Cyborg Manifesto

Note and Quotes -

- Cyborg - is the Chimera - theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism.

- condensed image of both imagination and material reality

- joining the two structures, any possibility of historical data is transformed i.e. destroyed

-the relation between organism and machine is a 'border war'. - stakes are territories of producer, reproduction and imagination.

- Cyborg ignores the process of growth that produces strife with the other i.e. woman/nature

- Cyborg has no need for father's, love or the 'Garden of Eden' ; "it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust".

- wary of holism, but needy of connection

- 3 crucial boundary breakdowns -

- human to animal

- Animal-Human to machine

- Physical to non-physical

-Cyborg - consciousness or its simulation - 'shadow personality'

Relationships

In the cyborg manifesto Harroway creates the metaphor of the cyborg to problematize the feminist movement, and really our understanding of gender, race and language. I find this metaphor very compelling, and while not the focus of the writing, definitely the most pertinent part to my work. The Cyborg as she describes it resembles an idea that I've read elsewhere as the 'shadow personality' or avatar. It is a identity which is created out of nothingness and exists only in consciousness and virtual space. Having no history, gender or race assigned to it, it can take on and become anything. What's interesting, and actually contradictory to some of what Harroway says in her writing, is that most cyborgs are not genderless, but actually super gendered. Looking at avatars in computer games, or facebook profiles, one starts to see this rather quickly. Gender is in fact idealized, giant breast and bulging man muscles dominate the scene. When creating a 'shadow personality' humans tend towards wanting to idealize themselves, transforming into the rockstars and celebrities (or elves) they wish they could be. It seems that the cyborg, though free of history and the need for fathers love, and mother earth, it is not free of desire. In fact desire seems to be hyper realized and catered to in the virtual world.