Critically Annotated Webliography QU: 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.

In order to deliver an accurate response to this task it is necessary to establish a universal understanding of the concepts of ‘body’ and ‘human’. The Cambridge online dictionary (CoD) defines ‘body’ as the ‘whole physical structure that forms a person or animal’ (CoD accessed 26.08.08, 11.32). In addition, the concise definition of ‘human’ is ‘a man, woman or child...typical of people’ (CoD accessed 26.08.08, 11.35). Detailing the body as the ‘physical structure’ of an individual eliminates a vast array of alternative elements that equally contribute to the creation of a human. Neglecting such aspects as the soul and internal being ensures that the notion of body limits the conception of a human. Furthermore the physical element of a body should no longer be identified as the sole descriptive of a human as exemplified by ‘The Visible Human Project’. One does not need to be in possession of a physical being in order to be labelled a human as Joseph Paul Jernigan’s digitalised statistics confirm.

In concurrence with the notion of the physical being as unnecessary are Nettleton and Watson with their text ‘The Body in Everyday Life’ (1998). The two academics suggest that the body is becoming ‘reconceptualised’ (1998:5) and is retracting from its state of fixity within nature. It is apparently emerging as a boundary concept, bridging the dichotomy of physical and technological. Thus the text suggests that the only viable entity to satisfy the role of such a combiner is Donna Haraway’s cyborg, defined as a ‘hybrid of machine and organism’ (1998:5). Giddens (as cited in Nettleton and Watson 1998) supports the theory of a changing bodily form. He argues that the body was once ‘a given (1998:6) in that there was a standardised limited conception. However individuals’ bodies are now items readily available for transformation thus not limiting to the notion of human, as both bodies and humans can be reconstituted into diverse formations.

Furthering the theme of bodies being constructed into varying, non-natural forms is the contemporary exemplar of Thomas Beatie the ‘pregnant man’ (The Times March 26 2008). The Times online covered the story of transgendered man Beatie whose body was previously that of a woman. Through scientific intervention Beatie was able to emancipate himself from the constrictions of his female body and obtain a sense of self assurance as a male. Further scientific phenomena enabled Beatie to artificially inseminate himself due to his retention of female reproductive organs. Thus emerges a pregnant man. Such a story raises copious debate surrounding the ethics of artificial insemination; humans can now be partly created external to the body. Thus is the body edging towards gradual extinction? In direct relation to the focal issue of this essay the body does appear to provide limitations in being human. From an alternative perspective one can assess the relation of body to feeling human which in turns constitutes being human. One could argue that for Beatie, feeling human was synonymous with actively participating in society in the body that felt natural; his female body didn’t feel natural. Thus for Beatie to feel human, therefore be human it was necessary to transcend the limitations of his physical being.

An alternative source is that written by Gane (2006), entitled ‘When we have never been human, what is to be done?: Interview with Donna Haraway’. The interview includes details on the three boundary breakdowns discussed in ‘The Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s’ (Haraway 1984). In relation to the afore mentioned idea of transcending the boundaries of one’s body, Haraway identifies how it is possible to collapse the boundaries between humans and separate entities such as animals and machines thus defying the notion of bodily limitations. Haraway argues that with the concept of the cyborg she attempted to ‘rethink species’ (2006:144) thus the mergence of humans with animals, machines and with the binary of physical versus non-physical. Thus it could be argued that there are not limitations with the body in terms of it restricting the nature of being human, yet perhaps there are errors within the definition of human.

Finally, continuing with Haraway’s theme of eliminating the boundary between human and machine is Leaver’s article ‘“Your appeal to my humanity is pointless”: the Borg and Radical Performativity in Star Trek’ (2002). Leaver argues how the Borg Queen’s torso and head detached from her lower body is a challenge to the ‘coherence and borders of the human body’ (2002). Traditional human bodies are that of a complete organic being, however if we are all cyborgs as Haraway claims then perhaps alternative notions of what it is to be human need to be considered? Is the boundary between organic and technological realms increasingly blurred?

Thus in conclusion, it can be identified that the body does prove to be limiting in terms of attaining complete humanity however such limitations can be transcended within the modern technological era, exemplified by the transgendered pregnant man. With such ability for transcendence it could be suggested that the definition of human needs to be reconsidered in order to correlate with the ever developing social and scientific world.

Reference List
Bone, J. (March 26 2008) ‘Thomas Beatie, a married man who used to be a woman, is pregnant with a baby girl’. The Times online.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3628860.ece (Accessed 27.08.08, 9.48.)

Gane, N. (2006) ‘When we have never been human, what is to be done?: Interview with Donna Haraway’. Theory, Culture, Society 23, 7-8, 135-158.
http://tcs.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/23/7-8/135 (Accessed 26.08.08, 13.56.)

Leaver, T. (2002) ‘“Your appeal to my humanity is pointless”: the Borg and Radical Performativity in Star Trek’. Outskirts: feminisms along the edge 9. http://www.chloe.uwa.edu.au/outskirts/archive/volume9/leaver (Accessed 25.08.08, 15.45.)

Nettleson, S. and Watson, T. (1998) The Body in Everyday Life. New York: Routledge.
http://books.google.com/books?id=m8_u-v4knKQC&pg=PA2&lpg=PA1&ots=23CHeFxWRw&dq=Forms+of+Technological+Embodiment:+Reading+the+Body+in+Contemporary+Culture&lr=&sig=ACfU3U0l8qtg77qy_BgiV3z5LWNBsOCSMg#PPA5,M1 (Accessed 26.08.08, 12.31.)

The Cambridge online Dictionary. UK: Cambridge University Press 2008.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=38379&dict=CALD : Definition of ‘human’.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=8532&dict=CALD : Definition of ‘body’. (Accessed 26.08.08, 11.32.)

Question 1 - Critical Annotated Webliography

1. Visuality is a domain that Haraway critiques of science in general through what she calls ‘the god-trick’: the belief that it is possible to see everything from nowhere. Discuss some of the issues of visuality raised by the Visible Human Project.

Figure 1: Littoral Zone Animation, by Tiffany Holmes[1], a computer artist.

Visuality is an “ocularcentric culture”, the culture that based on what we see. It is undesigned coincidence with ‘god-trick’ in Donna Haraway’s “The Cyborg Manifesto”, the possibility to see everywhere from nowhere. The Visible Human Project (VHP) was developed by National Medical Library in USA, in the way of transferring the corporeal human body into digitalized and visualized database for scientific researches on human anatomy. Given these two Visible Human, a digitalized human-anatomy database was started to develop in 1994. Two Visible Humans were dissected in around 1mm and 0.33mm, and photographed after each dissection. It was unusual to anatomize by slices instead of organs, which thousands of pixels were shaped. The transformation of corporeal body into digital form is a type of embodiment, and death does no longer exist. In this case, human are able to read our identities of afterlife, by distributing online materials, which are consisted of our identities and fleshes. A new type of selfhood is also generated through the VHP development.

An anthropology approach of merging technology and the idea of “normal body” is made, to identify ourselves in artificial way. “Enhancement Technologies and the Body” [2] suggested that technological enhancement to human body is going ‘beyond’ to the normal. The first Visible Human, Joseph Paul Jernigan, from Texas, volunteered to provide his body for scientific research after he received the dose in his age 39, therefore his body was considered as in “good health”. VHP provides us an appropriate model of healthy body, to distinguish between artifice and natural. Furthermore, in this text and Haraway(2004) had suggested that one can choose own embodiment. The Visible Man, Jernigan has transformed himself from a criminal to a man that benefit to the society, in a peculiar way to other people, which reincarnated into series of data. Therefore shifting identities in digital world can be able to achieve in the future.

It was suggested that capital punishment is as a kind of torture for the Visible Man by visualized his identity on screen. The digitalization of Jernigan’s identity as the continuity of his punishment, written by Catherine Waldby in “The Visible Human Project: Life and Death in Cyberspace” [3], who specialized in VHP. These two Visible Human’s images were stored in massive computer dataset and can be downloadable via the internet. Bodies are preserved and stored into database, and taken from internet or CD out of screen as users’ wishes. The Visible Man, Jernigan’s identity as a criminal was also reviewed as medical is always associated with punishment in historical context, displayed their dissected corpse after executed. The digitalization of Visible Human manifested that to understand our tangible human bodies by understanding the intangible identities of ourselves through the Worldwide Webs.

There is also an association between the roles of gender and human anatomy which performed by the VHP. Lisa’s article in Visible Woman [4] found from Google Book Search is particularly discussing the relation between gender and anatomy. Generally, human bodies presented in male, makes female-specific anatomy difficult. The Visible Woman, a ‘Maryland housewife’ who died in her age 59, during a sudden heart-attack in her house, is opened to widely discuss in feminists’ area. The presence of Visible Woman has increased the awareness about women’s health, indicated that female-anatomy is becoming the subject of medical studies. Moreover, Visible Woman presented the meaning of what is gender assigned to us, both physically and mentally. She was dissected into 0.33 mm, which indicated that there is closer, more intensive scrutiny for the female body, as the subject of anatomy. However, as she is a postmenopausal woman, has an incomplete model of reproductive system, the VHP is unable to re-simulate female’s menstruation on screen. The lack of healthy woman representation does highlight the insufficient training of female-anatomy. Nevertheless, her corpse provided the bodily mode of mothers, in existed of non- functioned reproductive system.

Replication of life is made by reproduction. However no sexual reproduction had taken place in VHP, which embedded in human nature. Instead, it duplicated in the ways of “copy and paste”. According to Waldby’s another essay [5], she suggested that the association between VHP and reproduction of life. Under the form of VHP, the digital icons are alive whereas human bodies are already dead, since VHP is the simulation of living human. Also the animation of human movement has reduced the differences between living person and a corpse. Virtual screen interface has transformed as a space for other bodies also. The data storage, the screen, the cyberspace, provided by VHP as a ‘new Eden’, information about Visible Human was ‘in-form’, which inherits ‘god-like’ power to authorise them. VHP is a re-animation of vitality, a resurrection of dead bodies on screen.

In VHP, the Visible Humans are consisted by thousands of images which photographed on their flesh; and word-by-word description around the images. “Human body is hybrid of word, image and mark, and it is examined by various tools of media such as magnetic resonance images (MRI) and computer tomography (CT).” These imaging tools are used during the dissection of Visible Human. Many artists also used some of the MRI scans to present themselves, such as Tiffany Holmes’s Littoral Zone (figure 1). VHP has explored the intersections of digital art and science technology, and derived from Holmes’s paper [6], which is about the connections of alphabetic, artworks and personal perspective.

In conclusion, the ‘god-trick’ defined by Donna Haraway, is to see the concrete, corporeal bodies, from the abstract, virtual computer screen. The VHP itself is a “translation of the world into a problem of coding” (Haraway 2004), from transformation of Visible Humans’ identity and their bodies into massive computerized storage, a digitalized “coffin”. Therefore Jernigan was no longer blamed because of his crimes; instead he benefited the society by contributing his cadaver to scientific research. He has shifted his identity successfully. On the other hand, the identity of Visible Woman was still veiled, but as time rolls on; her significance is widely discussed for Australian feminists’ studies [7]. The VHP’s digitalization and visualization over human bodies provide a higher level of visuality, based on what we have seen on the VHP materials from Internet, and Holmes’s medical-related artworks; to represent our bodies and realise ourselves, to the sets of 0s and 1s.

Notes:
1. Tiffany Holmes (1999) ‘The Corporeal Stenographer: Language, Gesture, and Cyberspace’ Leonardo 32, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576821 (accessed 22 August 2008).
2. Linda F. Hogle (2005) ‘Enhancement Technologies and the Body’ Annual Reviews of Anthropology 34, http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.anthro.33.070203.144020 (accessed 18 August 2008).
3. Catherine Waldby (1997) ‘Life and Death in Cyberspace’ Artlink 17, http://search.informit.com.au/fullText;res=APAFT;dn=971111255 (accessed 15 August 2008).
4. Paula Treichler, Lisa Cartwright, Constance Penley (1998) Visible Woman, http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=N3FGXKV0TtwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA21&dq=Visible+Human+Project&ots=5rs-kE2GqV&sig=7HX1RWvRFDKWMkma1phMFzXSjLU (accessed 18 August 2008).
5. Catherine Waldby (1999) ‘IatroGenesis: The Visible Human Project and the Reproduction of Life’ Australian Feminist Studies 14, http://docserver.ingentaconnect.com/deliver/connect/routledg/08164649/v14n29/s7.pdf?expires=1219036260&id=45549506&titleid=338&accname=The+University+of+Western+Australia-Library&checksum=A14CC5155613B710A0EFBC391BA0B8F3 (accessed 18 August 2008).
6. Holmes (1999), p. 387.
7. Susan Magarey & Susan Sheridan (2002) ‘Local, Global, Regional: Women’s Studies in Australia’ Feminist Studies 28, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3178497 (accessed 22 August 2008).

Reference List
Haraway, Donna Jeanne (2004) ‘A Manifesto of Cyborg: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in 1980s’ The Haraway Reader, http://hive.library.uwa.edu.au/cgi-bin/hive/hive.cgi/02652.pdf?HIVE_REF=hii%3A14261&HIVE_RET=ORG&HIVE_REQ=2114&HIVE_PROD=0/02652.pdf (accessed 15 August 2008).

Critical Annotated Webliography

Judy Waczman argues that Donna Haraway's figure of the cybord has taken on 'a life of its own' in popular culture, science fiction and academic writing. In what ways has it been taken up by feminists?

Second-wave feminism connects female liberation to a woman’s ‘natural’ duty to uphold the integrity of human and natural life on earth through biological reproduction. Donna Haraway employs the idea of the cyborg, which rejects gender binaries, challenging feminists to engage in the issues of feminism beyond naturalism. In seeking out resources for this webliography, it became apparent that Haraway’s idea of the cyborg has been advocated by most feminists, fluctuating into a new brand of third-wave feminism called Cyberfeminism. However, I found that the idea of the cyborg disagrees with the beliefs of second-wave socialist feminists which illustrates a huge jump in broad feminist ideas. In the essay I would aim to demonstrate different points of view in regards to feminism and the cyborg. Using search engines such as Google and Google Scholar and keywords such as cyber-feminism, socialist feminism, gender binaries, post-gender etc and key names such as Sadie Plant, I was able to retrieve useful sources of information which would aide in answering this question. However, a majority of the sources found in this manner were either too vague or unscholarly, but usefully including reference lists and/or citations which led me to more credible sources of information.

Hari Kunzru’s article ‘You are Cyborg’ recounts a conversation with Donna Haraway about the ‘Cyborg Manifesto. In a conversationalist manner, Kunzru’s article then leads on to explain in Haraway’s voice, the key ideas surrounding the technological transformation that diminishes the rigid boundaries between “human” and “machine” and places them as co-inhabitants in the world. The manner in which this article is written, which paints Haraway in a portrait of humble normalcy given Haraway’s postmodern techno-crazy theories, allows for Haraway’s ideas to be more accessible and understandable in comparison to the manner in which the ‘Cyborg Manifesto’ is written. “The cyborg idea may in the end be Donna Haraway's way of showing us how to let folks be folks, rather than carving them up into cruel, arbitrary divisions” Kunzru puts simply. In answering the guiding question, I would use this source to first gain a solid and simple understanding of the cyborg idea, and use it to outline Haraway’s idea of the cyborg at the beginning of the essay providing a sufficient foundation on which to base how feminists have taken up the idea of the cyborg.

Barbara Ehrenreich's article, ‘What is Socialist Feminism’ outlines the principles of socialist feminism and explains their main concern with the social inequalities in gender. Although this article does not include any sort of critique of the cyborg in terms of socialist feminist ideas, I believe its outline of what socialist feminists advocate in terms of feminism to be of importance to illustrate the contrast between second-wave feminism and third-wave feminism. Furthermore, a comparison between then and now in terms of how feminists thought about gender, highlights the progression towards a pos-gender society where gender binaries become obsolete due to the idea of cyborgs, just as Haraway suggests.

In ‘Where is Feminism in Cyberfeminism’, Faith Wilding aims to define and explain the foundations of Cyberfeminism. Wilding demonstrates how Cyberfeminists have taken up Haraway’s idea of the cyborg, and the principles surrounding it and applied it to the internet, an aspect of technology that Haraway herself does not delve into. I found the most relevant sections of the article were the sections on ‘cyber-grrlism' which explains a technological ‘girl-power’ and liberation through a new net utopianism where everything is declared equal, free of any binaries, including gender. “This net utopianism declares cyberspace to be a free space where gender does not matter... In other words, cyberspace is regarded as an arena inherently free of the same old gender relations and struggles.” In my essay, I would use this source to demonstrate how feminists have taken the idea of the cyborg and developed their own ideas, applied it to and analysed it in today’s new technology thus creating a new online utopia that complies with Haraway’s ideas, away from the offline reality where away from technology and the idea of the cyborg gender binaries exist and post-gender does not.

In stark contrast to Wilding’s article on online Cyberfeminism, Susanna Paasonen article, ‘Surfing the Waves of Feminism: Cyberfeminism and its others’ aims to decipher Cyberfeminism’s ambiguous definition and in doing so, questions the principles of Cyberfeminism and critiques its ironic stance on binary thinking. This article offers a contrasting opinion on Cyberfeminism and its principles based on Haraway’s idea of the cyborg. Where Haraway aims to dismantle binary thought, especially in regard to gender, through the idea of the cyborg, Cyberfeminism ironically seems to create more binaries such as old and new feminism, second and third wave, offline and online while offering no alternative forms of thought and location. This article would be particularly useful in questioning the way in which the idea of the cyborg has been taken up by feminists to create Cyberfeminism and “ a new way of thinking”, when instead Cyberfeminism and its adoption of Haraway’s cyborg, is creating new oppositions in replace of the old.

In terms of new binary oppositions being created in place of old ones, one could say that the idea of the cyborg which has inhabited science fiction opposes literature of the non science fiction variety, highlighting where the cyborg and consequently post-gender, does and does not exist. Rosi Braidotti looks at the cyborg in science fiction in her article ‘Feminist Visions on Science Fiction’ and comments on how feminists have looked at science fiction as a way to “assess the impact of the new technological world upon the representation of sexual difference.” Braidotti offers an interesting argument on how science fiction “play[s] with fundamental male anxieties and displace [them] by inventing alternative views of reproduction, thereby manipulating the figure of the female body.” This notion completely removes Cyberfeminists from second-wave feminism which ties itself to naturalism. This article demonstrates through examples taken from popular science fiction, the idea of the cyborg forever changing the generative “purpose” of women which would be particularly useful in demonstrating how the cyborg has changed the ideas of gender and feminism, painting a colorful example of cyberfeminism, cyborgs and new techno science in science fiction itself.

In assessing how feminists have taken up Donna Haraway’s idea of the cyborg, these fives sources aim to look at the most recent and the most present aspects of feminism and their views on the cyborg and its post-gender principles. I chose this approach because I feel that the most important aspect of this question is not of the cyborg, but rather of the ramifications the idea of the cyborg has had on feminism and ideas of gender. Therefore, I have attempted to provide a holistic view of how past waves of feminism (second-wave) has taken up the idea of the cyborg, how present feminism (third-wave) has taken up the idea of the cyborg, of cyberfeminism and the cyborg itself in practice, as well as the critcisms focused on Cyberfeminism.

Assignment 1- Critical Annotated Webliography

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

It is quite a challenging task to abstract reliable, useful sources from the masses and masses of useless, unreliable information that is on the internet. Choosing the right search engine (Google and Google Scholar were particularly useful) and picking out the key words from the guiding question to search with were the two most useful techniques I used to find the most reliable online sources. Iwan Rhys Morus’ Bodies/Machines, Andrea Gaggioli, Marco Vettorello and Giuseppe Riva’s From Cyborgs to Cyberbodies: The Evolution of the Concept of Techno-Body in Modern Medicine, Verana Kuni’s Mythical Bodies II, Catherine Waldby’s The Visible Human Project and Alison Caddick’s Feminism and Postmodernism: Donna Haraway’s Cyborg all contain a great deal of information that is helpful in answering the guiding question above. These sources provided a range of different viewpoints on the issue of the reinterpretation of the body, and some excellent examples of how the limit to what it is to be human has continually been adapted over time.

Iwan Rhys Morus’ online book abstract titled Bodies/Machines examines the way in which the body has been reinterpreted over time through its interactions with machines. Morus writes that the body “works both as a way of naturalizing machinery and of denaturalizing human beings. It provides a way of making technological society appear as a natural extension of the human body itself.”[1] Morus suggests in this book that the continual reinterpretation of the body as a limit to what it means to be human is ultimately a positive and natural one.

Morus’ work on the curiosity surrounding the limits of being human such as what he writes here, “we live in an age that is simultaneously fascinated by and terrified of the boundaries surrounding the human body and what happens (or might happen) there,”[2] is directly relevant to the same anxieties expressed in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and in criticism of the Visible Human Project (the two examples the guiding question uses).

Andrea Gaggioli, Marco Vettorello and Giuseppe Riva’s article, From Cyborgs to Cyberbodies: the Evolution of the Concept of Techno-Body in Modern Medicine investigates the way collective notions of the body have changed due to the incorporation of new technologies in modern medicine.[3] Of most interest in this article was its examination of the cyborg and the cyberbody. Through a discussion of the cyborg and cyberbody the authors conclude “that people no longer have a direct “sense of body”, but a mediated sense of body”[4].

Gaggioli, Vettorello and Riva’s article links the Visible Human Project with the work currently being done on Ambience Intelligence; they look to the future where patient’s bodies will be represented in virtual reality[5]. They also suggest through a post humanist perspective, that western industrialized societies are undergoing a new chapter of humanity “wherein no essential differences between bodily existence and computer stimulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism, robot technology and human goals, exist […]”[6] This article comes to the conclusion that our bodies are continually being reinterpreted as a limit to what it means to be human and it is therefore very valuable to use when discussing the guiding question.

Verana Kuni’s article Mythical Bodies II is especially valuable because it draws on the examples of both the story of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Visual Human Project, just as the guiding question of this task does. Kuni defines both of these subjects well, and suggests that in both cases the bodies of executed men have been allowed to live on, in either the case of being refashioned into a new creature (Doctor Frankenstein’s monster) or existing in virtual reality (the first body of the Visual Human Project) [7]. In this way, the human body has been reinterpreted, to be able to exist even after the soul of the person is dead [8]. This article provides a strong argument as to how the body has been interpreted in both instances, and how this has changed the parameters of what it means to be human.

Catherine Waldby’s online abstract of her book The Visible Human Project provides excellent coverage on the Visible Human Project. She speaks extensively on the background of the project and the identities of the “real-life” bodies[9]. Through this text we are able to acknowledge the Visible Human Project, as one of the latest ways the human body has been reinterpreted, and this is invaluable. Waldby also provides arguments for and against the reinterpretation of the body and speaks at length about the creation of virtual bodies, which are also helpful when answering the guiding question.[10]

Alison Caddick’s article Feminism and Postmodernism: Donna Haraway’s Cyborg contrasts the views of scholars Corea, Rowland, Firestone and Haraway on the view of bodies. Caddick’s definition of the body is very useful to use when unpacking the guiding question. She writes, “bodies are discursive or textual entities generally, the conventional products of particular historical circumstances”.[11] Caddick’s suggestion that the postmodern body is more fundamentally open to reinterpretation than any body before it as well as her suggestions as to why it has progressed this way are also integral points to consider.[12]

Caddick’s rather optimistic projection onto how she hopes bodies may exist in the future is also very relevant and interesting. She quotes Haraway who writes, ‘a cyborg world might be about lived social and bodily realities in which people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contrary standpoints”[13] this would be a great quote to include in an essay addressing the guiding question. The article, being written from a feminist perspective is also relevant, as an essay is often strongest when a wide variety of views on a topic are used.

Navigating the internet in search of reliable sources to answer the guiding question was a difficult task. Using the search engines Google and Google Scholar, and choosing the right key words from the question were helpful ways of sifting through the masses of information that is on the internet. The quality of the information which can be found on the internet such as that from Iwan Rhys Morus’ Bodies/Machines, Andrea Gaggioli, Marco Vettorello and Giuseppe Riva’s From Cyborgs to Cyberbodies: The Evolution of the Concept of Techno-Body in Modern Medicine, Verana Kuni’s Mythical Bodies II, Catherine Waldby’s The Visible Human Project and Alison Caddick’s Feminism and Postmodernism: Donna Haraway’s Cyborg, surprised me. These sources would be very helpful to use in answering the guiding question, they contained a number of valuable examples and viewpoints on the issue of body reinterpretation and how the limit to what it is to be human has been redefined over time.

Footnotes:

[1] Morus, p. 3.

[2] Morus, p. 1
[3] Gaggioli et al., p. 75 & 77.

[4] Gaggioli et al., p. 3
[5] Gaggioli et al, p. 80
[6] Hayles cited in Gaggioli et al, p. 76
[7] Kuni, p. 2

[8] Kuni, p.2
[9] Waldby, p. 1

[10] Waldby p. 3
[11] Caddick

[12] Caddick
[13] Caddick

Critical 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.”

In today’s technological age, it is hard to imagine what life would be like without machines or computers helping us out with our daily tasks. Machines and technology have essentially become synchronous with almost every individual in the modernized world – at the same time becoming more naturalized and invisible. The link between the human body and technology is one which constantly changes alongside technological advancements – and with rapidly evolving concepts from Frankenstein to the Visible Human Project, we are constantly forced to question just what it means to be human.

My research in regards to this question has led me to the following links, which all offer insights into human identity and the concept of the cyborg.

I first started looking at Gert Biesta’s article, as it talks about the postmodern climate alongside the idea of human identity and reality. Through this perspective, Gert suggests traditional ideas of the body are increasingly coming under pressure as a result of the changing values and attitudes of society.

While this article does not talk about cyborgs or the machine/human relationship specifically, it provides valuable reference to the contrasts between reality and physicality. This article can be strongly linked to the concept of the Visible Human Project, where the virtualization of the body has raised numerous questions and concerns especially over human identity.

Gert writes "Identity no longer is something to be discovered; identity has become an invention...In postmodernism the tie between representation and represented has been cut through...The textualization of the subject results in a loss of power, a loss that manifests itself at the level of the body. The subject becomes powerless because her body no longer exists as a referent; the body is reduced to a sign of itself. It is important to note that this does not concern loss of physical power; at stake is a loss of agency, that is, of political power.”

It seems Gert is arguing that human identity has basically become a normalized idea, based on dominant inventions and ideas from concepts such as the Visible Human Project.

This can be related to the essay found on cyberpunks.org, where the author explores the concept of the cyborg and cybernetics. A more significant aspect of this essay refers to Donna Haraway's “A Manifesto for Cyborgs” where they state: “...the reason why we are transformed by our technologies, as we attempt to transform the world around us, is that consciousness is a nonlinear phenomenon.”

Essentially, the author is asserting that humanity's attempt to create a better world has inevitably led to the changing idea of beaing human. The author of this article also states that cyborg consciousness will inevitably become part of our future – advancing synonymously with the technology. In this perspective, the body is the base on which we build upon, which is why the human body is constantly reinterpreted. Because humanity is always looking for ways to increase the body's performance, it is only inevitable our interpretation of 'being human' will be influenced by the body's limits, as well science and technology.

Steve Mizrach talks about the ethics of the concept of the cyborg – in which he describes the relationship between humans and computers as 'troubling'.

From his point of view, the negative aspects of the cyborg cannot be ignored: especially with the dangers of experimenting with science, technology and the human body. While science obviously plays a large part in redefining the human identity, the consequences of a morally questionable experiment could produce concerning results: much like Frankenstein.

Michelle Chan's article on CNN explores virtual identities/avatars through photographer Robbie Cooper's research of gaming 'alter egos'. Cooper states: "...if there was a general trend, the online identities people chose were 'less ordinary' than their real selves." This in itself is significant in reasoning why people's online identities hold so much significance today - the main points being race, class, gender and age can be hidden: allowing people more control over their virtual identity.

However, Cooper also states: "In the virtual world, we even exaggerate the superficiality of what we're used to, like stereotypical female anatomies. That's what really fascinates me about these worlds. They trap us even more." Cooper's opinion is in stark contrast to Donna Haraway's opinion on cyborgs, where she asserts the idea of the cyborg resists things such as race and gender : essentially freeing people from the constraints of nature and culture in society. This leads to the question: is the virtual body/identity liberating or just a medium to build upon certain gender stereotypes?

A story featured on New Scientist also highlighted two artists: Stelarc and Orlan, whose art completely revolved around their body, surgery and science. Both artists willingly underwent several cosmetic procedures to hybridize nature and machines, with Stelarc explaining: “[the body is]...a structure to be monitored and modified ... an object for designing."

Orlan on the other hand, is a female French artist, who feels “...she is questioning traditional views on normality, gender and what it is to be human. She even expresses an interest in using biotechnology in pursuit of her interest in blurring the boundaries between the natural and the technological.” Both of these artists clearly hold strong beliefs about the power humans could have when hybridized with the power of technology. Their views also seem to reflect Haraway's opinion, in which she states the concept of the cyborg enables freedom from nature and culture. Orlan's favourite motto: "Remember the future" particularly resonates with the essay question, as it is our ideas and concepts of the body that help reinterpret what it means to be human.

It is clear that technology today is advancing at an increasingly rapid rate, and there is no doubt that it will continue to improve as time goes on. Our dependence on technology every day only serves to remind us that the hybridization of humans and machines will inevitably lead to a constant reinterpretation of the human body, as a result of humanity's desire for a better quality of life.

Bibliography:

• Biesta, Gert. THE IDENTITY OF THE BODY. 1994. (accessed 27th August 2008)
• Chan, Michelle. Identity in a Virtual World. June 2007. (accessed 27th August 2008)
• Mizrach, Steve. Should there be a limit placed on the integration of humans and computers and electronic technology? (accessed 27th August 2008)
• N/A. CYBORG CONSCIOUSNESS. November 2001. (accessed 27th August 2008)
• Neesham, Claire, Smith, Caroline. Beyond Flesh and Blood. November 1995. (accessed 27th August 2008)
  

Whats Up?

Sorry so late...I've suffered a broken foot and am catching up with emails amongst other things. I guess my fav site is myspace. yeah I know its kinda dated, but I don't want to become a mad facebooker as well. I think people spend to much time slaving away behind computers anyway. See you thurs.
p.s. does anyone want to meet with me to help me catch up???

Hey everyone

Hey peoples..kind of a late post haha. Anyways, I'm Jaclyn...and my most frequented sites would probably be last.fm and digg.com. I also love graphicpoetry.net.

I'm also stalking NIN's blog because they're touring at the moment, so thats kinda interesting. :P

Well I'll cya guys around!