I'm a cyborg... Aren't you? Blog #3

I’m going to be lazy this go round and not talk about Donna Haraway’s cyborg in “Cyborgs and Symbionts” so much as Chris Gray’s dissemination of Haraway’s cyborg in “Cyborgology” since that makes more sense to me.

The most striking appeal Gray’s piece held for me was the idea that I am a cyborg. Forget Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rendition of the Terminator as a mostly robotic, language disabled, tough guy. The real cyborg is your little sister who just got a flu shot to help her body fight off viruses. It didn’t remotely occur to me that a cyborg could be something other than a bizarre conglomeration of metal appendages and organic fluids, but the way Gray defines a cyborg (which is taken directly from Haraway’s more theory driven definition) files most human beings of this day and age into the category of cyborg. I like that idea. It’s somehow comforting to think that a cyborg is not an alien being, but merely a different variation of the same things humans have always been; a new twist on the same old organisms employing the same old brain power.

However, despite my claim to discuss Gray and not Haraway, I feel it is important to address Haraway’s ideas about “Gaia” since they relate to the idea of cyborgs being something other than human, but not alien. Haraway describes James Lovelock’s idea of Gaia as, “the whole earth was a dynamic, self-regulating, homeostatic system;” (Haraway xiii), which fits nicely into the cyborg myth in that it describes the Earth as something that is an entire living entity functioning off of the efforts of other entities. The cyborg does the same thing. As human beings attempting to become better than our “natural” existence precludes for us, we must employ the efforts of other things, primarily technology, to extend and augment ourselves.

Gray furthers this idea when he states, “There is no one kind of cyborg” (Gray 2). There is no one kind of person or ailment or injury, so the ways that people become cyborgs are as varied as the issues that drive them to look for answers in technology. Medical science is perhaps the most advanced and varied specifically because people want to fix things with their bodies that traditional medicine cannot. The more aesthetic and mental cyborgs are just around the corner. Right now we make ourselves cyborgs to extend life and make it more physically pleasant while we are alive, but it is only a matter of time before people begin to make themselves cyborgs to enhance appearance and thought processes. Already we have plastic surgery where we insert plastic pieces to make are butts and boobs and chins bigger. How much further is it really to have a plug put in the back of your head so that you can direct link to the internet? Technically speaking, human beings are currently using medical technology to make life more convenient. What is more convenient than looking up movie listings in your head rather than having to wait for your computer to boot up and access a wireless internet connection? As scary as it is, cyborg development seems almost inevitable.

Works Cited:

Gray, Chris. “Cyborgology: Constructing the Knowledge of Cybernetic Organisms.” The Cyborg Handbook. Ed. Chris Hables Gray. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Haraway, Donna. “Cyborgs and Symbionts: Living Together in the New World Order.” The Cyborg Handbook. Ed. Chris Hables Gray. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Being Digital and the VOD: Blog #2

In Part 3 of Being Digital Nicholas Negroponte discuss something called VOD or video-on-demand. Negroponte implies that VOD or some variant of it will become the norm. He actually predicted the end of video rental stores entirely within the next 10 years. Since the book was written in 1995 that prediction has not entirely come true as we still have a local Blockbuster in just about every major city across America. However, Negroponte was not far off the mark. Today we now see Blockbuster commercials that are advertising the ability to order movies online and receive them in the mail, while maintaining the option of renting movies directly from the physical store.

This turn Blockbuster has taken is due in part to the success of NetFlix, who offers only online ordering of movies and does not present the option of a physical location. Also, there are a few websites that now offer the ability to pay with a credit card and simply download and watch a movie directly on your computer, such as MovieFlix.com and MovieLink.com. The change Blockbuster has made is ironic because Negroponte mentions how former Blockbuster chairman, H. Wayne Huizenga claimed that “87 million American homes took fifteen years to have a $30 billion investment in VCRs and that Hollywood has such a big stake in selling him cassettes that it would not dare enter into VOD agreements” (Negroponte 173). Obviously this statement has proved to be false. VCRs are swiftly being replaced by DVD players, TiVo, and faster computers. Also, Apple has come out with the AppleTV which allows users to transmit videos from their iPod to their TV.

These various items lead me to discuss Negroponte’s points about asynchronous viewing. Basically the idea is that Television has required massive amounts of people to watch any particular show or movie only at the time it is being broadcast, thus synchronously. The newer technologies discussed above are allowing people to watch shows and movies at their leisure, thus asynchronously. I can now decide to take a class at 8 p.m. and not worry about missing American Idol because I’ve programmed my TiVo to record all instances of American Idol for me, thus allowing me to watch the program when I get home or whenever I happen to feel like watching it.

The future Negroponte predicted for television, VCRs, and video rental stores is not quite here, but it is definitely coming. Perhaps if he had given a 20 year time span rather than a 10 year time span he’d have been right on the money. Regardless, the way we think about viewing media has already met his expectations and that is exciting to me.

Works Cited:
Negroponte, Nicholas. Being Digital. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.