Cybernetics

Stelarc invites us to consider the absurdity of the ‘natural’ body and to consider the idea of human evolution as supported and determined by technology. He is not the only one to believe that we need to distribute the idea of the human body as a sacred structure, enclosed in skin and being something that produces but, never itself is produced by the technologies that it requires to sustain its presence.

‘The concept of ‘human’ is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is.’

Hard to escape technology because it is something that surrounds us no matter where we stand. The human existence is hard to imagine without the advancement on the technological world we live in.
Cybernetics is, essentially, concerned with control and communication and the relationship between a mechanism and its environment. Norbert Wiener, the ‘father’ of cybernetics, was generally keen about the idea of the human nervous system and the means of communication between the exterior senses and the muscles. The DNA in humans is compared with the coded information that can be communicated through technological devices. So our understanding of cybernetics is the relationship between a mechanism and its environment. Shaw believes the human species are produced by the environment they live in, but they can also produce the environment they live in. For example, new media technologies such as Facebook. Consumers can create their own personal identities online.

What it means to be ‘human’? A bloodstream is part of the main understanding of what it means to be human. It is a large part of the understanding of how a system works both circulatory system and a technological system.

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