The first post in my first lifestream week was an interview with Philip K. Dick ‘What is it to be Human’. The themes subsequently have focused around body modification (or augmentation), both historically and in terms of modern home made ‘bionic’ prosthetics (produced with a 3D printer) or a ‘giant tech suit’ (below). My thoughts really therefore following through from my final assignment (IDEL) and a consideration of the 13,000 BC Dogu from the Jomon period, Japan (13,000- 300 BC); (cited by Prowse 2015, Sumioka et al 2013 p728). Hayles, in (1999) “Towards embodied virtuality”: How we became posthuman, similarly considers the role of reflexivity in conceptual change or the development of such frameworks (2013, p8). With her notion of ‘seriation, skeuomorphs, and conceptual constellations’ Hayles maps this out in a sense which presents a view of how we have always been embodied through the mediating eye of a specificity of historicity and cultural representational means. My specific post below ‘human augmentation, been around a while’ was as mentioned above directly brought to mind by my IDEL final assignment, and here is just one short excerpt (Prowse, 2015):
‘The model of human embodiment with reference to Dogu given above, points to what Boellstorff (2008, p135) indicates would be a naive view of ‘real world’ human embodiment, particularly in the context of ‘encounters’ between people, where this is one which is viewed as unmediated by technology, or social or cultural constructs in a constitutive sense (Graham, 2002: cited in Boellstorff 2008, p135).’
My lifestream post ‘New Order Everything’s Gone Green’, Feelings of HAL and More, was motivated by visual metaphor in our film festival of HAL (Kubrick 2001 A Space Odyssey) appearing to be embodied as a womb, within which Dave is ‘held’ and ‘breathes’ steadily. HAL of course is not even a child on the other hand we might think, (memories implanted (Hayles p1) purvey an odd kind ontological status, the nursery rhyme ‘Daisy’ seems relevant in the case of HAL, in its eerie unwinding tones), HAL is in a confused state, and paradoxically whilst appearing to sense ‘death’ and be possessed of self consciousness, lacks an authentic personal history. HAL appeals to Dave, to understand and be ‘shown the way’, in the way the lyrics in ‘Everything’s Gone Green’ (New Order) indicate. Rather than presence there’s a strange sense of absence here.
#mscedc Sigourney Weaver had one of these. You can buy a giant mech suit on Amazon Japan for $1 million http://t.co/BB7q5kHIeb via @engadget
— Miles Prowse (@mychioiles) January 17, 2015
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January 17, 2015 at 11:35PM
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#mscedc Sigourney Weaver had one of these. You can buy a giant mech suit on Amazon Japan for $1 million http://t.co/BB7q5kHIeb via @engadget
— Miles Prowse (@mychioiles) January 17, 2015