-->
The term ‘cyborg’, a short for ‘cybernetic organism’, implies an array of matters: from an organism with enhanced abilities due to technology to the famous fictional characters, Cyberman and Terminator. Either way, the images of cyborg display machine parts in combination with biological bodies. Since the term first appeared in 1960, the concept of cyborg has transformed along with the development of technology. It has become the icon of integration of artificial and natural systems, virtual reality becoming reality and vice versa. Through science-fiction novels, comics and films of the past few decades, the cyberborg-being became highly recognized in popular culture. And now game industry aspires to transform ordinary man into cyborg with cutting-edge technology. In the contemporary high tech society, where the existing boundaries are rupturing, Donna Haraway’s (1991) assertion makes one contemplate one’s existence in the world: this “image of both imagination and material reality” is “our ontology”. Is the notion of “cogito ergo sum” still valid here?
While wikipedia, the universally renowned encyclopedic website, is yet to cover this prominent term, ‘multispecies’ reflects the ultimate human recognition of its being as a result of complex web of interactions with other beings in scientific terms. A new genre of anthropological study, multispecies ethnography[1], is not limited to humans but examines the effects of their entanglement with other living beings. Some say it erases the boundary between human and nonhuman, endangering human hierarchy. Nevertheless, the contained scrutiny and prudent acceptance of the more-than-human world has opened up novel understanding of human self. Such idea brings up the point of ‘living with’ others, not in the sense of simply residing together in the same area or being engaged with companion animals, but having substantial influences on one another’s ontologies. Dogs we know now would not have been the same without humans, nor would humans have been the same without them. The same goes with horses, pigeons, mice, wheat, mushrooms, and so on. Although humans believe to have controlled the nature throughout the history, the world now is indeed the result of chemistry amid the alterworlds[2] of all beings. As an anthropologist Anna Tsing asserts, “human nature is an interspecies relationship” (Tsing n.d.; Haraway 2008). Individual existence and identity is shaped by contacts with other matters.
The concept of individualism has prospered throughout the world, promoting independence and executing one’s desire under the name of liberalism against societal interferences as the result of western cultivation; yet, the longing for connection has become ever greater at the dawn of the 21st Century. Putting much weight on connections, philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari is considered fresh and Negri called their A Thousand Plateaus “the most important philosophical text of the 20th Century”[3]. Encompassing a wide range of matters, their focus is on overcoming thresholds and becoming-(e.g., war machine, animal, imperceptible, etc.), in connection with other matters. Many contemporary men find their reasoning liberating and denying the established western understanding. In East Asian culture; however, their philosophy is found to be in parallel with the idea of Confucius. Written some 2300 years ago, the Analects of Confucius unfolds on the basis of identifying oneself in relations to others; hence the concept of respect became the root of East Asian philosophy. Notwithstanding the fact the ancient Chinese writing is open to various interpretations, it has profoundly influenced the social, political, and cultural aspects throughout Asian history. Family, community and nation come before individuals, according to Confucius, for an individual is rooted in relationships; cannot stand alone nor even come to be, disconnected from others. Nevertheless, the ideology of individualism has now come to be the main ground for advancement as well as the globalized contemporary culture. Hence the technology comes in to play the role of mediator between one individual and the other, in attempt to meet the demands of individuation and connection.
“Technology embodies physically what science has already done in thought when science sets up its own conditions as a measure of nature” (Barrett 1978). From the beginning of civilization up to the late 19th Century, science, such as chemistry and physics were commonly referred to as natural philosophy. For the grand natural phenomenon overpowered human, the viewpoints of men were parochial in nature. Along with the changes brought by science and technology— as the impossible became possible— the idea of human-being transformed. The western world went through centuries of Christian faith and Enlightenment, identifying God and then ultimately, human in the centre of the world, overpowering the nature. However, Heidegger in the 20th Century removes human from the spotlight and suggests that any Being (Dasein) is formed in the network of other entities, similar to the aforementioned ideologies. He also suggests that technology is not merely an instrument to serve some purpose. Technology in Heidgger’s term is both a means to an end and a human activity: it is a way; a way of revealing. With that distinction in mind, the history of technology appears to be a series of revolutions: from the first earthenware to bronze tool to signal fire to wheel to light bulb to automobile to shipping container to rocket to the Internet to iPhone5. The mentioned examples depict human development, pointing to the present world. The intervals from one to the next have become shorter and shorter in recent years. This era of technology has rushed in to the daily lives of the modern men. “Abstract and daring imaginations [became] actual and pressing reality with technology” (Barrett 1978), not only uniting the earth as a whole, but also creating another world. Through technology, what is recognised as world has come to be divided into the physical and the virtual. Technology has been revealing the unseen side of world, creating an optical illusion.
Along the wide distribution of the Internet, numerous portals to virtual reality appeared. Here, cyborg in Haraway’s term appears. Although the main focus of the text, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late twentieth Century” is in feminism in relation to the figure of cyborg, the notion of cyborg, a fabricated hybrid of imagination and tangible reality, can be applied to the ontology of modern men. While cyborgs are careless about their origins, untied from material reality, they are “needy for connection” (Haraway 1991). As technological devices for network are ever so ubiquitous, so are the cyborgs. May it be social utilities such as Facebook and Myspace, or strategic life-simulation space such as The Sims and LittleBigPlanet, the ground for the fabricated hybrids is expanding with time. Game is rapidly rising as a main field for aggregation of cyborgs. “Play is a voluntary activity … accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy, and the consciousness that is ‘different’ from ordinary life” (Huizinga 1995; Dovey and Kennedy 2006). As play is idealized to the desirable experiences of the players, game, a structured playing, readily encourages the rupture of the boundary between reality and virtual reality. With nonsense, flexibility, and realization of fiction, one is able to produce a new identity through game. The infamous Yu-Gi-Oh! Game is an example of game breaching the border between reality and imagination; justifying a synthetic identity of the player. Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game is based on fictional comic and anime of the same title, in which the very game and its rules are the basis of the story. It is available in physical trading card game as well as video game, and the real-world deck of cards can be ported into the video game. Viable in both physical space as well as virtual space, in addition to providing the illusion of becoming the charismatic hero, Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game is recognised to be very addictive among school children all over the world. Such phenomenon of children missing school and returning home extremely late due to Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game sessions has become a social issue is Korea[4]. Like such, game can be deceptive, not only erasing the boundary but also devouring people from the reality into its stomach of illusion.
Though not as vigorous as games, online social utilities also create delusion. In the process of acquainting a stranger, becoming ‘friends’ on Facebook became a routine step in this network society. However, the person presented on Facebook tends to differ from the person met face to face. The issue of online personality clashing with the physical personality is becoming greater as social networking services provide the stage for people to not only boast about themselves, but also view oneself in comparison to others. Being ‘friends’ on Facebook does not necessarily mean they are ‘person[s] attached to [each] other by feelings of affection or personal regard; person[s] who give assistance; person[s] who [are] on good terms with another’[5]. Many a time, confirming someone as a ‘friend’ on Facebook or a ‘follower’ on twitter is merely to increase the displayed number, that is to say to expose one’s popularity. Nevertheless, it is a common belief these days that although “there’s never been more ways to connect with people… it [is] harder to make … friends” (Green 2011). Far-reaching distribution of the Internet service and mobile phones, wide availability of smartphone applications imply the rapidly evolving techno-scientific world. Through the term cyborg, Haraway inquires what it truly means to be human. Consciously and unconsciously constructing and displaying identities that cannot be affirmed on the basis of natural identification, “we are cyborgs” (Haraway 1991).
It has become easy to spot people with multi-task touch-screen mobile phones. The smartphone has become another organ, containing ever-so-much information of the owner; making life more convenient. More and more matters are designed for the device: Twitter, GPS, QR Code and such. The phone allows real-time interaction across the globe, bringing the continents ever so closely. On the underground, bus, or café, everyone with the high-tech phone locks eyes on the screen— the palm-size device became their eyes to the world. With the advanced science-technology, almost anything no longer depends on luck or fate but became predictable and controllable with convenience (e.g., public transportation intervals, weather, and tracking shipped item). Regardless of the complex and immediate intercommunication, the concern for growing distance between people became greater. Recent technologies have focused much on privatisation. Consequently, the contacts between individuals mediated by devices and/or virtual space come to cause greater solitude. The cutting-edge machine omits the minuscule but important elements from the chemistry of physical encounter. It is a consequence of contemporary technology. Nonetheless, such can also be resolved with the very technology. With smartphones and willingness, a contact between acquaintances can become a physical one. “Sooooo Mate”, a smartphone game conceived for the Gamifying Your Life project, is designed to encourage physical encounters among acquaintances. It critiques on the notion of fate as well as the interconnection of the contemporary people. While the contemporary games and networking systems create virtual relationships, “Sooooo Mate” promotes to build and maintain the actual relationships in the real world. Based on the East Asian idea of relationships seen as strings of fate, one can thicken the string by having frequent and meaningful contact with one’s friends. Technology, the functions of a smartphone, such as camera, Internet, GPS and real-time update are crucial. GPS is to inform in real-time when friends are in proximity, encouraging one to lead one’s fate and confront the opportunity of becoming intimate with the other. Here, technology becomes the way of bringing the virtual to reality.
Although hard science and high tech society discount it, many people practice reading horoscope in the paper. Looking into nature for answers, human has always depended on other matters throughout the history. Development of science and technology has come to shape contemporary human identity, greatly altered from the past; distant from the nature. The idea of cyborg, our ontology, is artificial; yet it points to a form of hybrid identity, in parallel to that of multispecies; Deleuze and Guattari’s becoming; Heidegger’s Being (Dasein). “The cyborg is a kind of disassembled and reassembled, postmodern collective and personal self” (Haraway 1991). As the result of technological development, the border between imagination and reality is erased, humans transformed into cyborgs and the ideology of individualism flourished. Thus growing solitude among individuals became a consequence of contemporary technology. Nevertheless, together with design, the very technology is to resolve its issue by becoming not merely a means but a way of revealing. “Sooooo Mate”, a smartphone communication game is designed to encourage physical interaction, creating opportunities for intimacy between acquaintances. “Communications technologies … are the crucial tools recrafting our bodies” (Haraway 1991). While technology is a way, design is the guide, navigating oneself in relations with others in this world of cyborgs. As Haraway (1991) claimed, “the machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment. We can be responsible for machines; they do not dominate or threaten us. We are responsible for boundaries; we are they.” Despite the ruptured reality and plastic imagery of cybernetic organisms, we, humans have always been in intimate with other beings; and we, cyborgs continue to thirst for warm touch. Ergo one cardinal condition needs to be pointed in human ontology: we live together, therefore we are.
[1] The idea of multispecies ethnography is well explained by Kirksey, S. and Helmreich, S. in their article “The Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography” published in the journal Cultural Anthropology
[2] The term was pitched by Bruno Latour, in his War of the Worlds: What about Peace?.
[3] It was mentioned during the conversation between Cesare Casarino and Antonio Negri, recorded in Cultural Critique 57.
[4] For more detail, see: http://www.gofanboy.com/go-fanboy-news/2404-korea-responds-to-mmorpg-addiction-with-new-gaming-curfew
[5] Lexical definition of ‘friend’ from http://dictionary.com
Reference
Barrett, W. 1978. The Illusion of Technique: A Search for the Meaning of Life in a Technological Age. London: William Kimber Ltd.
Casarino, C. and Negri, A. 2004. It’s a Powerful Life: A Conversation On Contemporary Philosophy. Cultural Critique 57, 1. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. 1980. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. B. Massumi., 1987. London, New York: Continuum.
Dovey, J. and Kennedy, H. 2006. Game Cultures: Computer Games as New Media. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Green, E. 2011. Why It’s Not Easy Making Friends Anymore. Smiths, 3, pp. 7
Haraway, D. 1991. A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. Pp. 149-181.
2008. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Heidegger, M. 1993. The Question Concerning Technology. Basic Writings Ed. D. Krell. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
Kirksey, S. and Helmreich, S. The Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography. Cultural Anthropology, 25 (4), pp. 545-576.
Latour, B. 2002. War of the Worlds: What about Peace?. Chicago: Pickly Paradigm.
Parkes, G. ed. 1987. Heidegger and Asian Thoughts. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
