Silvana's E-learning and Digital Cultures Blog » Wesch http://digitalculture-ed.net/silvanad Part of the MSc in E-learning at the University of Edinburgh Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:39:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Reflections on Haraway, dualisms and the promise of Cyborgs http://digitalculture-ed.net/silvanad/2009/11/11/reflections-on-haraway-dualisms-and-the-promise-of-cyborgs/ http://digitalculture-ed.net/silvanad/2009/11/11/reflections-on-haraway-dualisms-and-the-promise-of-cyborgs/#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:30:59 +0000 silvanad http://digitalculture-ed.net/silvanad/?p=280 I can’t say I found Haraway an easy read – partly because I needed to understand first the context in which she is writing.  She is a biologist and a socialist feminist and the Cyborg Manifesto is a critique and an alternative to the brand of radical feminism that was dominant at the time of her writing.  Theresa M. Senft has provided some very useful background and notes on the Manifesto at http://www.terrisenft.net/students/readings/manifesto.html 

What interests me is her argument about the Cartesian dualism that is dominant in Western thinking and the Cyborg as an alternative.

The dichotomies between mind and body, human and animal, organism and machine, public and private, nature and culture, men and women, primitive and civilized are all in question ideologically. p. 44

In the first block of this course, when we explored digital culture, the images were very black and white.  A lot of films view the machine, the cyborg as a threat to humans.  Yet, ironically, Haraway sees the cyborg as the saviour.

The machine is not an it to be animated, worshipped and dominated. 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.

Michael Wesch has simplified this argument and made it more accessible and popular in his video – the Machine is Us/ing Us

Click here to view the embedded video.

 There is one point in the video where he makes this point very clearly:

When we post and tag pictures, we are teaching the machine. Each time we forge a link between words, we teach it an idea. Think of the 100 billion times per day humans click on a web page teaching the Machine.  The machine is using us – is us.

The words above Wesch has extracted from an article in Wired by Kevin Kelly – We are the Web. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html?pg=4&topic=tech&topic_set=

I suddenly made the connection with Wesch when reading Haraway. The machine is us/ using us is not a dichotomy but one and the same. We both control and are controlled by it. Rather than a dichotomy of either/ or, it is both.

It is late. Does this make sense?

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