problems surrounding the integration of cyborgs into popular culture.

Steven Shaviro’s[2] paper monitors the ways cyborgs have been incorporated into popular culture, and the different ways they have both challenged and perpetuated existing gender categories. This is examined with particular reference to the music video clips of two black female hiphop artists; Missy Elliot and Lil’ Kim. The paper examines the use of cyborgian imagery in their video clips. As in many of her film clips, and the one discussed here, Missy Elliot refuses to be viewed as a sex symbol or object for the male gaze. Just as Haraway intended cyborgs would have, Missy, dressed in a black balloon suit described as “futuristic biofabric”, is presented as neither man nor woman; her sexuality remains indeterminate and unexploited. Lil’ Kim’s film clip is the polar opposite. A hypersexualised female image is used in her film clip, which perpetuates the stereotypes the cyborg Missy Elliot attempts to avoid. I like that this article examines real life instances of cyborgs in popular culture, and the different way it is represented.

Yvonne Volkart’s paper “The Cyberfeminist Fantasy of the Pleasure of the Cyborg”[3] discusses the differences between feminism and cyberfeminism; noting that while both forms look to new technology to provide liberation for women, cyberfeminism “promotes both the idea of becoming cyborgian and the pleasures involved in it”. Similar to postfeminism, cyberfeminism is concerned with notions of self-empowerment that are not limited to constructions of identity. Volkart identifies the “digital turn”; the ever increasing impact of technology on our everyday lives, as the cause of the shift from feminism to cyberfeminism. The second half of Voldark’s paper is an examination of six female cyborg characters in art and literature, and the range of technological fantasies they embody. I found the second half of the paper more difficult to interpret than the first, and would probably find the first half to be more useful in writing the research essay.

Sadie Plant’s[4] article begins by examining the patriarchal perception of the association between women and machine. Traditionally, machines have been viewed as feminine; unpredictable, uncontrollable, and always a toy that could be modified by man. In popular film, women and technology make for a disastrous and often dangerous combination. The article discusses how this stereotype is perpetuated in films containing female cyborgs, such as Eve of Destruction and Until the End of the World. Plant notes that although traditionally the relationship between women and technology has not been favourable, the evolution of cyberpunk has allowed for the creation of science fiction heroines who no longer rely on conventional feminine traits, such as passivity, in their conquests. In examining the reality of a transition to a “cybernetic” world, Plant views cyberfeminists as the driving force behind such advancements. In terms of the research paper, this article would provide good evidence for the case of cyborgs being taken up by feminists.

“Cyberfeminism with a Difference”, by Rosi Braidotti[5], discusses of the place of feminism within a technological, postmodern society. Braidotti begins with an introduction to postmodernity, and describes its relationship with technology and culture. She then moves on to discuss representations of the post-human body, and labels Dolly Parton, Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda as examples of “cyborg goddesses” due to their post-human figures; the result of either artificial reconstruction or, in Fonda’s case, a “hyper real fitness fetishist”. Braidotti discusses how feminists, who once looked to science fiction writing as way to challenge existing gender binaries, now realise it does more to reinforce than defy. Braidotti describes virtual reality as a contradiction; promising a world free of gender, class and race categories, yet presenting only stereotypical images of them all. Finally, she examines how new computer technologies can be seen as tools for “masturbatory and masculinist power”, due to the ever increasing amounts of pornography on the internet, and computer programmes that allow for rape and murder in the virtual world. This article would be particularly useful in answering the question, as it provides strong evidence for the case against cyborgs pertaining to the role feminists hoped it would.

Although the articles I have found would be useful in answering the given question, I feel that in being limited to use articles only accessible through the internet (that is, not from the online journals through the library) would have severely affect the argument presented in my paper. In my research I found a multitude of more relevant and appropriate articles through the online databases; databases that as a university student I have the privilege to access. Normally I would take full advantage of these resources, and the caliber of my work would reflect this.

References:

[1] Brenda Brasher, “The Cyborg: Technological Socialization and its Link to the Religious Function of Popular Culture” (1996) http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=404 (accessed August 23 2008).

[2] Steven Shaviro “Supa Dupa Fly: Black Women as Cyborgs in Hiphop Videos” (2005) http://library.csumb.edu/site/Documents/library/supa-dupa_fly_session3_article2.pdf
(accessed August 23 2008).

[3]Yvonne Volkart, “The Cyberfeminist Fantasy of the Pleasure of the Cyborg” Old Boys Network Website [n.d.] http://www.obn.org/reading_room/writings/html/cyberfem_fantasy.html (accessed August 23 2008)

[4]Sadie Plant, “Beyond the Screens: Film, Cyberpunk and Cyberfeminism” [n.d.]
http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:h2upM-Wx9PUJ:archive.fact.co.uk/tools/archive_download.php%3Fid%3D47+%22beyond+the+screens%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=au

[5] Rosi Braidotti,“Cyberfeminism with a Difference” (1996) http://www.let.uu.nl/womens_studies/rosi/cyberfem.htm (accessed August 25, 2008).
(accessed August 23 2008).