Cyborg Theory

Cybernetics in Art and the Myth of the Cyborg Artist

by Tom Tenney

This paper argues that artists calling themselves “cyborg artists” represent only a small fraction of the ways in... more This paper argues that artists calling themselves “cyborg artists” represent only a small fraction of the ways in which cybernetics has infiltrated art and ideas about art, and that, in fact, their work often isn’t cybernetic at all, if we adhere to Norbert Wiener’s definition. The “artist as cyborg,” can refer not only to the materiality of the forms used to create art (i.e. machines and/or new media technology) but also to an aesthetic which is modeled on the core principles of cybernetics: negative feedback used within a system to achieve a goal. This is a perceptual shift away from thinking of “cyborg art” exclusively as those that utilize new media technology, and towards a more holistic theory that situates art in Wiener’s more inclusive theory of cybernetics

Cybofree - Cyborgs, Fantasy, Reality, Ethics and Education

by VR Manoj

V.R. Manoj AND Jayapaul Azariah Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, 11 (2001), 178-183.

This paper examines ethical issues associated with cyborgs. A core issue is whether the cyborg body offers a fredom... more This paper examines ethical issues associated with cyborgs. A core issue is whether the cyborg body offers a fredom for the fantasies of the mind. It is a freedom that enables the mind to explore into the new environments. To characterize such a cyborg based freedom for fantasy creation, we propose the term “CYBOFREE”.

A Modem of One's Own: The Subject of Cyberfeminism

by Jodey Castricano

rhizomes.04 spring 2002

Wisdom and Futures Studies

by Vahid V. Motlagh

Book Review: Wisdom, Consciousness, and the Future by Tom Lombardo. 461 pages. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2011. ISBN13: 978-1-4628-8360-8. US$23.99 paper

In the coming decades we will witness a new collective enlightenment which many futurists describe as a “significant... more In the coming decades we will witness a new collective enlightenment which many futurists describe as a “significant jump in the collective mental functioning of humanity”. As expected by many writers, contemporary challenges and evolutionary forces will push humanity to a new level of “cosmic consciousness.” And for Lombardo, a core feature of this evolutionary transformation is “heightened future consciousness.”

Voce "Cyborg" per "Lessico postfordista"

by antonio caronia

Pubblicato in: "Lessico postfordista. Dizionario di idee della mutazione", a cura di Adelino Zanini, Ubaldo Fadini, Feltrinelli, Milano 2001.

Il "Lessico postfordista" di Fadini e Zanini è uno dei libri che dieci anni fa contribuirono a creare una... more Il "Lessico postfordista" di Fadini e Zanini è uno dei libri che dieci anni fa contribuirono a creare una conoscenza di base sulle trasformazioni non solo dell'economia, ma dell'immaginario. Basti pensare che avevano previsto anche una voce "Cyborg"...

Anche questo testo fu una delle tappe verso la riscrittura del mio "Il cyborg" uscita nello stesso anno per la Shake.

L’impotenza del mostro

by antonio caronia

Pubblicato in: "Desiderio del mostro", a cura di Ubaldo Fadini, Antonio Negri, Charles T. Wolfe, Manifestolibri, Roma 2001.

"Tutti vediamo in televisione gli immigrati sporchi e inebetiti che sbarcano sulle nostre coste, ma nessuno vede... more "Tutti vediamo in televisione gli immigrati sporchi e inebetiti che sbarcano sulle nostre coste, ma nessuno vede via Corelli. Non che il mostro oggi non possa più ribellarsi, ma può farlo solo se al contempo costruisce le possibilità stesse del suo rendersi soggetto: cosa che la creatura di Frankenstein non aveva bisogno di fare, perché lo costituiva come tale già la sua origine blasfema e lo sguardo inorridito del bravo cittadino."

The Body Conference Presentation 1992

by Louise Krasniewicz

Introducing Universal Symbiogenesis

by Nathalie Gontier

In: O. Pombo et al. (eds.), Special Sciences and the Unity of Science. Series: Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science 24. Dordrecht Springer.
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-2030-5 6,

Latour et la politique des hybrides : personnages conceptuels S.F dans la pensée amoderne.

by Norman Ajari

The Ultimate Cathedral

by Avi Rosen

co-authord with Mordechai Omer. published in "1000 DAYS OF THEORY" ctheory.

In cyber art the human image appears on silicon, implanted under the subjects' skin, which enables the global membrane... more In cyber art the human image appears on silicon, implanted under the subjects' skin, which enables the global membrane extension of his body and consciousness. Existence in this ultimate cathedral is the continuous artistic act of a self-reflective hyper-subject.

Art at the Event Horizon

by Avi Rosen

published in "1000 DAYS OF THEORY"

Art that exists in cyberspace is an interface used to cope with the visualization of the time-space distortion that... more Art that exists in cyberspace is an interface used to cope with the visualization of the time-space distortion that converts distorted time-space near the singularity into the shapes of traditional, linear perception that we are used to outside of cyberspace. Understanding this special topology allows a different approach to phenomena from the perspective of digital media and cyberspace.

Know Your Role: Cyborg Solutions in Final Fantasy

by Sigmund Shen

Essay published in TEXT Technology, McMaster University. Email me if you'd like a copy.

Imagining the Post-Human: Cyborgs and the Utopian Project

by Emily Goldsher-Diamond

Originally written during undergraduate at Sarah Lawrence for a course on Utopian Fiction

This paper seeks to determine whether the human condition can be fundamentally altered, or completely erased, and... more This paper seeks to determine whether the human condition can be fundamentally altered, or completely erased, and whether liberty is dependent on the concept of humanity.  Furthermore, I will explore the cyborg within the confines of the Utopian Project. 

Ewe Robot -- from 'Philip K. Dick and Philosophy'

by Alf Seegert

Published in the 2011 anthology 'Philip K. Dick and Philosophy'.

Educating the Wise Cyborg of the Future

by Tom Lombardo

With Ray Todd Blackwood
Submitted for Publication to On the Horizon

The development of wisdom should be the central goal of higher education for the future. An educational curriculum,... more The development of wisdom should be the central goal of higher education for the future. An educational curriculum, with a focus on wisdom, incorporating character development and heightened future consciousness, would provide students with the necessary capacities and values needed to address the major challenges of tomorrow.

In this paper we focus on technological knowledge and its connection to a wisdom based education. As in the past, technologies in the future will further enhance and augment human capacities. As a general evolutionary trend, the wise person of the future will increasingly be a “wise cyborg.” How, then, do we infuse in a wisdom based education technological knowledge and skills that will empower wisdom?

We will outline a theory of wisdom and wisdom based education, describe the intimate connection between human intelligence and technology, describe the concept of the wise cyborg, connecting together the ideas of wisdom and technological enhancement, and describe and illustrate how to facilitate the educational development of the wise cyborg of the future.

Technonatures Introduction White Wilbert

by Damian White

An attempt to survey and think through the political implications of hybridity discourses such as Latour and Haraway for environmental politics. This is the introductory chapter from D.White and C.Wilbert (Eds) Technonatures: Environments, Technologies, Spaces, and Places in the Twenty-first CenturyISBN13: 978-1-55458-150-4, 2009.

Lots of other really interesting cuts in the book from Erik Swyngedouw, Sarah Whatmore, Mike Michael, Steve Hinchliffe and others ...check it out at Available from http://www.wlu.ca/press/Catalog/white-wilbert.shtml

The Modernistic Posthuman Prophecy of Donna Haraway

by Peta Cook

in Cabrera, D, Bailey, C. and Buys, L. (eds.) Social Change in the 21st Century 2004 Conference Proceedings, Centre for Social Change Research, School of Humanities and Human Services, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, December 2004

Donna Haraway’s (1991) vision of a post-gender cyborg has (re)sparked feminist interest in reclaiming patriarchal... more Donna Haraway’s (1991) vision of a post-gender cyborg has (re)sparked feminist interest in reclaiming patriarchal technological tools as a source of liberation from gender oppression. These utopian, cyborgian dreams of the dissolution of body and gender dualisms however, are flawed. This failing is founded on Haraway’s underestimation of the gender-influenced relationship between: the historical legacies of the cyborg; linguistic metaphors and symbols; and the lived subjective technological experiences of embodied materiality. Consequently, despite Haraway’s fantastical claims of the cyborg being able to transgress traditional hierarchical bodily-based binaries, this cyborg vision is distinctly modern in a nostalgic, linear, and utopian construction. As a result, these idealistic cyborg visions can be linked paradoxically to patriarchal discourses; the Cartesian philosophies of Christian religion; and the posthuman prophetical desires of the Extropian transhuman collective (Extropy Institute, 2003a, 2003b; More, 2003), such as featured in the works of Hans Moravec (1988) and Kevin Warwick (2002).

Entre cyborgs e híbridos: Aproximación antropológica a las transformaciones físicas e identitarias respecto al aprendizaje informático

by Andrea Naranjo

Hybrid Days, a transmedia congress about the hybrid society.

En esta comunicación intentaré establecer las bases de una cyborg antropología (Case, 2011), a través de una... more En esta comunicación intentaré establecer las bases de una cyborg antropología (Case, 2011), a través de una genealogía de los enfoques de estudio respecto a la técnica y la tecnología y su relación con el nacimiento de la disciplina antropológica en el siglo XIX.

Así, a través de la revisión de una investigación realizada en un centro de alfabetización digital en Bruselas, la cual pone en relieve los cambios físicos e identitarios relacionados al uso de un ordenador en un ambiente de aprendizaje, intentaré poner en evidencia el desplazamiento del objeto clásico de la antropología, a saber, el estudio del ”nativo en situación”(Gayané Tossounian, 2007), hacia nuevas perspectivas enmarcadas dentro de los estudios de la técnica y tecnología dentro de la disciplina antropológica, tales como una nueva concepción del sujeto antropológico: el cyborg en tanto identidad biológico cultural.

Regina Célia Pinto's Museum of the Essential and beyond That

by Margaret Anne Clarke

Published in Niamh Thornton, Patricia O'Byrne and Gabrielle Carty, (Eds) (2010) Transcultural Encounters Amongst Women: Redrawing Boundaries in Hispanic and Lusophone Art, Literature and Film. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

This chapter offers an overview and analysis of the virtual art gallery and museum constructed by the Brazilian and... more This chapter offers an overview and analysis of the virtual art gallery and museum constructed by the Brazilian and internet and digital artist and curator, Regina Célia Pinto. The Museu do Essencial e Além Disso (The Museum of the Essential and Beyond That) displays digital writing and art works by a community of Brazilian and international artists, all engaging with larger global realities brought about by virtual and electronic networks. This is also true of  Pinto's own cyberart, housed in the museum. The chapter focuses more closely on one of these creations, The Great Earth Mother Cyborg, a blog converted into a  'space of poeisis' which takes the trope of the cyborg to  debate narratives of the creative process and the relationship of the human with nature and technology, integrating ideas drawn both from Western science and 'evolution' as depicted through creation narratives - principally those of the Maori - of the Global South.

The End of the Human: The Cyborg Past and Present

by Carole Cusack

in Christopher Hartney and Andrew McGarrity (eds), The Dark Side: Proceedings of the VIIth International Conference for Religion, Literature and the Arts 2002, RLA Press, 2004, pp. 223-234.

Detective fiction, a literary mode developed in the nineteenth century, is most often a conservative genre. From as... more Detective fiction, a literary mode developed in the nineteenth century, is most often a conservative genre. From as early as Conan Doyle’s seminal A Study in Scarlet (1887), new religious movements have provided detective and crime novelists with fertile subject matter for exploring deviance and anti-social motivations. Conan Doyle’s Mormons are exotic, secretive, and hold ‘strange’ beliefs and values; they are therefore more likely to be the perpetrators of actions that defy, rather than support, mainstream norms. This alerts the critical reader to the purpose of non-mainstream religion’s presence in detective fiction: the authors do not seek to understand these communities, but use them as a challenge to the norms of society. The conservative nature of much detective fiction demands that the values of mainstream society are reaffirmed in the plot’s resolution; this frequently results in the demonization and punishment of the minority religion featured.

The core of this paper is devoted to an analysis of two recent popular novels by Kathy Reichs, American forensic anthropologist turned author. Her first novel, Deja Dead (1997), introduced Dr Temperance (‘Tempe’) Brennan, her largely autobiographical heroine. The second, Death du Jour (1999), and the fourth, Fatal Voyage (2001), rely for their plot operations on the pseudo-speciation of various new religious movements, in the former the Order of the Solar Temple, in the latter an occult initiatory brotherhood. Using these examples, this paper will argue that new religious movements are pictured as ‘Other’ to mainstream society in both past and recent detective and detective literature. This analysis expands our knowledge of other popular reactions (for example, the media) to new religious movements.