For me, I get really caught up with this term ‘cyborg.’ It is interpreted as a machine that adapts itself to certain constraints. In the Text, ‘Cyborgs and Space’ it is presented that  the purpose of  a Cyborg is to “provide an organizational system in which robot like problems are taken care of automatically and unconsciously.”

Today we see less of this notion for a Cyborg. We often associate this term with Sci-Fi films and stories and for me, it is something that will never fully meet its original intention of adaption. Today’s society has placed machine integrated with man, and that is all it has become. It has no t unlocked a new potential of exploration or creativity. It has become an addition to help support a failed system. Societies entertainment really played a role in how a cyborg should be envisioned, and for that I believe the word will forever be in that debt. We often see cyborg as now its relationship to support a human interface, but we never see a human interface support a cyborg. There is no room left for thinking and feeling. Its extension is merely an extension.

Cyborgs are primarily about being adaptable to the environment other than the mundane. The field of operation causes the cyborgs to come into existence. In the text ‘Cyborgs and Space’, Clynes and Kline are relatively putting the term cyborg in relation to space wherein cyborgs are then interpreted as alterations in bodily functions to meet the requirements of the outside environment. The cyborgs hence are deliberately induced mechanisms in order to suit the environment. In common person’s perception cyborg can be construed as the adaption to its field of operation which is other than the existing or suitable. Illustrations about the space journey are given in the essay wherein the authors are trying to imply through the bodily functions and adjustments of bodily mechanisms via the cyborg in order to be able to exist and work in alienated environments in space.

William J. Mitchell in the book ‘Me++’ expresses the conception of wireless technology and expansion of wireless networks and use of its applications in the human interconnections. The author visualizes the networked city as a cyborg self in the digital world where the wireless linkage has reached for global interconnections and has reduced the world to miniature self and portable body in space and time. He argues that the world is hence governed more by connections and less by boundaries restructuring the environment making ubiquitous practices.

Cyborg, a person or a mechanism whose body contains mechanical or electronic devices with greater abilities than that of normal human. The term cyborg could be interpreted in many different ways. It could be viewed as a social reality and fiction or cybernetic organism. A living body without senses, needs and aspirations. In my opinion, after looking at such different definitions of cyborg, human mind could be conceived as a cyborg. To illustrate above statement, let’s look at few examples – whenever you take any particular decision or think of getting into a particular situation, your mind automatically starts working towards making your body acclimatize with that decision even before stepping into it physically. Here the field of operation comes into play. The several intense experiments and trails an astronaut has to go through before going to the actually space provide and replicate the space environment for him. Those exercises and (his) mind both make the astronaut accustom to the environment his is going to enter. The experiments also create a pseudo field of operation where he (an astronaut) can actually practice his true field of operation.

William Mitchell in his book ME++, mainly talks about field of presence and extended field of resources. He explains that how architecture has evolved with technology and how portability and miniaturization caused architecture to be interpreted from different angles. Bank vaults, London Street phone boxes are some of the examples one could look at to understand this. The advanced technology in play-stations, card key access in hotels provided the nomadic use of space; flexible and fluid. It is interesting to note that they electronically control the access and physical requirement of the architectural space.

The term “cyborg” has been thrown around in various ways in many contexts. Cyborg’s are thought of as a machine or a separate entity that has been invented and utilized in order to adapt to certain situations. Must like how astronauts would need a suit in space in order to survive the oxygen-less atmosphere. It therefor allows humans to do what they please and to explore more than their body is built for. As it was stated in Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline’s text, Cyborgs and Space, “The purpose of the Cyborg, as well as his own homeostatic systems, is to provide an organizational system in which such robot like problems are taken care of automatically and unconsciously, leaving man free to explore, to create, to think, and to feel.”

The term “Cyborg” has been used loosely recently, not exactly pinpointing that a human has to be an actual machine fused with a human, but a human that utilizes the advantages or advanced technology to go beyond a human body’s limitations/abilities. Each human body is different, therefor each would require a different attachment. Although useful in some cases, every extension could possibly also be an amputation.

A Cyborg Manifesto

There are several points of importance in A Cyborg Manifesto: think highly of boundaries, attach importance to woman identity, repeatedly mentioned Foucault’s biopolitics. “A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.” Donna J. Haraway says that “we are cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality.” Cyborg is pretty ambiguous and fuzzy and full of the confusion of boundaries. Haraway mentions three crucial boundary breakdowns. For example, the boundary between human and animals, the boundary between organism and machine and the boundary between physical and non-physical body. Also, cyborg is inextricably bound up with medicine, information technology, military technology, biological gene technology. Therefore Haraway says cyborg is “a myth of political identity”. She hopes this new subject could transcend all kinds of identity dilemma such as race and gender and create new, equal, socialist feminism ways of life.

From my perspective, cyborg theory of Haraway uses new technology to rebuild a body of cyborg and to promote the political changes from socialism to feminism. This theory could break the traditional understanding of human and the binary opposition. In the society of cyborg, women do not feel anxious and lonely and be the vassals of men because the boundaries of men and women are vague. The difference of women and men is useless. It is a way of reconsidering the existence of human and the possibility of the existence of post-human.

Me+ +

In Me+ + William J. Mitchell reviews the development of wireless technology: the continuous expansion of the network, the continuous diminution of sending and receiving devices and the variety of technology on the extension of body an organs. The combination of man and machine is a new way of human beings in these articles and fictions. In fact, I think we have been combined with the technology unconsciously not the way of implantation but the use of telephone and network.  The boundaries of human and machine become increasingly blurred such as optical glasses, denture and artificial limbs and even the use of human implants. So if the human is still human when the proportion of “machine” and “human” is inclined to machine? Then what is the meaning of human? Maybe we need to rethink the importance of emotion and inner spirit.

Compared with wired way, the wireless could bring us more freedom. It will relieve the bondage of place to human. In addition, our body will be changed in the contact with the world at all scales. In order to realize the electronic nomandicity life in the future, our architects need to notice that the characteristics of the space will certainly be different. Architecture will no longer need the standard space and plan mode.

In the book “Me++” William J. Mitchell conveys an idea of the emergent wireless networks’ application which provide the humanity with ubiquitous interconnection. It is really thought-provoking monologue of the author about what we have created and where are we heading to. We’ve built the system of reliance and dependencies and completely integrate ourselves with those systems.  The example of the nomadic aborigines who “carry very little and wear almost nothing” represents the freedom of movement otherwise nowadays wireless connectivity represents this freedom. The author emphasizes the importance of scale and location. Particularly what is striking about it is the concept of miniaturization along with wireless connection. So, some of the architecture functions now are performed by tiny devices which became an extension of our body. As soon as you “cannot remain tethered to an outlet as you walk the city” you must be connected wirelessly. The artificial wireless world wraps the planet in diverse terrestrial and extraterrestrial systems connecting each and every one. This “invisible landscape” forms a parallel reality. Within it we build our social life, our business and identity. The wireless networks “minimize the time required to get what we need”, thus influence our time perception.  So, our “mobile bodies” are “contentiously connected, even when in motion”. Does it give us freedom in its broadest sense? Now we are an integral part of the wireless network. So, disconnection is almost impossible because we deeply intertwined with networks.  As the author himself  writes: “I show up in the directories. I am visible to Google. I link therefore I am”.

When we reached a new level of technology development which allowed us to explore the cosmos, we started to think about a new environment to inhabit. So, Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline in the article “Cyborg and Space” describe the variations of a body abilities’ extension in extraterrestrial environment. It is a creation of a new body “suit” which works as a survival mechanism and is an integral part of the body itself. We need to solve biological problems originated in the organism for long-term space travel since “we place ourselves in the same position as a fish taking a small quantity of water along with him to live on land”. The creation of the Cyborg is a body “upgrade” with his own homeostatic system which allows controlling biological processes and problems “automatically and unconsciously, leaving man free to explore, to create, to think, and feel”.  I suppose, it is more than body adaptation, it is creation of a new “extraterrestrial person” because those changes in our nature might lead to irreversible consequences in a mental state.

Through two readings pertaining to technology and the body which synthesized is considered cybernetic technology, there is a range of positivity and fear of the technology and its integration into natural environments and organisms. In the first reading, Cyborgs and Space by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline, there is a optimistic tone to how cyborgs can positively affect travel and human conditions. “Space travel invites man to take a active part in his own biological evolution” according to Clynes and Kline which emphasis the need for homeostatic mechanism which are designed to provide stable operation in the particular environment. These artificial mechanisms take advantage of inheriting limitations to create a realm of new possibilities with mechanical aid. While conditions of physical biology are beginning to be resolved or experimented with, physiological issues of breaking this biological operational barrier needs to be addressed for applications such as long space-time journeys. The benefit of Cyborgs come into focus at this point to create self-regulating man-made machines functioning autonomously freeing people to explore and create new possibilities as machines facilitate organizational and mundane tasks. Clyne and Kline argue cyborgs allow for a improved physiological conditions of relaxation and focus similar to meditation or hypnosis. For example Cyborgs have the ability to have pharmacological and spiritual approaches combined to improvise physiology as well as supplements to activities or bodily functions such as sleep to improve productivity in new environments such as space travel or regulating metabolic or hypothermic levels. Using a similar concept to the reading from Wolfgang Schivelbusch, space-time relationship are altered by cyborg technologies transforming the scale and condition of the body over aging time scales.

Contrastingly, in the Cyborg Manifesto written by Donna Hardaway, examines communication technologies and biotechnologies and redefining the human body and our interactions with society. However unlike Clyne and Kline, she views information system networks and hierarchical informatics of domination as it relates to biotechnologies fearfully. What started as coding and human genetics and more advance developments such as genetic engineering and reproduction can have negative outcomes and create political divides that can be disruptive and harmful to society and culture. She concludes explaining “communications science and modern biologists ads constructed by a common move, a search for a common language in which all resistance to instrumental control disappears and all heterogeneity can be submitted to disassembly, reassembly, investment, and exchange.”