Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Head Shop >

Cyborgs .. Identity in the 21st Century?

01:29 / 07.04.04

In search of Cyborgs

04:39 / 07.04.04

Well, one question I've always wondered about:

A "cyborg" is, by most definitions, a "robot" with organic components. Would a human with robotic components be a cyborg? If you have, say, a synthetic limb, are you a cyborg? If not, what's the human-to-mechanical ratio that signifies a cyborg? "Half man, half machine?"

05:56 / 07.04.04

Is the computer an artifical limb though? The internet an artifical voice enhancement? Are these technologies so pervasive that they could, in a sense, be considered part of our bodies?

trouser the trouserian

07:22 / 07.04.04

Decoding Peversity: Queering Cyberspace
Jyanni Steffensen examines the cyborg, taking in Foucalt, Lacan, and the work of 'cyberfeminists' such as Donna Haraway.

Ex

13:16 / 07.04.04

I really like the idea of the "subtle" cyborg - Sadie Plant? - not just a whacking great hydraulic arm welded on, but a range of different devices that interact with our perceptions. Drugs, for example - the number of people using coffee, recreational drugs including alcohol, and prescription drugs including anti-depressants in the UK is huge. Technology is already really imbedded in the way the nation perceives things.

I also like the way technologies of thought and more traditional technologies of clunky machinery interract. For example, I think much more clearly when I'm typing. But I also use any number of technologies of thought - discourses, tools of enquiry - and I'm using them as well as the keyboard when I write. Other similarities; both kinds cost quite a bit of money.

Oh, and I'd rather be a cyborg than a goddess. Just in case anyone's offering.

15:05 / 07.04.04

All I know is I want a robotic arm capable of a 4000-pound pressure grip. Just for those guys that think handshakes are for crushing people you meet...

18:27 / 08.04.04

Is the computer an artifical limb though?

Maybe the computer and any other telecommunication device we wear or use with our body are part of our new cyborg identity?

Im noticing a lot more people, predominantly men and usually young black guys wearing and using bluetooth mobile phone headsets which makes them look like urban cyborgs, has anyone else noticed? I dont know if this is just in east London.

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:42 / 09.04.04

Im noticing a lot more people, predominantly men and usually young black guys wearing and using bluetooth mobile phone headsets which makes them look like urban cyborgs, has anyone else noticed? I dont know if this is just in east London.

I hadn't noticed the race, but certainly lots of bluetooth heasdsets - and the interesting thing about the bluetooth headset is that these people don't seem to take it out when they are not on the phone. SO, in effect, they have repurposed one of their ears through technology from primarily being a way to keep track of their environment to being an "always-on" way to facilitate communication with people outside that environment. The comparative permanence of that retoolign (as opposed to, say, having a mobile phone which you hold to your ear) seems to me to make it more cyborgtastic...

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

12:43 / 09.04.04

Cyborgiastic?

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:58 / 10.04.04

Could you explain that, Money Shot? Do you mean that it implies some sort of constant interaction between people enabled by technology equivalent to an orgy?

(Mod Hat - one-word posts in the Head shop are likely to be moved for deletion without warning. Generally, if you have a point, it's best to make it. If you don't it's best to sit and think until you do.)

20:42 / 10.04.04

Cyborgtastic and cyborgiastic, .... their both new words to me and im really interested in their development in terms of meaning, in this discussion, if anyone wants to run with this. Wasn't aware about the one word posts, thanks for pointing this out to anyone new, like myself.

Going back to the bluetooth headset i guess that i thought there was an element of it being ghettofabulous, bling-bling, tech status for the street when i see them; where technology is not just a communication tool but a fashion accessory of status.

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:39 / 11.04.04

I'm not sure about cyborgiastic - as I say, I guess Money $hot is talking about the idea that we are in some way, exemplified by the bluetooth headset, creating an envirnoment in which people are set up to exchnage information with each other at all times through technology, in effect creating a constant communion of technology. I'm not sure we are there yet, but it's certainly a trend one could identify. Cyborgtastic on the other hand is just me being playful.

On bling-bling - I imagine that the businessmen I see wearing bluetooth headsets are doing much the same thing in terms of status - the bluetooth headset suggests that it is so important that you be contactable, and by implication that *you* are so important, that it is worth spending 10 times as much as you might on a standard headset to avoid having to put it in. So, status as well as convenience (no wires, no need to dig your mobile phone out of a pocket and so on)... next question I suppose being whether it makes somebody more "cyborgy" or whether it is no more or less cyborg than a standard headset... I'd suggest it *does, just because the higher technology being used in the service provision the more one is aware of it..

flufeemunk effluvia

19:20 / 11.04.04

What about the overall merge between man and machine? When you drive, doesn't it feel like you and the car are one? It does for me. In a way, any time a person uses technology as an extention of themselves, they essentially are a cyborg. How about a person in a motorized wheelchair? would they be a cyborg or would the chair have to be grafted onto thier body?

19:41 / 11.04.04

The world has had cyborgs for a while: pacemakers and retinal lenses, for example.

In fact, when Pentagon documents about upcoming EMP cruise missles were released, one of the interesting side effects noted was pacemaker disruption. As generals and 'higher-ups' are more likely to receive advanced medicine than the general populace in developing nations, it's likely the EMP blast would take out a few leading personnel along with electronics. An early instance of anti-cyborg military tactics?

I think there's a difference between permanent and removable implants/augmentations. A retinal lens or chip is not the same as a pair of spectacles, nor is a hydraulic limb the same as a hydraulic exoskeleton suit, such as this prototype device. Humans should have the option of returning to nature and regaining their humanity by being able to detach augmentations. Unless we want to go the neohuman route and change our nature, it would be best to give an opt-out oppurtunity.

14:41 / 12.04.04

in regard to the topic abstract, is the question more pointed toward the idea of artificial intelligence threatening our personal identity or just a tin box that walks and talks but doesn't seem to have thought but just programmed responses...

maybe our responses are programmed but we all have such different variations of programming due to initial subjectivity that we are unable to see the obviousness of our personal programming?

i don't seem to be able to prevent myself from writing run-on sentences... programming?

16:50 / 12.04.04

This post may be a bit after the fact, and I apologize if this is the case...I would like to address the bluetooth headset conversation insofar as an exterior technology being applied to a human. Note the use of "applied" rather than "integrated." I guess my point is whether or not a cell phone device, headset or not, may be considered cybernetic as none are, as of yet, actually integrated biotechnically...I do understand the implications, however, of the cybernetic properties it may entail...one being the mobility of our technology these days...but i believe it is a convenience, based in mobility, rather than an advance in cybernetics. I view the bluetooth situation as a conditioning of society...eventually the technology will be affordable to the masses and will then be integrated into society...maybe, in fact, the nature and idea of cyborgs in the 21st century will be more apparent on the scale of the masses, the crowd person, mmmmmm...the body politic.

21:06 / 25.04.04

The cyborg has always had this link aswell to 'feedback'a feedback loop between the biological and technological.Brain to computer link up,etc

Tryphena Absent

21:14 / 25.04.04

In a way, any time a person uses technology as an extention of themselves, they essentially are a cyborg

But do you feel that way about a pencil and if so is cyborg the right word?

22:12 / 25.04.04

SO, in effect, they have repurposed one of their ears through technology from primarily being a way to keep track of their environment to being an "always-on" way to facilitate communication with people outside that environment. The comparative permanence of that retoolign (as opposed to, say, having a mobile phone which you hold to your ear) seems to me to make it more cyborgtastic...

and then...

I guess my point is whether or not a cell phone device, headset or not, may be considered cybernetic as none are, as of yet, actually integrated biotechnically...

Ohh, interesting

I've actually not even noticed this... But, doesn't it kind of connect to the idea that we are all using our computers/the internet in a 'cyborg' like manner?

Ex said: I also like the way technologies of thought and more traditional technologies of clunky machinery interract. For example, I think much more clearly when I'm typing. But I also use any number of technologies of thought - discourses, tools of enquiry - and I'm using them as well as the keyboard when I write. Other similarities; both kinds cost quite a bit of money.

It seems to me that the internet has actually provided us with another level/type of conversation and interaction than was previously possible. There is something about typed communiques/instant messaging/internet relationships that allows for a different level of interaction much faster than in a normal person to person situation. (Although obviously missing out on a hell of a lot, at the same time). Personally, I think this is to do with the filtering out of everything except the words. And the impossibility of 'just hanging out', without actually saying anything. And the impersonality of it can let you be more personal. Anyway, if we are able to be constantly online in future versions of this blue-tooth enabling, we are extending and changing ourselves, arn't we? At the moment, we do step outside of the internet world, but if we can have an attatchment of some variety that means we don't, it could be cybor-like, even if it doesn't qualify as an extra mechanical arm or something?

On that note...

09:52 / 30.04.04

Great pre-internet essay on this stuff (Scroll down to chapter 4) by Marshall McLuhan The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis.

I've often wondered what he would have made of the net and mobile phones as a whole....