Cyborg Romanticism

Critical Debate: Cyborg romanticism and futurist fetisch-ization

keywords: cyborg, Cyborgian romanticism, futurist fetisch-ization, feminist cyborg, debate, quotes reading

Abstract: Revisando a THF en la red, encontre desde el colectivo Xlterrestrials difusión del evento con una pequeña nota al pie de página que dice:, { Having investigated the cyborg ideologies out there in CiTiZEN KiNO #31, Xlterrestrials are still a Little unsure about Cyborgian romanticism and futurist fetisch-ization, which in our view is leading to further exploitation and degradation of our ‘natural’ environments, and to a potentially techno-fascist climate, but the nice artwork and ideas for Transhackfeminist meet IS alluring… and undoubtedly ENGAGED! } Esto lleva a pensar en los interesantes debates criticos de k. de http://www.ippolita.net sobre el cyborg feminista y su fetichización naive.

Entonces, un debate sobre las visiones que provocan esta constante fetichización futurista (como UKI, akelarrecyborg, o el mismo calendario octubretrans) y ciborgiana pordria molar.

Formato: debate abierto sobre cyborg y retoricas futuristas. lxs participantes podrian traer preparadas citas para leernos.

Materiales: libros, citas, papel grande y bolis para mapear conceptualizaciones

Lecturas útiles:

   http://manifiestocyborg.blogspot.com.es/
   http://cyborganthropology.com/
   http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/search/?qt=cyborg+bodies
   http://www.terrisenft.net/wp17/index.
   html http://www.ctheory.net/home.aspx
   http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/issue/view/11

//init.

using this as starting point as debate: Xlterrestrials aboout THF! { Having investigated the cyborg ideologies out there in CiTiZEN KiNO #31, Xlterrestrials are still a Little unsure about Cyborgian romanticism and futurist fetisch-ization, which in our view is leading to further exploitation and degradation of our ‘natural’ environments, and to a potentially techno-fascist climate, but the nice artwork and ideas for Transhackfeminist meet IS alluring… and undoubtedly ENGAGED! } http://xlterrestrials.org/plog/?p=12659 CiTiZEN KiNO #31: I’m A Cyborg, But That’s NOT OK !http://xlterrestrials.org/plog/?p=11659 pirate pad notes debate I’m A Cyborg, But That’s NOT OK !: http://piratepad.net/r3JWrjInYP

// Reazioni e antropotecniche di sopravvivenza

- ippolita.net

related also to the ippolita critique Le critiche alle tecnoburocrazie si possono agevolmente applicare all'informatica del dominio, denunciata da Donna Haraway, «A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,» in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, New York, Routledge, 1991, p. 161. I sistemi cumulativi gerarchici tendono a sviluppare modelli sociali concentrazionari a prescindere dalle epoche. Le competenze personali richieste per contribuire a tali sistemi decrescono con l'aumentare del potere tecnico. In particolare, si veda l'analisi del sistema sovietico in Cornelius Castoriadis, La societé bureaucratique, Bourgois, Paris, 1990 http://www.ippolita.net/it/libro/reazioni-e-antropotecniche-di-sopravvivenza

// fetishism - fetishisation

- john holloway

then use the fetish analisis of holloway The concept of fetishism is concerned with the explosion of power inside us, not as something tha is distinct from the separation of doing and done (as in the concepts of ‘ideology’ and ‘hegemony’), but as something that is integral to that separation. That separation does not just divide capitalists from workers, but explodes inside us, shaping every aspect of what we do and what we think, transforming every breath of our lives into a moment of class struggle. The problem of why revolution has not happened is not a problem of ‘them’, but a problem of a fragmented ‘us’. http://www.johnholloway.com.mx/2011/07/30/class-and-classification/ http://libcom.org/library/chapter-4-fetishism http://libcom.org/library/chapter-5-fetishism-fetishisation

// CybORG

A cyborg is [...] a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Donna Haraway (1991: 149)

// chela sandoval - Nuevas ciencias. Feminismo cyborg

to go then to review feminist cyborg imaginaries Sin embargo, no deja de resultar significativo que los teóricos de la globalización se comprometan ahora con la introducción de una política «cyborg» opositiva como si esta política hubiera emergido únicamente con el advenimiento de la tecnología electrónica, y no como resultado de una conciencia en oposición desarrollada bajo formas previas de dominación. El cyborg de Haraway es la cría «ilegítima» de la sociedad dominante y el movimiento social de oposición, de la ciencia y la tecnología, de lo humano y la máquina, del «primer» y «tercer» mundo, del macho/varón y la hembra/mujer, de hecho, de cada par binario. La cualidad híbrida de esta criatura se sitúa, en relación a cada extremo de estas posiciones binarias y a cada deseo de totalidad, escribe Haraway, igual que la «blasfemia» (1995, p.251) se posiciona en relación al cuerpo de la religión. La blasfemia de Haraway es el cyborg, el cual reprocha, desafía, transforma y escandaliza. un «feminismo cyborg» que sea «más capaz» que los feminismos de tiempos anteriores, escribe, de «mantenerse en sintonía con posicionamientos históricos y políticos específicos y con parcialidades permanentes sin abandonar la búsqueda de vínculos poderosos». Gayatari Spivak en su ejemplo de «esencialismo estratégico» que aboga tanto a favor de la movilidad como de la consolidación de la identidad al mismo tiempo. Las diferencias, escribe Haraway, deberían verse como ejemplos de «especificidad elaborada» y como una oportunidad para «el cuidado afectuoso que las personas deberían mostrar para aprender cómo ver fielmente desde el punto de vista del otro» (1995, p. 327).

// Cyborg: dedicated issue in Hysteria

mexican magazine 

http://hysteria.mx/editorial-8/ El presente número de Hysteria aborda las problemáticas del cyborg, figura prestada de la ciencia ficción, del ámbito bélico y espacial, para reflexionar sobre la reconstrucción del cuerpo. Sin embargo, presentamos al lector una selección de propuestas desmarcadas del imaginario imperialista que, en sus múltiples representaciones falocéntricas, mitad robot mitad humano, dominan el imaginario cultural. Procuramos elegir obras textuales y visuales que se alejan de aquel proyecto hipermoderno y militarmente omniabarcante, tanto en el orden de lo simbólico como en lo social. Viramos, entonces, hacia una noción de cyborg afín a las políticas corporales. Porque sustituir la carne, los órganos, o los huesos, por metal o mecanismos, no es el verdadero problema, como tampoco expandir las capacidades corporales. El cyborg existe pero la condición corporal continúa imponiéndose. De igual modo, la psique predomina, con sus problemas atemporales, sus miedos, sus placeres y sus deseos, etc. En todo caso, nos interesan las modificaciones a las que se somete el sujeto cuando no son efectuadas desde y para el sistema de dominación en el cual se halla inmerso, sino cuando estas trasformaciones son diseñadas por él mismo, en pos de una performatividad disidente. Hysteria es una revista de cultura y sexualidad dirigida a personas interesadas en explorar las políticas de representación del cuerpo desde la perspectiva del arte y la búsqueda del placer entendidos como espacios políticos.

// The Cyberpunk Project

“Cyborg” is a science-fictional shorting of “cybernetic organism”. The idea is that, in the near future, we may have more and more artificial body parts – arms, legs, hearts, eyes – and digital computing and communication supplements. The logical conclusion is that one might become a brain in a wholly artificial body. And the step after that is to replace your meat brain by a computer brain.

// Cyborg soldiers and militarised masculinities

> http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2010-05-20-masters-en.html Cyborg Soldiers http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2007/11/cyborg_soldiers.html http://www.chisasibi.org/world-war-1-soldiers-equipment Soldier’s Disease http://wiki.addictiontreatmentmagazine.com/medical/mental-health/soldier-s_disease/

// CYBORG ++LINKS

http://cyborganthropology.com/Main_Page http://escritorasfantastikas.blogspot.com.es/ http://entregrietas.wordpress.com/tag/cibertransitos/ http://www.macba.cat/ca/trobades-entre-especies-el-feminisme-darrere-els-ciborgs http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/cyborg_bodies/ http://cyberartsweb.org/cpace/theory/hoofd/index.html http://project.cyberpunk.ru/ http://www.blog.lucysombra.org/category/cyborg/

// FuturismS

From: Janelle Monáe: A New Pioneer Of Afrofuturism http://thequietus.com/articles/04889-janelle-mon-e-the-archandroid-afrofuturism

   "I'm a cybergirl without a face a heart or a mind,

(a product of the man, I'm a product of the man), I'm a saviour without a race (without a face)." Janelle Monáe on 'Violet Stars Happy Hunting', from her debut EP 'The Chase'

     the means to battle an oppressive regime and liberate the 'have not's  of society. Consider that the word 'machine' is thought by some to be  derived from the Greek word for remedy.

   "In the era of slavery, people of African descent were human enough to  live and love and have culture, but were nonhuman to the extent that  they were 'machines', labour for capitalism". 

   Others perceive Afrofuturism as in conflict to the idea of even being  human, which music critic Kodwo Eshun describes as a "treacherous  category" for the Afrofuturist. If you aren't human neither can you be  "subhuman" or "nonhuman", common descriptions in civilised societies for  'the other' i.e the marginalized ethnic classes, the impoverished and  the homosexuals - the "semiotic ghosts", as William Gibson saw it. It is  part of a rejection of "black humanist" culture in favour of a new  subjectivity which jettisons the traditional image of "black bodies in  pain" expressed in blues and soul. Thus, if you're "intergalactic  funkadelic" (as George Clinton liked to put it), no longer is 'the self'  defined reactively by the freedom struggle against white oppressors,  who are allowed a presence by inference and thus are free to  over-determine African-American culture. As one blogger and Berkeley  history graduate Arri Acornly interprets this: "Black women can explore  the physical expressions of her feminine form without being sexualised  and animalised. A black man can just be a man and not a black man.".

From: http://fyeahafrofuturism.tumblr.com/

   "Afrofuturism, for me, is about speculating on the potentiality of  what is known about technology and physics to create metaphors that  allow me to explore an African diasporic past and generate possible  narratives for the future…Afrofuturism is also a rumination on memories  to which I have no access. My investment in it as a production strategy  has run its course; Afrofuturism provides a way to investigate trauma  very explicitly. But we only reenact traumas, don’t we? We don’t reenact  prom night, or our favorite birthday party. This is a problem—it  doesn’t seem to fix things; it amplifies them. There’s gotta be  something else, the after-the-trauma."

Cauleen Smith (Cauleen is a player in the movement of Afrofuturism, an emergent literary and cultural aesthetic that combines elements of science fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, Afrocentricity, and magic realism with non-Western cosmologies in order to critique not only the present-day dilemmas of people of color, but also to revise, interrogate, and re-examine the historical events of the past - wiikipedia)

   "Black existence and science fiction are one in the same."

Kodwo Eshun, “Further Considerations of Afrofuturism,”

// Lydia Lunch quotes

... about change of self paradigmas “I had to de-program myself. From myself. Had to reinvent rituals of purification. So full of the vagrant pollutions of others. It was time to detox. Not only from alcohol, sex, and drugs, but from needy leeches who looked to swab me with their sores. Detox from my own needy lechery. Had to locate the center wound and cauterize. Undo the original sin, the origin of my sickness...Had to learn to replace Them, It, Want, Hurt, Anger, Sorrow, Loss, with Power, Healing, Wisdom, Fulfillment, Satisfaction.” ― Lydia Lunch, Paradoxia: A Predator's Diary

// Walter Benjamin

The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion. Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/walter_benjamin.html#FgQ5rpl4cKTBGgFt.99

// Tecnochamanismo & Ecotécnia

other conceptual aproaches to tech+bodypolitics

http://tecnoxamanismo.metareciclagem.org/index.php?title=Espanhol http://tecnoxamanismo.hotglue.me/ Las Ecotecnias son instrumentos desarrollados por el hombre a través del tiempo, se caracterizan por aprovechar eficientemente los recursos naturales y usar materiales de bajo impacto para dar paso a la elaboración de productos y servicios (Wilkipedia, 2009)