Super "Meat" Identity

Our cultural cyborgification has been written into our very DNA and has left a digitized finger print on all that we perceive to be apparent in our everyday lives. Societies "retreat from the flesh marks the dissolution of the body in a incurably informed world in which the 'meat' is constantly manipulated and thoroughly mediated" (Shaw, 2008, p86).  

With regard to the above statement, Shaw looked at the connotations surrounding the idea of the prefect solider and later on in the text he states the unacceptable of a woman's meaty exterior versus their "technological solution to [their] 'problem'" (ibid). He found that the "super" solider worked well inside a team and used a common term "well oiled machine" (Shaw, 2008, p82) to illustrate his point of the prefect human and its fundamentals towards a formation of prefect technologies. As well as the soldiers inside fundamentals towards technologies we have to look at their intended sexuality.


Shaw goes on to write about the imperfection of the woman and the capitalist need to use a technological stance to change their appearance through external environment. Without context we state the soldier to be a man not underlining the fact that they could be a woman and vice versa with the stance towards appearance through external environment.

When reading Shaw's text you find a underlining meaning through his readings, which highlights the stereotypical format of technology. Seen through the points above and the study of Pat Cadigan's cyberpunk story Synners (1991).  Shaw breaks down the human interaction between the four main characters which stated the difference of the weak and their empowerment through the technological and new media stance.

This now leads to "the notion that the media now allows us to all create out own complex, diverse and many faceted notions of personal identity" (Creeber, 2009, p18)


Shaw may look at the embodiment of the "circulatory system" but his underlining factor shows us that technology identifies changes in the world and produces what we understand as the ordinary.


Bibliography:
Shaw, D, (2008) Technoculture: The key Concepts (Oxford: Berg Press)
Creeber, G. (2009). DIGITAL THEORY: Theorizing New Media & Cubitt, D. (2009) Case Study: Digital Aesthetics in ED. Creeber, G. & Royston, M. (2009) Digital Cultures: Understanding New Media; Maidstone, Open University Press.

Rise of the machines

We are living in a post-humanist age, the age of New Media. In this New Media era, Shaw (2008, p.81) argues that “the concept of ‘human’ is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is”. In this way, Stelarc talks about an obsolete body (Shaw, 2008, p.81), since the body can now be seen as invaded and determined by technology.

During the period of modernism, the idea of the human body was dependent on accepted differentiations, such as the ones between humans and machines and between humans and animals (Shaw, 2008, p.87). These distinctions also legitimized the racial, gender and class divisions. In this respect, Michel Foucault introduced discourse, which has the function to make distinctions between what we recognize as normal or deviant. He sees the male white body as the normal, unmarked body, while all the other bodies are seen as deviant.  Moreover, discourse is reflected in media. Media institutions are disciplining and classifying our bodies and are also disseminating dominant norms, since we are constantly “plugged in to the technology” (Shaw, 2008, p. 86).

However, in our high-tech culture, the body has become obsolete since these binary distinctions are increasingly fading. Especially the opposition between the physical and non-physical is disappearing because of the use of smartphones and tablets. Haraway (1991, p.153) argues that “Modern machines are quintessentially microelectronic devices: they are everywhere and they are invisible”.  Therefore, it is uncertain who the producer or the product is in the relationship between human and machine.

Consequently, The body is now regarded as an unformed and nonstratified ‘Body without Organs’. Moreover, the body is being shaped as a cyborg, a fusion of human and machine, since it increasingly resembles the machines that determine our self-understanding. “We may have ‘made’ these machines but now, in a very real sense, they make us” (Shaw, 2008, p.88). Through the use of technology, we can create our own identity and replace our human shortcomings. We do not need to be a man or a woman, on the internet we are all equal.

Bibliography

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

Haraway, D. (1991) "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century". Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge.

Humans and technology

"In other words, the concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is." (Shaw, 2008: p.81)

Have we been overcome by machines or are still human? Without technology the human race wouldn't get on very well. Think about how many times you use technology, we are always using are phones and iPods and laptops we couldn't live without these appliances. Try for one day leave your phone down and not use it, I bet u struggle. This shows how new media has overcome and that we can't live without them this shows how new media revolution has took over. This is basically meaning that we aren't being ourselves and that new media and technology has become an extension from ourselves and that we actually need them instead of want them.

Although new media wouldn’t have come about if it wasn’t for us we wouldn’t have evolved if it wasn’t for technology. We have developed a lot over the pasts due to the revolution of technology I would say that we have got smarter but also that we have got lazier as we no longer find the need to do maths we just use a calculator on our phones or we don’t remember history we just google it.

Shaw looks at William Harvey's circulatory system this is telling us that the body is "produced by technology in the simple sense that Harvey had necessarily to use tools to examine the workings of the heart"(Shaw, 2008: p.82) Now a days we don't need tools to look at the heart but that we can actually use technology to look at the heart beat and to do blood pressure and all things like that.

So overall we find ourselves turning into cyborgs as we are no longer ourselves but that we are just a form of media and that we find that humans wouldn't have evolved that fast if it wasn't for technology but also that technology wouldn't have evolved that quick if it wasn't for us.

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

Shifting ideas of the self

One of the things Shaw discusses in his chapter on Technobodies is that new discourses are imposed throughout the changes in the environment a ‘body’ lives in. A society in which bodies are marked by social class and work implies different ‘truths’ than living in a society in which the emphasis is on capitalism, modern subjects and consumption. It actually comes down to a shift in the cultural consumption (Shaw, 2008, pp. 83-87). This notion goes back to the words of Creeber, who stated that the historical periods of postmodernism and modernism imply a shift in media, media consumption and ways of approaching media (Creeber, 2009, pp. 11-17). As Jenkins cites Pool’s Technologies on Freedom, there no longer exists a one-to-one relationship between a medium and its use (Jenkins, 2006, p. 10). So with New Media being transmitters of multiple messages and carrying out different functionalities, we should consider the way it influences a subject’s notion of how to act and what to be.

Furthermore, this shift in discourses also implies a change in which we would define ourselves as humans. When Shaw states that “the concept of ‘human’ is unthinkable without technology” he might be right in the sense that, in a contemporary culture, the mentioned discourses happen in connection with technology (Shaw, 2008, pp. 81-82). This means that with New Media making their way into our lives, and coexisting with Old Media (Jenkins, p. 14), we could consider their role in the change of this self-definition. The way we define ourselves happens in the extent of  what (new) media offer us. When technology is so engaged with the body, it will manipulate the body in a significant way, in that it offers us the necessary information about the body and determines what and how the body is. This makes us think of the body as a primarily ‘technology’ structure, with ‘technological’ processes coordinating it (Shaw, 2008, pp. 88-89).


Bibliography

Creeber, G. & Royston, M. (2009). Digital Theory: Theorizing New Media: digital cultures. Berkshire: Open University Press.  

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture, where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.

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

Thinking about the unthinkable human

"[T]he concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is" (Shaw, 2008, p.81). Shaw (2008, pp.81-82) illustrates this by the understanding of the circulatory system. Before humans were aware of this it already functioned in the same way, but this understanding had actual consequences in the way people saw and used their bodies. This could be seen as an example of the "Thomas theorem" (Thomas, & Thomas, 1928, pp.571-572). In this way, technology, which is produced by our bodies, also effects our bodies (Shaw, 2008, pp.81-83).

In this chapter society is viewed as a machine of which the people are parts (Shaw, 2008, pp.83-87). This is a fitting metaphor, but it is just one way of looking at society. It could be argued that people have always adapted to their environments in a Neo-Darwinistic way and that societies already ran like machinery before the industrial revolution gave rise to machines. In other words, although the text uses modern concepts to describe being human, these processes already existed long before that.

It is argued that "[t]he body has become obsolete" (Shaw, 2008, p. 87) because advancements in technology make differences less important and even different 'species' can be mixed. Although there is a tendency in this direction, saying that these differences have already vanished could be considered problematic in an age where discrimination -for instance the glass ceiling- is still prevalent. However, advancements like transgenics make it clear that many divisions we use, are surpassed. These old concepts might still be useful in what we could see as Husserl's (1970, p. 127) Lebenswelt but in a slightly more scientific area new ways of distinction have to be found, for instance focussing more on genetic details.

Altogether, this holistic view of body and technology is said to "evade the opposing responses of technophobia and technophilia" (Shaw, 2008, p.91). In the light of this text one could say that these concepts show a misunderstanding of the interconnectedness of body and technology. However, following the Thomas theorem (Thomas, & Thomas, 1928, pp.571-572), it could be said that if people experience technology in this way, it might still be important to look at it like this.

Bibliography
Husserl, E. (1970). The Crises of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Northwestern University.
Shaw, D. (2008). Technoculture: The Key Concepts. Oxdord Berg Press
Thomas, D.S., & Thomas, W.I. (1928). The child in America: Behavior problems and programs. New York: Knopf.

We are human, Aren't we?

"The concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is"
(Shaw, 2008: p.81)

Shaw opens the chapter with a paraphrase of the quote from Stiegler (1998) where he claims "The human [..] invents himself in the technical by inventing the tool - by becoming exteriorised techno-logically" (p.141)

Shaw is talking about the means which we find out for ourself that we are human. The technological advancements in departments such as health and sports, help us program, monitor and test out bodies to see if everything is running as it should be. The idea that there needs to be blood pumping around out bodies to be alive, only came about after Galem understanding of our veins and hearts. This was later proved to be incorrect, when William Harvey's findings, which were aided by technology, showed that blood came from and to the heart. 

We can also look at different objects which hold a similar principle. For example, gender, race, age, class. These are things which are highlighted in our society, more than what they should be. Of course, race and gender have their obvious technicalities, but society uses these to categorise humans into separate groups, as if to divide us. Shaw re-refences to the quote made ealier in the chapter, which said that "bodies are obsolete", (Shaw, 2008: 81) and pushes this even further, saying that the human body in society is "dependent on accepted differentiations" (Shaw, 2008:87)

Gender is the most prolific of this differentiation. As with the first 30 seconds of being born, a baby is judged on whether it is male or female. Its a baby, a human, but according to society, it has already been deemed as to which class it will be placed in.

I can never imagine a society without these classes. It will never happen.

Bibliography
Shaw, D. (2008), Technoculture: The Key Concepts, Oxford Press.
Stiegler, B. (Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus. Stanford: Stanford University Press.