At CCC last month a body hacker called Lepht Anonym gave a presentation. The reactions online have been predictable, and although I'm not here to critique attitudes around age, gender or conformity although I will just briefly lament them with a seething anger before I go on.
What I found interesting about the presentation and reactions to it was: a) All the talk about cyborgs from 20 years ago? People are actually doing that shit now *without* tenure, outside the military-industrial-educational complex. There really is a homebrew/DIY cyborg scene. People are cutting themselves open to implant technology and gain new abilities. They are extending their sensoriums and bodily affordances. How cool is that? And, sure, how long until it's the full sleeve tattoo of 2010s hipsterism, but in the meantime... 2) The cultural constant of people who actually do something vs. people who want to be seen to be cool means that people with smart phones now need to be told that we are not cyborgs. We have a digital body, but if we are looking for a theoretical framing for our consumerism then it's Virilio's """spastic""" rather than Haraway's cyborg. Yes, immersion in network deviced society is interesting and different. No, it's not the same as cutting yourself open and inserting those devices... III) "Now make art with it." http://events.ccc.de/congress/2010/Fahrplan/events/4003.en.html http://www.gearfuse.com/cyborgs-r-us/ http://storify.com/doingitwrong/who-gets-to-be-a-cyborg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYLaDSgv0ZY http://biohack.me/ - Rob. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
