Guiding Question 2:
'The machine / organism relationships are obsolete, unnecessary' writes Haraway. In what ways have our relations to machines been theorised?
1. Women and technology in geography: a cyborg manifesto for GIS
The writer claims that women participate and engage in science and technology. The cyborg is blended with computer technology and humans. The relationship which humans share with machines is symbolic. She explains the cyborg theory by using her experience. As a writer, she has become a cyborg. She is connected to the computer and the idea what she generated is mediated when she is sitting down and using computer to write the paper. The cyborg is shorthand for the human / electronic interface. Human activities are connected through technology progressively, involving a rapid increase in number of cyborgs. Consequently, it is very difficult to divide humans and machines. It reconstitutes the power relations between human and machine. It can be known that the lines of power are shifting, to some extent, to incorporate the cyborg. Therefore, the boundaries between human and machine is changing. Besides, it represents women have more opportunities to involve in science and technology. This point of view identifies that cyborgs have material qualities. It is a political action for women to construct cyborgs by taking part in technology as technology is a social process. It is a responsibility for us to decide the characteristics of the cyborgs, whether the cyborgs are masculinist or feminist.
Schuurman, Nadine. "Women and Technology in Geography: a Cyborg Manifesto for GIS." The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe Canadien 46.3 (2002): 258-65. 12 Mar. 2011. <http://www.sfu.ca/gis/schuurman/cv/pdf/2002cg.pdf>.
2. Cyborgs and Atomic Microscopes
Gualtieri discusses the ethics of creating a hybrid of man and machine which is a cyborg. The word “cyborg” was introduced by Manfred Clynes in 1960, which is shorthand for Cybernetic Organism. The creation of cyborg was proposed as a way to release humans from many of the less attractive tasks of life, such as tending the hearth to achieve a comfortable room temperature. The idea of a cyborg takes cybernetics a step further by making humans a part of a more efficient machine. Since there is hybrid of human and machine, it seems that humans have lost their humanity in the course of the loss of human skin like the cyborg astronaut. It is hard to determine whether the astronaut is human or not. Besides, to some extent, humans have become cyborgs nowadays. People often use different kinds of medical and scientific instruments in daily lives. It confuses the boundary of human and machine. With technological advancement, it becomes more complex to recognize the cyborg in the future. It is possible for human to become a cyborg as it will be ordinary to inject small machines due to the medical use. It seems humans are no longer natural at all.
Gualtieri, Devlin M. "Cyborgs and Atomic Microscopes." Phi Kappa Phi Forum 84.2 (2004). 11 Mar. 2011. <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4026/is_200404/ai_n9381412/>.
3. Human/Machine Reconsidered
The author discusses the non-human agency, especially the machine. It is because there are several developments both in the area of interactive computing and in the debate within social studies of science and technology on agency in the last decade. There is a shift of the way that people construct the human / machine boundaries. She observes a renewed interest in the idea of artificial “agents”, “knowbots” and other computational artifacts attributed with a capacity for intelligent, interactive behavior has brought with the rise of the internet. In her previous work, she proposed that the term “interaction” might be best used to describe what continues to happen between a person and one another, rather than extended to encompass relations between people and machines. She argued the latter was better characterized in terms of different forms of mediation and use. In this paper, she re-examine this argument in light of reflections on developments over the past ten years. She suggests that while interesting developments have arisen undoubtedly during that time in terms of relative and renew ideas of human / non-human agency, critical issues of living experience and responsibility within particular culturally and historically constituted moral / political orders remains. She argues the boundaries between humans and machines are not natural but historically and culturally constructed. As being ontology, humans and non-humans can combine without removing cultural and historical differences. When objects are subjectified and subjects are objectified, the human / artifact boundaries seem not to be present.
Suchman, Lucy. "Human/Machine Reconsidered." Cognitive Studies 5.1 (1998): 5-13. 12 Mar. 2011. <http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jcss/5/1/1_5/_pdf>.
4. Looking Forward to Sociable Robots
Glenda examines the work through humanoid social robot projects. There are different points of views about machines. One states that there is a division between nature and culture. The nature should be separated from the society. Other claims that there is a relationship between humans and machines. Since the social robots would behave as realistic and dependable partners, it is easy for them to get into human world. As those social robots are produced to emerge in various kinds of human environments, it would change the society obviously. The ontological division between human and machine no longer exists in society. People are now living in cyborg era because their lives are greatly relied on machines. On the other hand, there is social impact on human-robot interaction. Interacting with human, robots are one of the social actors in the society. This introduces the challenge on the relationship of human and robots. There is ontological blurring between human and robot. When humanoid social robots become more familiar with human’s lifestyle, it seems that they cannot be regarded as simple machines anymore as they have blended with human. Therefore, the boundary between human and machine becomes blurred.
Glenda, Shaw-Garlock. "Looking Forward to Sociable Robots." International Journal of Social Robotics 1.3 (2009): 249-60. 14 May 2009. 13 Mar. 2011. <http://www.springerlink.com/content/570101q4u1589j0t/fulltext.pdf>.
5. The Dada Cyborg: Visions of the New Human in Weimar Berlin
Youngman’s looking at Berlin Dada works through the cyborg reveals that this action understood as destructive in general. It can be seen as a constructive study of new forms of hybrid identity. It is not simply an aesthetic taking apart authoritarian figures and other familiar targets. Biro's analysis of the cyborg successfully allows him to make the claim that avant-garde art did not do away with the contextual meanings of its individual parts. Most of Biro’s examinations of Berlin Dada are made by the concept of the cyborg as a construct of cybernetic theory and concept of the cyborg as an eliminator of boundaries - human-machine, animal-human, physical-non-physical. Biro uses these to help to develop the new image of the cyborg: establishes Dada as a form of political discourse and sets up the cyborg as a creature embodying new modes of perceiving created by the technological impact on human sensory organs. He emphasizes cyborgs with mechanically having greater hearing and vision. He also highlighted that there is a link between creators and consumers of the cyborg. Since humans and machines are interrelated, it is not necessary to differentiate between human and machine.
Youngman, Paul A. "The Dada Cyborg: Visions of the New Human in Weimar Berlin." German Quarterly 83.3 (2010). 1 July 2010. 13 Mar. 2011. <http://www.faqs.org/periodicals/201007/2129933771.html>.
By Annie Cheng
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