Guiding Question :‘The Machine/organism relationships are obsolete, unnecessary’ writes Haraway. In what ways have our relations to machines been theorised?
1. Warwick, Kevin (2000) “Cyborg 1.0”
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.02/warwick.html (accessed 11 March 2011)
Kevin Warwick outlined his plan to become a part of a machine. Firstly, he implanted a silicon chip into his arm by transmitting and recording his actions and signals through radio waves to computer, in order to create a response from computer. The first experiment was successful; hence, they had planned to conduct another experiment by not only implant silicon chip into his body, but also in his nerve system, which might ultimately place the implants nearer to the brain, in order to receive and record more complex sensory signal. I.e. emotional signs. Which led to a bolder assumption and conclusion that, the boundaries between machine and human were getting blurrier. Eventually we would all become cybernetic organism; contains a combination of natural (human) and artificial components (computer).
Warwick discussed further that, human created machine to increase the capacity of mankind, and there would be possibility that machine can be more intelligent than us in future. Hence, cybernetic is a necessary action for human to receive benefit from machine, by integrating into them.
The article encored the phrase of Haraway, the relations between machine and human were unnecessary. The hybridization of machine and technology has made a blurrier boundary. This article has shown that, there would be more interaction and interface between human and machine as an inevitable trend, as Harway pointed out that, machine was our process, an aspect of human kind’s embodiment (Harway).
2. Hayles, N. Katherine (1999) “How We Became Posthuman: Virtual bodies in cybernetic, literature, and informatics”
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/321460.html (accessed 11 March 2011)
Hayles began her analysis by offering example of a human communicating with two other entities from a different room from Alan Turing’s research, whom the human need to identify which one was the another human being, by posing questions to distinguish during conversations. The machine was programed to mislead you by imitating the response of another person. The human could distinguish wrongly due to the programmed responses. From this example, knowledge or information could be bodiless that flow between different physical forms without losing the authenticity. As a result, machine could also be human by having human’s knowledge.
Hayles argued that there were other factors needed to be considered, for instance, free will, free speech, she further elaborated an example a female’s response by a man would not prove that he was a woman, when gender was a social cultural construct. Verbal performance could not be equal with embodied reality.
Instead, it were about our perceptions in this cognitive system, no matter what identification we put on the embodied entities, we were all post humans, as the intervention not came only by the decision we make for distinguishing which one was enacted body or represented body, rather, when the test put human into a cybernetic environment for communicating with machines, we had all became post-human.
This article reinforces Haraway’s quote. Instead of actively turning human into part of machine, as the relationships is self-perpetuated evolving. We had passively become post- human/cyborgs.
3. Turkle, Sherry. 2007 “Simulation Versus Authenticity”
http://web.mit.edu/sturkle/www/pdfsforstwebpage/ST_Simulation%20vs%20Authenticity.pdf (accessed 11 March 2011)
Turkle presented her argument by two examples in her article. She brought her daughter to an exhibition of Charles R. Darwin. He was famous of the evolution theory; that all species of life would descend over time from common ancestry. During the exhibition her daughter commented that the turtle at the entrance of the exhibition should have changed it into a robot turtle for aesthetic purpose and freedom of the “alive turtle.” It was an ironic example when the writer was visiting the Darwin’s exhibition as Darwin’s evolution theory was about the distinction of species.
She argued that the idea of originality was in crisis; younger generation considered that, simulation had the same value as the notion of authenticity.Furthermore, Turkle was engaged in a therapeutic robot research in a nursing home for elderly in 2005. She studied that a “seal-like robot’’ had brought a sense of comfort for the abandoned elderly lady, when it was able to make eye contact, body interaction with human.Even though the therapeutic robot was a relational artifact, it had the ability to echo emotions out from human and made human felt that they were being appreciated and understood.
She criticized that it was not based on the robot’s intelligence or consciousness, rather, fundamentally deceitful interchange. The rise of simulation was challenging human uniqueness, which reinforced evolution theory, that change played a role in species for next generation, when it highly based on the strong survival skills on earth.
Our relations with machine, has lessen the uniqueness of human, especially now we could substitute a computer for human being- animal, children, or friends, for fantasy of reciprocation purpose. Regardless of machine was only a representation of human being.
4.Ivers, Christi. (2007) “(Inter)facing the Other: An analysis of the Role of Cyborg Partiality in Constructing Identity
http://www.drake.edu/artsci/PolSci/ssjrnl/2007/ivers.pdf (accessed 11 March 2011)
Christi began by addressing how machine/human relations had reconstructed our identities. Facial feature was one of the strongest senses of identity in human kind. In a tragic accident that had cost Isabelle Dinoire lost most of her face features, as she was brutally savaged by a dog. She later had a face transplant surgery to reconstruct her face. Her new face was composed of a brain-dead donor. Christi argued that her Dinoire’s new face was no longer wholly her own, instead, it was a hybrid face through the mediation of technology, which became a collective identity.
Unlike Frankenstein’s character, not willing to be considered as the “others”; Dinoire literalized the cyborg identity. Blended herself into the social and scientific structure. The transplant surgery allowed her to reassemble herself by a partial identity.Ivers argued that, identity was not defined by individualism, rather, by the impact of other individuals. Just as Haraway theory of cyborg, “[t]he cyborg is a kind of disassembled and reassembled, postmodern collective and personal self.” (Haraway)
The relations between machine and human are intertwined and becoming inseparable. Cyborg gave human a new chance of identity, a new kind of wholeness formed by parity.
5. Breen, Jennifer. (2007) “Cyborg Gender”
http://www.cyborgdb.org/breen.htm (accessed 11 March 2011)
Breen stated that the person using internet has a cyborg identity, as it was part machine and part human. It allowed her to have multiple identities, she could be a man or woman on the internet, and engaged in social networking with others. McLuhan once stated that, medium was an extension of mankind. We joined in the collective cyberspace; meanwhile, collective cyberspace joined us too. Unlike in the real world, cyberspace allowed people to have control over the identities. As internet allowed people to express their identity in a way they wanted to be shown.
She further elaborated that, choosing gender identity was one of the liberation of internet by offering examples of why individuals chose to switch genders on the internet, i.e. some individuals wanted to express themselves from the cultural patriarchal stereotypes. The ability to choose gendered role on the cyberspace has strengthen the argument from Haraway, that relationship between machine and organism could be obsolete, yet, it created a new space of liberation from gendered identity.
by Chen Yi Chen, Rebecca
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