New Media as a Cyborgian Encounter

"the concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is." (Shaw, 2008, pg.81)
With this statement we are lead to believe that the if it wasn't for technology then we as humans would not exist. Now in the early years of human they may have invented and needed stone age technology to fend for themselves and progress but this isn't what this statement argues. This statement refers to how us as humans interact with the everyday technology or New Media technology.
With this statement I agree with this mainly because most people have access to smart phones, tablets, ipods or games consoles and are lost if they go a whole day without interacting with these pieces of technology.

"The human ... invents himself in the technical by inventing the tool - by becoming exteriorised techno-logically" (Stiegler, 1998: 141)

I believe that technology is bound to have an everlasting effect on the media industry. Most media industries will benefit from the advances in technology. But the biggest benefit from the advancements will be in the New Media. This is already evident as we live in a culture were the masses are heavily obsessed with social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr and they are available from pretty much anywhere with a mobile phone. New Media provides us with content on demand because it is digitized.

Technology has had an everlasting effect on human lives and there is still a lot more to come. Although it would seem that humans heavily rely on technology to point were they wouldn't survive without it, this is not the case I believe. Humans rely on technology to get through the day but if it wasn't for humans hunger for the technology and consumption it provides in the New Media then there would be no strides taken for technology to progress forward.

Bibliography:

Shaw, D. 2008, Tecnnoculture: The Key Concepts, Oxford Berg Press

Technoculture: The Key Concepts - Shaw

All tasks that we currently perform can be technology related, putting aside the obvious example of me typing this blog on the internet we can look at our memories. It could be said that we now share our memories with technology, for example think of how many phone numbers you know off the top of your head. Our phone books on our mobile telephones now store all of our numbers, so there is no need to memorise them at all. How about when we go out somewhere, more people than ever takes photos on their phones and even share them via social networking with other friends. This could be said that technology is sharing your memory for you.
In their book Shaw states, "The concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is" (Shaw, 2008: pp.81). This is saying that culturally we have completely adapted to not even notice that technology helps us constantly, you could even say that we have assimilated technology into our bodies.

Technology has advanced to the stage that it can help us monitor out own bodies to try and maintain our health. If we look again at mobile phones, health apps like 'My Health Checker' remind you to weigh yourself, test your BMI and such while it draws up a graph to tell you how you are doing and what condition your body is in.
An interesting thought could be that the human body could not be explained without technology. During the book Shaw looks at William Harvey's findings of the circulatory system, there had to be a level of technology there for Harvey to explore the human body. From this it could then be said that the human body evolves as technology does, due to the fact that we cannot explore the human body anymore further until technology advances.

In a Marxists view of it, "The worker's body is a commodity to be bought and whose value is determined by the value of the market" (Shaw, 2008: pp.83). This suggests that we, like technology, are simply produced on a production line with no sense of awareness.
There are genuine fears of technology controlling us, we only have to look a film culturally to see our fears as a society. For example if we look at the films, 'The Terminator' (1984) and 'The Matrix' (1999) we can see two fictional societies that have been taken over by technology, machines run the world. If this fear does exist culturally, who is to say we won't end up on a production line.


Bibliography

Shaw, D. (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts (Oxford: Berg Press)

New Media and the Cyborg

"The concept of human is unthinkable without technology, but we act as if it is." 

(Shaw: 81, 2008) 

This debate is central to theorists Stelarc and Steiglers' idea of the human body as a vessel for technology. They argue that it is absurd to consider the concept of a natural body, and that we are as much a product of technology as technology is a product of us. Shaw uses 16th century physician William Harvey as a relevant illustration. He argues that Harveys' discovery of the circulatory system would not have been possible without the use of technology, and furthermore, that advancements from this discovery could equally not progress without development of said technology, thus making our understanding of the human body possible only through the tools we had available to analyse it. 

"Nothing is more material, physical, corporal than the exercise of power." (Foucault, 1980:57) In essence, it could be argued that this statement suggests that power of any kind reduces the body of the worker to a mere machine. Foucault uses the example of a well disciplined army to convey this. Each solider is like a cog and without all of the soldiers functioning properly, the military 'machine' would 'break down.' He also states how soldiers are literally governed by the "Technologies of war," wherein guns and vehicles control their success.  Marxist theory argues that capitalist industrialism similarly turns the worker into a passive, mechanical 'drone.'

In conclusion, there is a clear consensus that technology is what distinguishes us as being 'human.' In modern society it is hard to imagine life without our technology, for example, computers and mobile phones, let alone basic tools that we don't even view as technological any more, such as, a knife. Bringing us back to the opening statement, it would be a fair argument to suggest that without our ability to use tools and tech that we could simply have remained as a primitive species. It could be said that the more progress we make as a species, the more distant we will stray from our 'natural' roots, until we are one with the technology we have used to get there. 

Bibliography: 

Foucault, M (1980) Power/Knowledge | First American Edition  

Shaw, D (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concepts | Oxford Berg Press 

Media as a Cyborg Encounter

Steigler states that a human "invents himself in the technical by inventing the tool -  by becoming exteriorised techno-logically"(Steigler,1998)

This in other words means that the concept of human is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is. It is as if humans, in a sense, need technology to be able to carry out daily functions, as it seems that the human path of evolution has been aided by the rise and dominance of continuing technological advances. 

Michael Foucault was also interested in the body as an object of knowledge, in particular, the "docile" body of that of a soldier. He likened a group of army soldiers to a well oiled machine, working in tandem with each other to carry out a task. (Foucault, 1991). In very much the same way that a machine would work, taking a car engine for example, one of the great combustion inventions of all time, and its pistons, working together to drive a vehicle forward. 

In this reading, it is also discussed how humans would be unable to do the tasks that a supercomputer would be able to do. An example given was the study of a human genome being the same as assembling 300'000 minute pieces of the Oxford dictionary. For a human to do this on their own it would be merely impossible, but I think it is unfair to dismiss a humans achievements because it was in fact, humans who had to build and process these first supercomputers around the 1980's that would be able to deal with such large tasks and the storing of such information. I wouldn't think that discrediting anybody's achievements of this nature would be fair due to that fact that humans did assemble computers first. 

Homo Sapiens distinguishes us as as being able to possess language and use complex tools(Shaw,2008,pg.88). Shaw goes on to state that we may have 'made' these machines but in a way, they 'made' us. In a sense this can be true, because we adapt to new computers and technologies and possibly, learn new skills from them, but it can never be taken away from the human race that we did in fact make these machines possible and develop them further for them to be available to use for all the human race. 



References - chapter 4 - Technobodies - D, Shaw, 2008, pages 82-101

New Media as a Cyborgian Encounter

Stiegler states, "The concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is." (Shaw, 2008, P.81) What Stiegler is saying here is that we have become like cyborgs, machines and technology are a part of what makes us up as humans. 'A cyborg is a person whose physical tolerances or capabilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by a machine ... that modifies the bodies functions.' (Santone, 2003, [Online])

The invention of technology can be dated right back to the early humans and their use of stone tools to help them hunt for food, build fires and houses, etc. Technology in this sense is different to digital technology today. The early humans used their technology to shape their lives and to survive. Is this the same case today? I believe so. Technology and new media are all around us we are constantly in contact with the media which helps us study, work, find information which form us as humans. 

Today people cannot go about their daily lives without coming into contact with new media technology and in many cases people feel completely lost without a piece of technology strapped to them. Think of your mobile phone, you have it with you nearly all the time either in your pocket, handbag, strapped in a hands free kit in the car, everywhere. For many people their mobile phones are a part of them. 'The cyborg represents the relationship between organic bodies and media technologies ...' (Santone, 2003, [Online])

Shaw talks about new media as a cyborgian encounter, new media has brought us closer to technology. New media provides access to content at anytime, anywhere because it is digitized. 'Stelarc's work deorganizes the body by drawing attention to the way that technology extends, amplifies, invades and shapes contempory bodies.' (Shaw, 2008, P.81)

Shaw provides us with a case study called 'Dead Bodies and Lively Machines.' In Almodovar's film 'Talk to Her' a man is in love with a woman who is in a coma, only being kept alive by machines. Benigro talks to her and fantasises about what she wold respond with, this is an important note. The fact that the woman is being kept alive by machines, enables fantasies, 'so the film makes the link between technological undeath and the fantasy of human perfectibility - the ultimate happy ending.'  (Shaw, 2008, P.96)

Books:
Shaw, D. 2008, 'Technoculture: the key concepts,' Oxford Berg Press
Websites:
Santone, J. 2003, 'Cyborgs,' The Chicago School of Media Theory, [Online] Accessed on 29/10/10, Available at:
http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/cyborg/

New Media as a Cyborgian Encounter

"Technology should not be considered adjunct to the body or in opposition to it but as a determinant of its ontology" (Shaw, 2008, pg 81) Shaw is stating here that we have not came to see technology as a seprate part of our lives but rather an extension of ourselves, he is stating that the two are melding together to the point where we become almost cyborg like. "Technology continually produces the body" (Shaw, 2008, pg 82) Here is another reference to Shaw examining the point that we are overly dependent on machines to the point where we would not be able to function without their existence.

Shaw states that "Sterlarc's work deorganizes the body by drawing attention to the way that technology extends, amplifies, invades and shapes contemporary bodies" (Shaw, 2008, pg81). Again Shaw makes reference to  New Media as a cyborgian encounter, he states that these everyday commodities are slowly coming to replace other aspects of our everyday life. For example nowadays most people are inseparable from devices such as their smartphones or tablets, often using them to preform a multitude of functions and in some cases replacing socializing altogether.

Comparisons are made suggesting that from a cultural standpoint we have been training to be almost "machine-like" for longer than we may expect. Shaw states that "The body of the soldier is manipulated, shaped, trained, so that it obeys, responds, becomes skillful and increases its forces" (Shaw, 2008, pg 82). Shaw is stating the soldiers have been exhibiting machine-like qualities before the advent of New Media, suggesting that maybe we have been brought into a cyborgian state of mind gradually.

Shaw states that the human body has been classified under such extreme social conditions in the past that it has become over-coded in terms of gender, sexuality race etc, these types of bodies lend themselves to classification (Shaw, 2008, pg 93). Shaw states that "We have been cyborged by our own machines" (Shaw, 2008, pg 95). We are fighting a losing battle in an attempt to define the "perfect" body which previously fit into different social categories (Shaw, 2008, pg 95) instead we have become like the cyperpunk characters Shaw talks about in the fact that we take for granted the direct integration of the machine into our thought process, this is not a representation of the future, but a representation of the here and now.

New Media: A Cyborg Encounter

Consumers and technology are being seen as one in the post human, cyborg age. The consumers are considered as cyborg because of the continuous nonstop consumptions and interaction with technologies.  An Australian performance artist, Stelarc suggests that "human evolution is aided and determined by technology"(Shaw D, 2008. Pg: 82). Cyborg is a human who has certain physiological processes aided or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices.

Norbert Wiener thought up the term Cybernetics, Cybernetics speaks of the relationship between mechanism and its environment. Essentially it likens humans to machines. In Norbert’s theory he explains how we humans are made up of patterns much like technologies are made up of codes. The human’s codes or DNA is the pattern Norbert refers to; it is the carrier of genetic information and defines physical characteristics. Our personalities are shaped by the environment we expose ourselves to as individuals.  Wiener considered what would happen if humans were to transmit themselves. Much similar to the same way radios and televisions transmit patterns of sounds and light. Through New Media technologies humans can ‘transmit’ themselves. Online dating sites allow humans to create online profiles of themselves that we see through our Smart Phones, Tablets and Computer Screens. (Shaw D, 2008)    

  

  The age of New Media has introduced the combination of humans and technologies to create what some theorists are referring to as ‘cyborgification’. In today’s age we use technology to enhance our experience of life. With social networking sites like Twitter we have the ability to communicate with our idols which we could not have done previous to this invention.

In my eyes the consumers have two choices, to see technology as a threat or an extension of the body as such. "Machines are not simply prostheses that we 'add on' to our minds or bodies in order to facilitate and extend our capabilities but part of the environment out of which we produce ourselves" (Shaw D, 2008. pg:92) The cyborg culture is when human and technology work together as one. It can be said the us humans are using machine parts of us like to do what would be considered as analogue tasks in a digital way. In one sense it could be said that New technologies and media aren’t taking over but helping us communicate and gain information. On the other hand it could be said that it is effecting us in our traditional socialisation and dumbing us down through the ease of which we can access information.   

Bibliography

Shaw, D 2008 'Technoculture: The Key concepts' Oxford Berg Press