Cyborg in Science Fiction and Cyborg in the Social Realm
Definition of cyborg:
"[A] cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism." "Cyborg
(sêi'borg) n. is a hypothetical human being modified for life in a hostile
or alien environment by the substitution of artificial organs and other body
parts."(Haraway, Internet source). Donna Haraway writes:
The cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality,
pre-Oedipal symbiosis, unalienated labor, or other seductions to organic wholeness
through a final appropriation of all the powers of the parts into a higher unity.
(Ibid.).
In Webster's New Unabridged Dictionary, the definition of cyborg is "a
person whose physiological functioning is aided by, or dependent on, a mechanical
or electronic device" This kind of definitions are missing the image of
cyborgs created in science fiction movies and imagined in comics, books, art
and fashion. The cyborg is an emotional machine - an integration of organism
and machine. Compared to the cyborg in the science fiction, the cyborg in the
social realm has a big impact on the social relations and social development.
What is the difference between the two then?
To divide science fiction from the social realm in context of cyborg discourse
is sometimes impossible. But, in terms of direct relations between machines
and men, or art and technology, there has been a mixed set of beliefs and values
for the technological new world. If we connect the issue of machine being used
by man and that is what it makes him a cyborg, that means that almost all humans
in the modern world are cyborgs because nowadays life is imaginable without
machines. It has been argued that many different stages of machine-use like:
man in front of TV holding the remote control, using software on the computer
for personal purposes, telephoning and leaving messages on the answer machine,
modifying the human voice in a recording studio, means creating cyborgs. But,
the most significant element of cyborg culture is that it is not important to
emphasize the relation between the man and the machine but to highlight the
relations between different cyborgs. For example, the history of military and
science fiction cyborgs comes from the same idea: expanding the limits of human
power, concurring and making the impossible possible.
In the research by Jamison, it is stated that cybernetic companies promote greater
interaction between humans and computers, which creates the newest form of cyborgs.
People have started to believe that the development of technologies and computerized
world is necessary for the social development of the humans. This can be explained
with Jamison's examples including:
"....companies such as IBM that publish their own magazines (like "Multimedia")
that act as "informed advertising." In recent popular magazines, such
as "Wired" and "Kids and Computers," articles suggest the
potential for realms of cyborg possibility, amidst calls for social responsibility,
management, and balance."(Jamison, 1994).
In such magazines, like The Times' Interface, the new technology systems and
products are revealed as important and useful parts of the everyday life and
by that they sell the concept of a cyborg. However, "even in the age of
technosocial subject, life is lived through bodies," writes Michael Benedict.(p.113).
This means that not only humans cannot live without machines, but also that
machines cannot function without the help of humans.
Cyborg Femme
Today's modern technology does many forms of digital imaging of the human/female
body which makes more true results in defining what body is than the actual
physical presence of the body. In countries like China where every tenth child
is female, the communication technology is developed to acknowledge the sex
of the unborn child so to manage its birth, which makes the cybernetics. Theresa
Senft in her research Performing the Digital Body - a Ghost Story, asks questions
about the cyborgs:
"We once knew -- or we thought we did -- who were the able-bodied, what
was machine-assisted, and which stories were "true". Now we cannot
be sure. Once, we wondered, like Philip K. Dick, if androids dream of sheep.
Now, like Barbara Browning, we ask: should cyborgs be worried about AIDS? Can
I catch a computer virus during cybersex? Do I have ethical responsibilities
in my online community? I might feel fine, but which matters more, how I feel,
or a tumor registered on my MRI?"
http://www.echonyc.com/~janedoe.
Reconstruction of a female body in terms of looking better, more functional
and healthy, is another way of looking at cyborg creating. Lara Croft is a female
character in a video game like the male dominated Doom, Quake, e.t.c. Having
today's opportunity of changing the shape and look of the whole body by advances
in surgical technology, or even changing the gender by operation, is what Ane
Balsamo finds is part of the feminist theory. (p.78).
The female body is necessary for reproduction and functioning of the new born.
However, if the mother/female body does not exist, than the pure technological
life comes to power. In this case, researchers are talking about male fantasy
where women are not necessary for reproduction. Here, Bender and Druckey associate
the woman with the age, stating that older women are not needed because technological
culture is created by the young people. Not just films, but 3D animation entertainment
like video games are starting to use the female body as a new form of violent
subject and heroine at the same time.
Military and Medicine Cyborgs
High performance computers are used to create astrological mappings, 3D illustrations
of the human body for medical lectures, weather prognosis, urban architecture,
and Internet. In sociological writings about cyberspace, defining the body and
its gender is very hard because Net communication (man-computer-man communication)
suggests breaking barriers between genders because of the high tech performance.
In other words, the biological body of the human stays stable, but the online
text performance can change depending of the choice. So, the user of this performance
tool - the computer online communication - can put on gender like clothes.
Theresa Senft argues that it is tough being a "resistant cyborg."
With this term she refers to today's body in the social realm that has the function
of a cyborg. People who use telephone, or go online, are not just human/biological
bodies but they are communication elements.
Theresa refers to Browning's argument about viewing identity by use of prosthetic
(Internet source: http://www.echonyc.com/~janedoe). Prostheses are artificial
devices to replace parts of the body; "hook for a hand; chip for a brain."
In most dictionaries and medical books it is not specified whether a prosthesis
must replace a part of a human body, or:
".....it is ought to restore the original body back to what it was, or
if the prosthesis might be something that creates a whole new organic unit.
Moreover while prosthesis is a serious component of cyberpunk, it is hardly
the sole province of digital culture." (Ibid.).
For example, a prosthetic body can be a transsexual who changed his/her sex.
Heart transplantation is a process of making cyborgs - a man with someone else's
heart. Metal devices are implanted into the human bodies for medical purposes
which makes the body function under different conditions - with a help of artificial
appliances.
But, even though it sounds too futuristic, today's world has created cyborgs
in terms of the global telecommunication economy, 24-hour stock exchange, mobile
phones with Internet and miniature fax machines. So, the actual body today is
at the same time, a machine, because there is no actual presence of the biological
body, described as "telepresence". An interesting extract from an
essay by Sharon Lehner, My Womb, the Mosh Pit describes how unreal it is for
a mother to see her child unborn with the help of the ultrasound technology:
"Exactly ten days after I laughed with wonder at what looked like a naked
baby boy in real-time, documentary black and white on an ultrasound monitor,
I aborted a 10 inch fetus from my body in the company of medical strangers."
(Theresa, Internet source).
After the loss of her child her views are:
"I am mourning, and I can't say for whom, or even what. Does the loss of
a fetus constitute a death, and if so, who dies? How can the fetus die if unborn?
How does one properly mourn an image?"(Ibid.).
If we take into consideration that the US military owns robots, artificial intelligence,
self-run computers and programmed weapons, computerized vehicles, programmed
artificial air pilots, e.t.c., they could belong to the science fiction world
of high technology. But, if these machines for the use of men in military purposes
are used in the real wars and training of soldiers, than we might consider the
military cyborg as part of the social realm.
Some Science Fiction Cyborgs
Another point which has been driven by researchers on the Internet is that most
of the cyborg idols are dominantly white: in films like Robocap, Blade Runner,
Terminator, The Creature, e.t.c. Rosi takes Michael Jackson as an example of
post-human body, pursuit of perfectionism and whiteness by surgically crafting
his body. Is he a cyborg of the modern social realm? Singer Grace Jones' image
of a perfect black feminine body dominates the sphere of super-natural woman.
In connection to woman models, Rosi gives examples how "riot girls"
make the image of women writing their own science fiction and cyberpunk. Like
Sigourney Weaver in the film Alien, the feminist visions on science fiction
try to explain the impact of the new technologies upon the illustration of sexual
(in)difference. But from another aspect, it is the mother alien that gives birth
to aliens, and Sigourney's body is used as a reproductive force, or, using the
human body as a machine in Inseminoid. Looking at the male-embodiment, Schwarzeneger
was example of a perfect hyper-real body. In the SF film Blade Runner, the cyborgs
are perfect examples of how the human body should look like; the high performance
of computerized memory of the brain, the perfect beautiful image of the female
cyborgs called "replicants" is the vision of the human for the hyperreal.
Even in science fiction cartoons, most of the main characters are cyborgs: Transformers,
Robotech, HeMan and Masters of the Universe, Dungeons and Dragons. The importance
in this space is the act of technology combined with the human brain and the
new form of social relations and global communication via electrons. Johnny
Mnemonic is science fiction film about brain high technology implants that make
the human grow into superhuman. Again there is an example of gender structuring
by defining masculinity and femininity as a form of power and oppression. In
addition to this, the explanation of political strategies in the new technological
world has different alternatives.
While the science fiction cyborgs are described as strong, powerful, supernatural
and artificial human-machines, the phenomenon called online communication has
produced new form of disembodied cyborgs. But, this can lead to loosing control
over the actual "self" and the line between imagination and reality
is blurred.
At last...
If we take the image of Rutger Hauer's replicant in Blade Runner film, and compared
it to Sean Yeang's perfect image of a beautiful emotional female cyborg in the
same film, we can see two opposites of cyborgs; one that are created for violence
and aggression, and one that can represent the perfection of the body and mind
in humans. In the SF sphere, an interesting element is the benefit of the human-machine
relationship in terms of unlimited power and winning. In the social realm, cyborg
social reality has possibilities, but also severe limitations.
For example, computerized information systems, world wide web, networks and
computer culture education are the space where the new cyborgs are "born."
However, it is not only the power that is given a central importance in the
image of cyborg. Internet (online) cyborgs use the new dimensional space called
"web" in Internet or "3-dimensional imaginated sphere" in
the virtual reality for achieving different pleasures. That is why cyborg tends
to provide greater pleasure than humans are likely to obtain in the ordinary
spheres of life, that is, with the help of cybernetics, humans can achieve more.
"I was wrong. Machines cannot save lives. They can, however, extend lives,
make them richer, re-define them, and help people forge connections they might
not ever have, otherwise."(Senft, Internet source).
***This research was prepared for Gender, Photography and New Technologies course
at Goldsmiths College, University of London. For the full version of this research,
contact me: abakalinova@hotmail.com
Ana Bakalinova
Master of Arts in Media and Communications
London
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