New Media as a cyborgian encounter

In a post human, cyborg age, consumers and technology are being seen as one. Consumers are considered as cyborgs because of their constant consumption and interaction with technologies. A Australian performance artist, Stelarc suggests that "human evolution is aided and determined by technology"(Shaw D, 2008. p82). Cyborg is a hybrid of machine and organism working together.

Cybernetics is a term coined by Norbett Wiener (1950). Cybernetics refer to the relationship between a mechanism and its environment and compares humans to machines. Wiener's theory also explains how humans are made up of patterns, similarity to how technologies have codes. DNA is the pattern of a human being which defines physical characteristics. Other characteristics such as personality is shaped by the environment which an individual is exposed to. Wiener contemplated what would happen if humans were to transmit themselves, the same way as radios and televisions transmit patterns of sounds and light. Humans can 'transmit' themselves to a certain extend through New Media technologies. Using New Media technologies such as Facebook or Twitter, individuals can create themselves online, which is seen through computer and phone screens.

Human beings are produced by their environment, however they can also produce the environment they are in. For example, media technologies influences consumers interactivity. Social networking websites allow and encourage individuals to communicate with lots of people, in different places at the same time. "We are not 'minds' that observe and process an informational world that includes our own bodies but complex systems that reproduce themselves in connection with their environment." (Shaw D, 2008. p92) Consumers use the Internet as an environment to create a version of themselves online. Consumers produce their online environment through how they choose to represent themselves and how they use the sources they have.

Consumers can either see technology as a threat to their bodies or they can celebrate it as an extension of the body. "Machines are not simply prostheses that we 'add on' to our minds or bodies in order to facilitate and extend our capabilities but part of the environment out of which we produce ourselves" (Shaw D, 2008. p92) Humans and technologies, working together as one body, is seen as a type of cyborg culture. Humans are using the machine part of themselves to do analogue tasks in digital ways. New Media technologies are not taking over but are helping people to easily communicate with others, gain information and live.



Bibliography

Shaw, D. (2008) Technoculture: The Key Concetps; Oxford Berg Press (p81-102)