Harbisson's TED Talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_harbisson_i_listen_to_color#t-62901
Harbisson's Huffington Post Interview:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/23/cyborg-neil-harbisson-interview_n_2745307.html
Beardyman's "Polyphonic Me" TED Talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/beardyman_the_polyphonic_me?language=en
Donna Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto" (RECOMMENDED/OPTIONAL):
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/donna-haraway/articles/donna-haraway-a-cyborg-manifesto/
Lacking time over the past couple of days, I was only able to get to the Cyborg Manifesto, which was a doozy to start with in its attempt to build an "ironic political myth faithful to feminism, socialism, and materialism." But, Haraway adds, "faithful" as "blasphemy is faithful" Right off the bat, I thought about how most anything political, like all those candidate ads we watch every fall, for instance, is already quite ironic. The hyperbole used and the claims that elected candidates make that never seem to stand the test of time are affirmation f the fact that, at least in my mind, politicians rarely if ever actually mean exactly as they say. Plenty politicians lie. Even look at the SA president who had to step down in the last year or two for embezzling. There's the myth. Political integrity.
ReplyDeleteThis piece, as I said, is quite full of material that likely merits discussion. That being said, I feel like I would need a week or two to open much of anything up to first comprehend it and second to put together some kind of coherent argument. I could take any given sentence or even a phrase (as I did to start off with) and break it up to find multiple meanings and ideas. Such is result of a high-brow academic work such as this, I suppose. I would think that even with a complex, wordy premise, one would need to unpack said premise and explain in much plainer English the idea conveyed-- If one can't use an example that most others can understand, then the argument is irrelevant. If I can't be understood, then there's no point in my arguing.
My complaints about academic articles on the whole aside, I found most interesting her two-column chart under "The Informatics of Domination" heading to be interesting. Not a lot of it made sense to me as I cruised through the piece, but science fiction gets a curious mention as being "bourgeois" in nature, and perhaps, if I read it correctly, a representation of realism at the same time... It's hard for me to make heads or tails of, much less now that am quickly rereading it and as I post this so late in the morning. Remember kids: procrastination is bad. But nonetheless, I'd like to see some more dedicated focus to certain claims like that, rather than this massive, single-spaced monstrosity of an essay that attempts to cover so many bases that I fear it may -ironically and actually- cover few with enough clarity to make sense of.
I think if there was one topic that perfectly fits into the focus of this class it would be the concept of cyborgs. The blurring of the lines between what is man and what is machine can raise a lot of difficult questions about what it means to be human. Cyborgs are not a foreign concept within the canon of science fiction, but with the recent technological advances mankind has made, we for the first time have the ability to make fiction reality. Harbisson can actually hear color with the assistance of an antenna that has been embedded on his skull, and Beardyman can manipulate the human voice in ways never before imagined. Both of these examples would once have been considered crack-pot ideas, but are now thought of as great technological discoveries.
ReplyDeleteI found the way that Harbisson talked about the possibility of cyborgs becoming commonplace in that future to be a little disconcerting. I think that what he's accomplished is really great and definitely a technological breakthrough. I can also imagine all the benefits we would all experience if cybernetics became a part of society, whether it is medical, educational, or purely artistic. He mentions that he would like to see a future where people can upload software into their genes and modify anything about themselves. That might sound like a good idea to people like Harbisson, but I think it’s a slippery slope. I'm not saying that cybernetics are unequivocally bad, but to quote Ben Parker, "with great power comes great responsibility," and if cybernetics are going to be a part of our future, we need to take precautions to ensure they are not abused or misused.
I absolutely love beardyman because he defies what we believe humans can do with or without a machine he can do far more things with his voice then the average person could possible think to do. I do not think of him as a cyborg so much mostly because when he does use a machine it is an external machine and I think for something to be cyborg it not only needs to be able to enhance what your body can already do but it needs to also be implanted in the body as well to be fully considered cyborg I think.
ReplyDeleteFirst, about the cyborg. I thought this guy was interesting as all get out, and I think it fits great into the class. for me, the most exciting thing about watching this video was how greatly we are blurring the lines between sci fi and sci fact. This is done all the time but it is exciting to be witnessing the cutting edge of this phenomena. What I mean by that is we all hear about instances like how Star Trek had cell phones before there were cell phones, but that was before my time. So to me it is a totally different experience to have this contemporary idea of the cyborg, and have lived in both a time when it was just sci fi, and then now experience it as a reality. That being said, while it was exciting to watch, I don’t know if I buy how this new form of perception can lead us to enlightenment. Where it become problematic for me is when we talk about the software. Now I know NOTHING about computers, but it seems to me that one could just arbitrarily change the noises that the color’s he sees produces. This leaves me thinking less that this idea is making us smarter and more thinking “wow look at this weird thing we can do.”
ReplyDeleteAs far as Beardyman, I think he was a ton of fun to watch. I love beatboxing so the beginning bit was really cool to watch for me. I am not sure what to do with the rest of the video other than to be amazed and the say “Wow, look at this weird thing we can do.”
I really liked the Harbisson interviews. It’s synesthesia taken to the next level. What really stuck out to me was the U.K. passport story. If people do become cyborgs maybe we won’t even need passports. They’ll probably be implanted into us somehow as horrifying and mortifying it might be to some. If this can be done with colors, imagine what can be done with other senses except hearing of course. Harbisson also mentioned that there are kids who are interested in transhumanism. It’ll be very interesting to see where this goes in about 30 years.
ReplyDeleteThe Beardyman segment was awesome as well. I wonder if it will catch on and become the next synthesizer. This will probably raise the issue of whether the music that comes from this is “genuine” or not. That’s not to say that I dislike his machine. I just wonder what the reaction will be if this is ever made for personal use. I like how both Beardyman and Harbisson are going the extra mile give new and different uses to the senses of the human body.
Okay first of all, this Harbisson guy is awesome! Electronic eye that allows him to listen to color, so cool. But anyways, maybe we could all be considered cyborgs in a way. I mean how many of us have small man made components buried deep under our skin. I mean, my family is prone to accidents so all of my aunts have screws and staples and whatnot in all parts of the body. These small parts essentially keep them together, so could we consider them a cyborg? Maybe not. Maybe to be a cyborg one has to have more than a few metal parts. I agree with Harbisson, I think we should embrace the fusion of technology and our human selves. Maybe not necessarily to “perfect” the human self, but instead to fix it. I don’t think we should be running around attaching technology to ourselves to try and become the next “Iron Man” but using technology to fix disabilities is a great idea. We should embrace technology. No one should have to suffer from a disability if we have the technology to fix it right? Reading this interview on how technological devices essentially become “a part of your body” made me cringe a little. Maybe because I can envision a small little robotic eye or something taking control of the entirety of my brain. But that can’t happen right? Well anyways I can’t wait to read more about these men. Maybe we will have even more to talk about.
ReplyDeleteHarbisson was really weird, but when he talked about the possibilities he could achieve with listening to colors it was really interesting. The fact that he could listen to paintings was mind blowing and having food that makes a song. Even though this all sounds really cool I don’t think I would want to become a cyborg unless my life really depended on it. Kind of like only if my life depended on it to become one. I feel like if I become a cyborg I will lose a lot of the human part of me.
ReplyDeleteThe Beardyman presentation was much more interesting than the Manifesto was. I guess that's a given, one being academic and the other being a multi-media deal. It was interesting in that not only was he making all sorts of non-musical noises, but he was making all kinds of musical sounds, too-- all of which, sans the guy telling you it was his voice, sounded fairly authentic when I closed my eyes. It was like listening to Peter Frampton or something normally just considered "music." Then he adds on with the extra-musical stuff, the dubstep-esque noises and such. And it really showed a sort of conversion between man and machine that, to once again bring up Giorgio Moroder, sounded very much like "the sound of the future." Beardyman did some things that echoed tunes like "From Here to Eternity" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnIwl3FNUl8 (which, I might add, was a totally different sound from his rather irritating but catchy earlier work, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8_yylMLh5w )
ReplyDeleteThe idea of the cyborg is a fascinating one. I see it in a lot of the art I look at on DeviantArt (an art website), it's been used with numerous superheroes and villians: Iron Man, as mentioned above; the Green Goblin, in the first Toby McGuire Spiderman movie; Cyborg from Teen Titans (anybody else remember that show? lol); and to shamelessly boost my ego and take note of Alyssa's comment, the premise of one of the novels even I wrote years prior to the present moment is about a guy who gets a robotic eye that does a lot more than just see, and he worries about losing his organic nature, becoming nothing more than a mechanized monster. One of my all time favorite games, Mass Effect, pretty much focuses on the organic-vs.-synthetic question for the entirety of the story. There's a bit of everything in that, as you have the Geth, robots created by an alien race that needs robotic suits just to live, and then you have everyone with "Omni-tools," basically a tablet that's just implanted in everybody's wrist or something. The Reapers, the main antagonists, are supposed to be the epitome of robotic life that has been formed from organic life. They used subliminal messaging to influence further organics to do their bidding. And never mind that one part of the ending [SPOILER ALERT] where, given the three choices to deal with the Reapers, Shepard can opt into the "Synthesis" ending, which supposedly fuses all organic and synthetic life into "a new framework."
I agree with the general message I think that is coming from BeardyMan and Neil. We should always be trying to improve what we as humans can do. Is it neccessary for us to be able to hear color or be able to make symphonies with our vocal cords thanks to a machine? No. But its cool as cool gets. I'm definitely pro-cyborg. Why shouldn't we have implants that make us better, faster, smarter, increase the amount of sense that we have. Make us just a better species in general. The better we become the faster we rise; next thing you know were off battle galactica style taking over alien countries and creating factions within our galaxy. How ill would that be? our fleshy sacks wouldn't stand a chance if aliens came to us, that would mean they have advanced technology and we don't. We gotta upgrade, why be you when you can be new?
ReplyDeleteI am in so much awe over Neil Harbisson. The whole concept of hearing color is something that had never before crossed my mind and the possibilities that it offers are so great, even going so far as to allow detection of ultraviolet color in a given day. I loved how he mentioned that before the technology he dressed to look good, and after the implantation he dresses to sound good. While the concept of enhancing our senses is fantastic and extremely futuristic in a traditional sense, my only concern is that these enhancements will lead to the average human slowly evolving into a being more technology than human. In his Huffington Post interview Harbisson brings up his concern that if people were to become a part of and support this cyborg movement, there would need to be the creation of hospital type repair centers specifically for these cyborg humans. This idea brings me straight back to the cyber punk video games we looked at on Friday—I want to say the one that I am specifically thinking of was Deus Ex but I’m not 100% positive—where hospitals to provide proper care to cyborgs were only created with the intention of bringing in revenue, with the needs of the people coming second to the profits.
ReplyDeleteFrom Em:
ReplyDeleteI’ve actually seen Beardyman’s TED Talk before, but this time I was watching it with a specifically “sci-fi” lens, as opposed to an “oh, TED Talks, fun” lens. I’m always impressed with Beardyman, but I don’t think I’d call him a cyborg. He is not fully integrated with his equipment, or his equipment with him. They are separate entities, even though the equipment allows him to more fully express himself and make up for a perceived gap in his abilities. But there isn’t really a gap there, he can make all the noises other people can, and he can do Tibetan Throat Singing. If anything, he was already impressive vocally, and the machine added to that without being integrated into him.
Harbisson was more like a cyborg. For one thing, there was a level of integration with his mechanical eye, and he was making up for a deficit, his inability to see color, but then going beyond corrective and into the realm of something that would be impossible without the enhancing technology he used. That’s why I think glasses aren’t really grounds for being a cyborg. They extend the senses to make up for a deficit, without mine I wouldn’t legally be allowed to drive a car, and I’d need someone to help me 24/7, or maybe a guide dog, and I wouldn’t be able to read that well, but they don’t go beyond that.
To be honest with you, I only skimmed the manifesto, but I like my definition of cyborg: One must be integrated on some level with the technology in such a way that one cannot fully remove it, and it should not only make up for a deficit in skills or senses, but also go beyond the realm of what is usually humanly possible.