The Cyborg Emancipates Us from Liberal Humanism

Over at The Atlantic, Tim Malay does a quick genealogy of the term “cyborg.” It’s quite interesting: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/the-emancipated-cyborg/63995/ He focuses on the “emancipatory” potential of the cyborg. However, I do think he misses the critical function of the term–that is…

“Why do we keep falling in love with cyborgs?” — Interestign poste by Newitz over on i09

Annalee Newitz has posted a piece over on i09 about why we humans love (both Biblically and Platonically) cyborgs. Here’s the link: http://io9.com/5648537/why-do-we-keep-falling-in-love-with-cyborgs Most of it is really good. I particularly appreciate her complication of the “natural human” vs. “synthetic…

This robot is SO not a dick in drag, Part 3: Lady Gaga

This robot is SO not a dick in drag, Part 3: Lady Gaga

So, Madonna chooses humanism, whereas Beyonce chooses Afrofuturist posthumanism. In this post, I’ll discuss Gaga’s post-goth sometimes posthuman-ism. Gaga chooses the robot, sometimes. For example, in this David LaChapelle photo, her “Paparazzi” costume clearly references Lang’s robo-Maria (note too the…

Robots, Cyborgs, and the Master/Slave Dialectic

So over on his blog, my partner Christian, who is an artist, has been thinking about the difference between the practice of robot-making and the practice of making cyborg prosthetic devices. Here’s the link to his post, but I”ll reproduce…