The cyborg is a perfect example of the machinic theory explained by Guittari. Produced for the sole purpose of producing, programmed with specific boundaries, providing feedback that is entered back into the system so that new paramaters can be re-entered into the body’s software. It is the champion of the ultimate cyclical, capitalist machine. A combination of biology and technology, assuming human form only for the sake of familiarity.
Multiple points exist for the cyborg to interface and ‘plug-in’: connections for all the five senses, which will only perceive the world through set, objective guidelines. Subjectivity is only a construction, a piece of software that can be edited.
Flitting through the net with the word ‘cyborg’ firmly planted into the search bar, images of ‘Ghost in the Shell’ were extremely predominant. What makes it so popular that it appears at the forefront of such an exploration? Is it the narrative that raises issues of human existence in a world dominated by machines? Or perhaps because half the images are of cyborg protagonist Motoko’s body being penetrated by various phallic plugs?
What makes Motoko so alluring as a character? She, like many other cyborgs in fiction, struggle with their identities as machines, questioning and conflicting with the idea of their own ‘humanity’. Does this suggest that the cyborg is not as conrete a construction as first believed? Is there an undying shizophrenic voice cannot be displaced even after the machine exhumes our bodies?
Perhaps the ontogenetic evolution of our bodies into cyborgs is not a one-way street to the multitude being swallowed by the capitalist machine, to become another connection. These connections exist to perpetuate a system of relationships that inevitably lead to our self-creation and regeneration.
But is knowing the self and holding onto humanity enough? It is not a resistance against capitalism; the machinic processes and the existence of humanity and its subjectivity are not mutually exclusive. Is there hope for a revolution? Or will the machine continue to roll on as our bodies become without organs, our identities programmed… It is strangely liberating in its freedom, while at the same, entirely constricting in its finality.
Lots of questions!
I will have to somehow try and rescue some relevant thoughts out of this garbled mess, and direct them towards how these ideas are commodified, and explore in more detail this notion of these cybernetic systems as a ‘body’. I can already see that examining screen examples such as anime are going to create even more questions on gender and culture. Even the idea of death will be malleable, as the cybernetic body can just as easily ‘reboot’. Personally, I believe the concept of subjectivity will plague me the most, so expect to see an amateurish, half-assed attempt to understand it in the future.
Lastly, I found something nice over at Accelerating Future.
Main points that I got out of it, to relate back to machine theory, are the possible capacities of cybernetics and its implants in autopoiesis and immortality. I’ll cut and paste Michael’s writing here, more so for my own benefit for easy referencing later.
#4. Autopoiesis/Allopoiesis
Autopoiesis is Greek for self-creation. Allopoiesis is other-creation. Our body engages in both all the time – we start as a fetus that creates itself until it becomes an adult, then, essentially stops. Our body produces things external to itself, but usually involving an extended process of cooperation with thousands of other human beings and the entire economy. In the future, there will be cybernetic upgrades that allow for personal autopoietic and allopoietic manufacturing, probably based on molecular nanotechnology. Using whatever raw material is available, complex construction routines, and internal nanomanufacturing units, we’ll be able to literally breathe life into dirt. If our arms or legs get blown off, we’ll be able to use manufacturing modules in other parts of our body to regenerate them. Instead of building robots in a factory, we’ll build them ourselves. The possibilities are quite expansive, but this would require technology more sophisticated than anything discussed thus far in this list.
#1. Immortality.
The ultimate upgrade would be physical immortality. Everything else pales by comparison. Today, there are already entire movements based around the idea. Realizing the possibility of immortality requires seeing a human being as a physical system – composed of working parts that cooperate to make up the whole, some of which have the tendency to get old and break down. Cambridge biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey has identified seven causes of aging, which are believed to be comprehensive, because its been decades since a degenerative process has occurred in the body with an unknown cause. Defeating aging, then, would simply require addressing these one by one. They are: cell depletion, supernumerary cells, chromosomal mutations, mitochondrial mutations, cellular junk, extracellular junk, and protein crosslinks. A few pioneering researchers are looking towards solutions, but accepting the possibility requires looking at aging as a disease and not as a necessary component of life.
There’s other interesting points on super-intelligence and other physical ‘upgrades’, which to me aren’t as relevant right now, but could become apparant later… who knows!
Posthuman 