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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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cyborg notes:
I've been reading a collection of essays by Critical Art Ensemble called Flesh Machine (available here in PDF format). The essay titled "Posthuman Development in the Age of Pancapitalism" is pretty useful for thinking about cyborgs and the horrible paradoxes between utopic/dystopic versions of where we might be headed with this whole cerebral web-based interconnectedness thing. The essay was written in 1998 (I think, have to check because it could be earlier) and talks about Virtual Reality (VR). Remember when goggle headsets seemed exotic and full of promise? (goggle => => => google {heh heh...don't mind me}) CAE has this to say:
VR’s primary value to the ISA [Ideological State Apparatus] is not as a technology at all, but as a myth. VR functions as a technology that is out on the horizon, promising that one day members of the public will be empowered by rendering capabilities which will allow them to create multisensual experiences to satisfy their own particular desires. The mysterious aura constructed around this technology associates it with the exotic, the erotic, and potentially, with the ethereal. By perpetuating the myth of a wish machine that is always about to arrive, the pancapitalist ISA builds in the population a desire to be close to image technology, to own it. Unfortunately, most technology is being designed for precisely the opposite purpose from that of a wish machine, that is, to make possible better control of the material world and its populations. This combination of myth and hardware sets the foundation for the material posthuman world of the cyborg.It's a good idea to remember that the promise of populist egalitarian empowerment is an early symptom of ultimately oppressive technological developments. Ursula Franklin had some good stuff to say on this relating the advent of cars to the advent of computers, and as soon as I find the book (too many piles) I'll post some of it. In the meantime, CAE* is sounding pretty grim on the topic of the future.
The current spectacle of technology is having an effect on the civilian population of the appropriate classes, although cyborg development in this sector is a little more subtle than in the military. Most people have seen the first phases of the civilian cyborg, which is typically an information cyborg. They are usually equipped with lap-top computers and cellular phones. Everywhere they go, their technology goes with them. They are always prepared to work, and even in their leisure hours they can be activated for duty. Basically, these beings are intelligent, autonomous workstations that are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and at the same time can be transformed into electronic consumers, whenever necessary. In this phase of posthuman development, the will to purity, explicit in the spectacle of anxiety, manifests itself in two significant forms: First is the purification of the pancapitalist cycle of waking everyday life.* in case you hadn't noticed these guys are currently stuck deep in patriot-act-style doo-doo and need some help.
Cyborgs are reduced to acting out rational, pragmatic, instrumental behaviors, and in so doing, the cycles of production (work) and consumption (leisure) are purified of those elements deemed nonrational and useless (by the pancapitalist system). It seems reasonable to expect that attempts will be made to reduce or eliminate regenerative, nonproductive processes like sleeping through the use of both technological and biological enhancement. The second is a manifestation of ideological purity which persuades the cyborg to obsessively value that which perpetuates and maintains the system, and to act accordingly. The prime disrupter of this manifestation of purity is the body itself with its endlessly disruptive physical functions, and the libidinal motivations inherent in human psychology. Hence technological advancement alone will not create the best posthuman; it must be supported by developments in rationalized body design.