Week Two (Wed, 1/26): Natural Born Cyborgs

Class Notes by Riki

Stelarc: The Body is Obsolete

Prelude: Dialogue, comments.

I. Course Keeping:  On line access, note taking, reminder to post by Friday.

II. For next week: for both Monday's and Wednesday's class, read/reflect on Joan Roughgarden's Introduction and Part One: "Animal Rainbows." Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 1-181 (purchase book).

III. To open: from last time

• extensions and conversions

• how has your notion of your relation and interaction with technology changed since your first posting? 
   
• how might you describe your relation differently now?
  
  

  NAME	FEATURES	TECHNOLOGY
  anne	bound to ...	clock and calendar
  m.aghazarian	get the time; but when there's no service...	cell phone
  tangerines	explore creativity; but more time in front of screen than interacting w/ other people	computer
  cara	much greater access to information, but decline in the amount of books I read/ number of distractions provided by	computer
  leamirella	always something missed	camera
  Oak	communication	Internet
  Francine	digital drawing/entertainment... but communication/social networking??	computer
  MissArcher2	indispensible to constant connection, but we've ceased to focus on where we are	iPhone
  Franklin20	artistic capacities, but too dependent	iPhone
  spreston	connected, but too reliant	laptop
  Hilary Brashear	create a private soundtrack, but distancing of human to human contact	iPod
  ekthorp	ability to carry all my music with me	iPod
  Hilary G	calming, personal, self-motivated creativity	piano
  merlin	quick and efficient transmission of knowledge and information, but replacing a person with your imaginary visualization	cellphone/text messages
  Apocalipsis	constant connection/instant gratification/makes me a strong player in the world by increasing my resources	iPhone
  kelliott	carry my whole life/switch in identity	iPhone
  rubikscube	limited ability to consider questions without one right answer	Arduino control board
  phreNic	can access astounding amount of information: but too much, too trivial or incomplete?	internet
  Riki	takes a lot of time	video camera
  shin1068111	go anywhere whenever I want, but: accidents; requires lots of energy and causes air pollution.	car
  aybala50	handy for seeing everyone I'm supposed to	airplanes
  Liz McCormack	doing science = manipulating and imagining stuff	beam machines, lazers
  MSA 322	listen to my favorite music whenever i wanted	walkman--> iPod
  TiffanyE	music, emails, internet access, organization, keeping in touch--but danger: horrible listeners because attention is constantly glued to the phones	Blackberry

  
  

IV.What is Andy Clark's thesis?  Let's think along with him...

• what is his argument?
• what are his thinking points?
• what are his metaphors?
• What intellectual traditions/precepts does he challenge?
  • adaptation
  • evolutionary psychology

Think/pair/share: Questions of the self--what examples from your knowledge and experiences, support or refute his vision of us as natural-born cyborgs? 

V. What is the relationship between Clark's and Haraway's theses?

Haraway had three binaries in her mapping of the cyborg landscape. 

What structure does Clark introduce to do the same kind of mapping?

How do they compare?

Two camps:

• refinements
• additional points
• missing contexts

VI. How do Haraway and Clark use language differently and what does this say to us?

"This ... is an effort to build an ironic political myth faithful to feminism, socialism, and materialism."

"Irony is about contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes, even dialectically, about the tension of holding incompatible things together because both or all are necessary and true.  Irony is about humour and serious play.  It is also a rhetorical strategy and a political method..."   --Haraway

"My body is an electronic virgin.   I incorporate no silicon chips... but I am slowly becoming more and more a cyborg.  For we shall be cyborgs not in the mere superficial sense of combining flesh and wires but in the more profound sense being human-technology symbionts: thinking and reasoning systems whose minds and selves are spread across biological brain and nonbiological circuitry." --Clark  

"The human mind ...cannot be seen as bound and restricted by the biological skinbag.  In fact, it has never been thus restricted and bound.....this kind of story was the literal and scientific truth."  --Clark

"the tyranny of clarity" vs.  "the plain and literal truth"

Other uses of language---call out examples.

How might these observations impact your own writing?

What aesthetic has guided you in the past?
What might you do differently now?

VII. To close:  Brainstorm 2-3 prompts for weekly post.

Class Notes by Riki