Stelarc is an Australian performance artist, who introduces
the idea that technology plays a huge part of the evolution of human. (Shaw 2008,
p.81)
He states, ‘we have always been prosthetic bodies’, (Shaw 2008, p.81) , and Stelarc was not
the only one to have views such as this. Bernard Stiegler, a French
philosopher, also thought that the notion of being human without the aid of
technology is impossible, but ‘we act as if it is’. (Shaw 2008,
p.81)
Michel Foucault considers in his book, Discipline and Punish: The Birth
of the Prison (1977), the ‘docile’ body in the example of a soldier. (Shaw 2008,
p.82)
He talks about how the soldier is part of a ‘well-oiled machine’. (Shaw 2008,
p.82)
It is manipulated and controlled but is ‘only achieved because the individual
parts have been tailored to fit an exact function.’ (Shaw 2008, p.82) This is not dissimilar
to the workers of industrial capitalism, where they are used and exploited. ‘The
worker’s body is a commodity’ (Shaw 2008, p.83) according to Marx.
‘Nostalgia for the worker’s body is exploited in the service
of eroticized consumption.’ (Shaw 2008, p.85) Foucault brings
forward the idea that the capitalist consumers can buy fitness to be part of
certain social classes in. Along with new ideas of what is found attractive and
healthy, this has made it a want for a lot of our contemporary culture.
‘This body is socially produced.’ (Shaw 2008, p.94)
Cybernetics is ‘concerned with the control and communication
and the relationship between a mechanism and its environment.’ (Shaw 2008,
p.89)
Shaw discusses the idea that the ‘body is both produced by and the producer of
the environment in which it exists’. (Shaw 2008, p.101) Today the technological advances such
as smart phones along with social networking sites help to create a culture
which is constantly documenting every part of their lives. The technologies are
part of us and as Shaw states, ‘we are, in effect, constantly “plugged in”’. (Shaw 2008,
p.86)
Because of this terms such as Citizen Journalism have come about. Our culture can now see things that they have
produced on things like the news and internet.
This technology could be seen as a threat to what we believe
the word human to mean. Consumers can either see it to be an addition of the
body where the body and technology work in accordance with each other.
The concept of the Body without Organs was thought of by
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guarttari. It is an anti-Oedipal body which is thought
to be the ideal body. (Shaw 2008, p.93) This body ‘forces us to question why we
accept limits to how we understand our bodies’. (Shaw 2008, p.94) Through this exploration
‘we produce ourselves’. (Shaw 2008, p.94)
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This is a class blog for students enrolled on the History and Analysis of New Media Module at The University of Ulster. Please keep comments constructive to help students progress with the given text