POST-HUMAN BODY AND IDENTITY MODIFICATION

IN THE ART OF STELARC AND ORLAN

By

Ras Steyn

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree

MAGISTER TECHNOLOGIAE: FINE ART

in the

Department of Fine and Applied Arts

FACULTY OF ART AND DESIGN

TSHWANE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Supervisor: I. E. Stevens

Co-Supervisor: J. Thom

February 2005
“I hereby declare that the dissertation/thesis submitted for the degree (M Tech:
Fine Art), at Tshwane University of Technology, is my own original work and has
not previously been submitted to any other. I further declare that all sources cited
or quoted are indicated and acknowledged by means of a comprehensive list of
references”.

Ras Steyn

Copyright© Tshwane University of Technology 2005

2
Acknowledgements

Firstly I would like to convey my sincere appreciation to my supervisor I.E.

Stevens for her magnanimous and relentlessly devoted assistance over the past
two years. Secondly, I would like to express my gratitude to my co-supervisor J.
Thom for guiding me toward postmodern thinkers relevant to my field of research
and for giving some often controversial conceptual advice. Finally, I would like to
extend my gratitude to Tshwane University of Technology for financial
assistance.

3
 Abstract
Post-human Body and Identity Modification
in the Art of Stelarc and Orlan

Continual developments within the field of post-industrial or post-human

technology such as simulation technology, computer mediated communications
technology, biomedical (genetic engineering, scanning devices, cloning) and
prosthetic (bioelectric implantation or extension) technologies are making it all
the more realizable for the human subject to modify its corporeality.

Cybernetic and cosmetic body performance artists Stelarc and Orlan act as
hyperbolic social extensions or screens of man’s growing discontent with the
natural or standard body-identity. By subjecting their bodies to biocompatible
amplification technologies, deconstructive and reconstructive technologies, bionic
restoration technologies and the like, the perimeter of normative body-identity is
transgressed. Human morphology becomes simultaneously present and absent,
real and artificial, biological and synthetic, tangible and intangible (simulated or
representational).

The cybernetic organism (cyborg) as one of the most popular new post-human
embodiments fuses binary opposites and redefines corporeality as flexible,
fragmented, ambiguous and heterogeneous. This makes it difficult to determine
the future condition of body-identity. Moreover, the cyborg appears to comprise a
close affiliation with technologically induced anomaly and a possible loss of body-
identity. As postindustrial technologies proliferate they steer body-identity
towards endless alteration and multiplication. Stelarc and Orlan’s art seems to
predict that the contemporary techno-transformation of the human body will result
in an unpredictable, reconfigurable and plural non-normative or monstrous
subject.

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CONTENTS PAGE

Acknowledgements iii
Abstract iv
List of figures vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background 09
1.2 Primary aims and objectives 16
1.3 Methodology and summary of chapters 17

CHAPTER 2: POST-INDUSTRIAL BODY- IDENTITIES 21

2.1 Schizophrenic body-identity 22

2.2 Virtual body-identity 28
2.3 The new transcendental body-identity 45
2.4 Cyborg body-identity 60
2.4.1 Prosthetic body-identity 63
2.4.2 The somatic cyborg 70
2.4.3 The genetic cyborg and the clone 73
2.4.4 The monstrous cyborg 78

CHAPTER 3: POST-HUMAN BODY MODIFICATION ART 85

3.1 Stelarc and cybernetic body modification 87

3.2 Orlan and cosmetic body modification 105

CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION 128

ENDNOTES 138

BIBLIOGRAPHY 143

5
LIST OF FIGURES

PAGE

FIGURE 2.1: Steven Spielberg, AI (Artificial Intelligence),

2002, video still, Internet:
http://www.spiegl.de/img/0,1020,141687,00.jpg. 61

FIGURE 2.2: Ridley Scott, Bladerunner, 1982, video stil,

http://www.sentierselvaggi.it/foto/Agosto/sez
_67/bladerunner.gif. 62

FIGURE 2.3 An example of Claude Veraart’s Micro

-system-based visual prosthesis
(Geary, 2002:29). 66

FIGURE 2.4 Illustration of the Clarion cochlear implant

(Geary, 2002: 63). 67

FIGURE 2.5 Schematic illustration of the process of

cellular differentiation (Agar, 2002:72). 76

FIGURE 2.6 Schematic illustration of the making

of Dolly (Agar, 2002:74). 77

FIGURE 3.1 Photograph of Isa Gordon (Psymbiote)

at the SIGGRAPH show in Paris (2002)
Internet: http://www.infogargoyle.com. 86

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FIGURE 3.2 Photograph of Jesse Jarrel’s Bionic Arm
that was constructed in collaboration with
Steve Haworth in 2001, Internet:
http://www.infogargoyle.com. 86

FIGURE 3.3 Image of Isa Gordon’s data-glove,

Internet: http://www.infogargoyle.com. 86

FIGURE 3.4 Stelarc, PingBody, 2002, technical

Illustration, Internet:
http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/pingbody/html. 90

FIGURE 3.5 Stelarc, Fractal Flesh, 1995, performance

video still, Internet:
http://www.artscat.demon.co.uk/stelarc.htm. 93

FIGURE 3.6 Stelarc, Third Hand, 1995, performance

Video still, Internet:
http://www.artscat.demon.co.uk/stelarc.htm. 94

FIGURE 3.7 Stelarc, Locomotor, 2001, graphic illustration,

Internet: http://crossings.tcd.issues/Stelarc/htm. 99

FIGURE 3.8 Stelarc, Exoskeleton, 1998, performance video

still,Internet:http://www.werkleitz.de/~
pape/d/04projects/1998stelarc/stelarc.html. 99

FIGURE 3.9 Stelarc, Extra Ear, 2003, digital representation,

Internet: http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/extra_ear/ 103

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FIGURE 3.10 Orlan, Omnipresence, 1993, photograph,
(Ince, 2000:43). 114

FIGURE 3.11 Orlan, Omnipresence: Second Mouth,

1993, video still, Internet:
http://www.win-edu/users/gjr100/orlangallery.htm 115

FIGURE 3.12 Giger, H.R. Alien,1978, airbrush painting,

Internet: http://www.giger.com (Official website). 115

FIGURE 3.13 Orlan, Refiguration/Self-Hybridation series,

1997-1999, digitally altered self-portraits, Internet:
http://www.win.edu/users/gjr100/orlangallery.htm 121

FIGURE 3.14 Orlan, The Bride of Frankenstein,1990,

photograph, (Ince, 2000:83). 125

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 Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Background

Over the last two decades, humanism, as a potential result of the proliferation of
new technologies, seems to have given way to post-humanism. According to T.
Honderich (1995:376) humanism may be defined as “[t]he tendency to
emphasize man and his status, importance, power, achievements, interests and
authority”. However, one may simplify the meaning of humanism by relating it
with the human body. Post-humanism on the other hand may therefore be
related with the technologically altered or cybernetic body. The cybernetic
organism (cyborg) is perhaps the most meaningful example of the progression
from humanism to post-humanism. The cyborg may be seen as a post-human
embodiment or figuration that dwells within the borders of both the real and the
fantastical or science-fictional.

However, in order to recognize the connotations behind this postindustrial entity

(the cyborg) that appears to typify the essential post-human aspirations such as
body amplification, body restoration and longevity to mention just a few, one
needs to understand humanism. In addition to the shift from humanism to post-
humanism, there occurs a similar departure from modernism to postmodernism.
This parallel shift forces one to consider the relationship between humanism and
modernism, and post-humanism and postmodernism.

Humanism has numerous diverse meanings and is associated with the

Renaissance, when it denoted a move away from God to Man as the center of
interest. Moreover, humanism stresses that “knowledge is not certain” but rather
probable (Honderich, 1995:378). As a result of this viewpoint humanism may be
interpreted by some as “anti-dogmatic” because it accentuates “toleration to
different points of view, including different religious points of view” (Honderich,
2003:06).
9
What complicates humanism is that it can be sub-divided into a variety of
humanisms such as Renaissance humanism, literary humanism, cultural
humanism, philosophical humanism, Christian humanism, secular humanism and
many more. Although all the above-mentioned humanisms are in some way
interrelated, I am primarily concerned with modern humanism.

Modern humanism is associated with the recognition of binary dualisms such as

good/evil, rational/irrational, subject/object etcetera. Moreover, it may be defined
as a “naturalistic philosophy that rejects all supernaturalism and relies primarily
upon reason, science, democracy and human compassion” (Edwords, 2003:01).
Humanism constructs a Western model of what it means to be human, i.e. one’s
ability to reason, in the light of differences such as race, class, ethnicity, gender,
language, nationality, religion and the like. However, despite these divergences,
humanism holds that we are all human. In a way, this attitude reduces the human
subject to an abstract or conceptual construct or state of sameness.

Modern humanism is not opposed to new technological innovation. Modern

humanism (the modern human identity or self) remains the foundation for post-
humanism (the post-human self). Both these ‘philosophies’ share similar secular
belief structures and modes of thought such as the already noted support of
technological and scientific development, the use of alternate approaches to
solve predicaments, the rejection of “arbitrary faith” and the “expansion of global
consciousness” (Edwords, 2003:07-08). In this light it would be illogical to simply
regard post-humanism as an anti-humanist reaction or discipline. If post-
humanism were skeptical about the validity and rationality of the premises of
humanist reasoning it would certainly not utilize any of its fundamental attributes
as basis for its development. To a certain extent humanism aids post-humanism
in achieving its goals (more durable bodies, programmable bodies, bio-
compatible bodies that can be restored bio-electronically, immortality, amplified
bodies that can withstand the inhospitable conditions of outer space and the like).

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However, a brief explanation of identity is imperative to understanding the
concept of body and identity in a postmodern climate. The pre-modern identity
can be defined as a “social self with a fairly stable personal identity” (Ward,
1997:105). The stability of the pre-modern personal identity can be ascribed to
“long-standing myths and pre-defined systems of roles” that sustain and define it
(Ward, 1997:106). The pre-modern self does not question identity, individuality
and personality because behaviour, beliefs and other abstract characteristics that
contribute to the diversification of the self are formed within an enclosed and
restricted environment, such as a vast inhospitable jungle inhabited by a primitive
and isolated tribe, for example.

Cultural specialist Glen Ward (1997:106) notes that neither inner (psychosocial)
nor outer (external bodily appearance) identity is “an issue” for the pre-modern
identity. He argues that identity is irrelevant to the pre-modern self because the
individual is in some sense unenlightened and unaware of the possibility of
developing a unique personal identity based on corporeal characteristics or
personal preference. It is probable that the identity ‘deficiency’ of the pre-modern
self can be ascribed either to a lack of personal choice vis-à-vis identity types, or
an anthropological satisfaction with the self as but part of the natural and
inevitable rhythm of life into which one is born.

Perhaps the pre-modern self instinctively knew that a search for a ‘real’,
underlying, authentic and exclusive identity would be an exhausting and
metaphysically unfulfilling exercise. It is quite clear that identity in its dormant
pre-modern form could only deliver a singular group-oriented identity that
cancelled out many opportunities for uniqueness due to its collective and
mythological nature. However, body-identity as a union was never entirely
neutralized or indistinct. Throughout history the primitive self has modified its
body by piercing the skin, permanently marking the body with patterned incisions,
stretching certain body parts such as the neck, and many other corporeal
alterations using archaic modification techniques. One might say that the body,
or more specifically, the skin, was the original site of inscription with regard to
body-identity formation and classification.
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The real crisis of identity only came into focus with the rise of modernization and
its modern societies. This paradigm shift occurred as a result of “the wider range
of social roles” that modern society began to offer (Ward, 1997:107). Suddenly
the self was confronted by endless potentials. Political parties multiplied.
Religions split up into a wider range of belief systems. Even the field of art began
to diversify greatly after the Enlightenment. Tansey and Kleiner (1996:930)
describe the modern era thus:

[Modernism is symptomatic as a time of] confusion that produced a wide variety

of philosophies rationalizing change and the reactions to change. These
ideologies…provided the maxims and slogans of the countless movements that
agitated the nineteenth century and remain current today.

In a way the modern identity is a multiple identity in the sense that the modern
woman, for example, can simultaneously function as a mother, a sister, a
Buddhist, a scientist, a cook and so on. However, despite the expanded
possibilities for the modern identity, there is still “assumed to be a real, innate self
underneath the public roles” and the barrier of the skin (Ward, 1997:107). In
short, the modern identity can be defined as a multiple awareness of the
prospect of a bona fide identity combined with a desperate need for self-
emancipation. This desperate craving for self-liberation is stimulated by
uncertainty about the stability of the many acquired identity constructs.

Although the modern era allowed the construction of multiple personal identities
functioning under a singular body, it came at a cost. It is likely that the modern
identity is an anxious identity because it continually dwells on the probability that
it might be transient, unstable and counterfeit. Furthermore, the modern identity
is also a mutable identity since it shifts from one configuration to the next in an
impossible search for an essential or spiritual identity that transcends the tangible
identity signifiers that the body has to offer.

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As social life accelerates and becomes increasingly more complex, and already
multiplied identities proliferate and fragment even further, the self is split to the
point of disintegration. A postmodern climate dominated by consumerism,
cultural changes brought about by cybernetic technologies, mass culture, global
media culture and a growing range of subcultures may cause a kind of loss of
identity, a sort of unmanageable mutation and replication of countless existing
and combined identities. The human turns to the body for self-discovery and
identity expression. As postmodern writer and critic Horrocks (1999:43) states:

[G]lobalisation is unstable and prone to violent, anomalous and irrational

reversals from the perspective of ‘enlightenment’, and these may take ethnic,
religious, linguistic, temperamental or neurotic forms.

With regard to text-based communication through virtual systems such as the

Internet, it becomes all the more possible for postmodernism to excel at
producing body-identities that celebrate disintegration, fragmentation, ostentation
etc. Body-identity can simply be surgically modified by cosmetic surgery or
enhanced by the latest popular body accessories such as tattoos, bio-compatible
gloves, subdermal implants and the like. Corporeality seems to be entering a
phase of extreme but artificial plurality. But above all one may have arrived at an
intermediary historical nexus characterized by unavoidable uncertainty and
technological otherness in the form of transgenic organisms, for example. The
body can no longer be seen as separate from the psychological or psycho-
chemical nature of identity. The body seems to have turned into a multi-screen
for the psychosomatic self. Moreover, behaviour, mood and personality factors
can now be significantly controlled through biochemical technologies. Identity as
personality has, in a sense, become programmable, calculable.

Corporeality has fused with personality and postmodern thought. In an era in

which the corporeal, like the psychological or conceptual condition of inner
identity, lapses into the invisible or intangible (virtual or simulated bodies), it
makes more sense to talk about transient body-identity.

13
According to J. Deitch (1998:05), “[t]he modern era might be characterized as a
period of the discovery of the self”. Our current postmodern era can be
characterized as a transitional period of the disintegration of body-identity. It may
be perceived as an ideal stage for the expansion of post-industrial or post-human
technologies that will amputate humanism by equalizing all binary opposites.
Presence and absence, or solid and fluid will share the same value. Post-
industrial technologies transform the human body into a post-biological body-
identity through biomechanical and bio-electrical integration, nanotechnology,
genetic engineering and cloning, bionic innovation, simulation technologies,
cosmetic or synthetic surgery improvements, robotics, artificial intelligence and
biochemical research. Some may see this as dystopian, but post-humanists see
it as a normal extension and result of the human desire for self-improvement.
Post-humanism replaces humanism in that it may be interpreted as the
enlightenment of the postmodern era. Unlike humanism, which seem to stress
the human body as an ideal (classical) form, post-humanism alerts one to the
probability of radical future corporeal identity revolution. New bodily morphologies
re-designed by post-industrial technologies to produce man-machine interface
systems such as the cyborg may be understood as leaning towards anti-
humanism in the sense that its entire existence is based on diffusion,
deconstruction, the symbiosis of the real and the synthetic, and otherness.

These post-industrial or cyborg technologies may well be the catalysts that will
eventually direct the present human genus toward an ambiguous, heterogeneous
trans-human species. Cyber-culture researcher Werner Hammerstingl (2000:02)
observes:

[We] are as a species at the verge of what may be the greatest evolutionary step:
the constantly accelerating relationship between humans and
mechanical/electronic or computer devices or interfaces appears to be paving the
way, via the augmented human to the post-human.

One could say that humanism has been hijacked by postmodern culture and its
technologies and is subjected to enhancement, extension, multiplication and

14
reconfiguration. Post-humanism’s primary objective is to expand and explore
body-altering machinery. It holds many promises ranging from sense
amplification and restoration, mind/memory expansion, synthetic integration, the
deceleration of bio-cellular aging processes, unprecedented intellectual capacity,
and many other bioelectric improvements and repairs.

Post-humanism is clearly a “promotion of the idea that the human form is self-
limiting” (Wikipedia, 2004:02). More than anything, post-humanism emphasizes
the obsolescence of the natural body and focuses on the cyber-technological
convergence of corporeality and the fragmented postmodern condition. One
might say that the body as the alterable site of expression for the de-centered
contemporary condition has lost its ability to satisfy the human mind with its
physiological inadequacies. It is the aim of new post-industrial innovations to
grant the outmoded biological form a second chance. These new developments
are generating opportunities for the postmodern individual to reshape his or her
external identity to match his or her inner self/identity.

Regardless of all the dystopian connotations affixed to these new cyborg

technologies, they are in some way alleviating body oppression by allowing
freedom to individuals such as cyberpunks who wish to express their ‘true
techno-psychological identities’. Could it be that the chief aim of these new
technologies is to redesign corporeal identity into multiple unique and disparate
morphologies that might be considered excessive? What is evident is that
customary body-identity in the west is on the brink of global uncertainty. Post-
humanist progress thus alerts one to the fact that the body is no longer solely a
bio-somatic construct. Its condition has randomly shifted from exclusively
biological to bionic, virtual, and irrefutably monstrous.

Mizrach (2003c:01) goes as far as to suggest that “humans are busy

reconstructing themselves to isolate themselves from the merely biological
[inferior] forms of life on the planet”. This is precisely what body modification
artists such as the Australian cybernetic performance artist Stelarc, and French
cosmetic body artist Orlan, are doing. Their incised, implanted, inscribed and bio-
15
compatible bodies are anti-natural fashion statements that signal the end of the
human form as we know it.

It does not take a great deal of insight to predict that natural body-identity will
eventually take on a brand new post-human attire, but the fixed form of the
impending trans-human body-identity is not easily predicted.

1.2 Aims and objectives

The focus of this paper is the changing nature of identity within a post-human
environment. It is not my objective to explain how corporeality and identity have
split as a result of cyber-technological intervention, but to indicate how the body,
despite its new techno-transformed characteristics, remains the chief postmodern
sign of identity. To my mind, the body and identity are not mutually exclusive, but
rather reflections of each other. Therefore the word body-identity is preferred
within this paper, since identity is the external (clothing and other status
accessories as class indicators, skin as race identification, nationality, physical
deformity, ideal beauty etc.), internal (auditory or muscle dysfunctions, HIV
status, pregnancy, malignant tumors or ulcers and the like) and psychological
(personality traits, intelligence, mental impairment, neurosis or psychosis)
attributes of the human body.

The chief objective is to investigate the technical, metaphoric, symbolic,

theoretical and subjective interpretations of the post-human body modification art
of Stelarc and Orlan. The primary aim is to provide an application of the diverse
post-humanist/post-industrial technologies (simulation or virtual technology, bio-
electric technology, techno-transcendental technology etc.) and their impact on
the cosmetic and cybernetic experiments of these artists. Various connections or
parallels are drawn between the projects of these two body artists. Their creative
investigations into the dynamics of corporeality may be seen as expressions of
body-identity modification within post-humanism. Together they serve as the
prime artistic indicators of post-human advancement. Stelarc obsessively

16
explores the obsolescence of the biological body. He is concerned with
biomechanical and bioelectrical body amplification, extending and remote-
actuating the body using high-tech virtual devices and simulators, testing the
limitations of the body’s natural capacities, steering the body into sometimes
monstrous excess, and often neglecting the moral or ethical implications of his
cyber-projects.

Orlan’s aim is to take personal control over body-identity, to reclaim it as private

property, to aggressively react against classical and/or phallocentric ideals of
beauty, and to make one reconsider the constancy of one’s identity as
inseparable from corporeality. She manages all of this by continually
cosmetically/surgically remodeling her facial features. Her facial identity is
transformed into an endless identity-in-progress. Orlan’s face becomes a bio-
synthetic, sub-dermal insignia of volatility that “addresses sexual politics, gender
inequality, and cultural identity” (Pitts, 2003:03).

These two body artists might seem divergent in their approach to body-identity.
However, I will argue their similarities when focusing on postmodern body
conditions that are associated with confusion, fragmentation, disintegration,
fluidity, loss, disembodiment, excess, monstrosity, and general uncertainty.

1.3 Methodology and summary of chapters

The question is thus, given the current proliferation and pluralization of body-
identities due to increasing post-industrial technologies, what is the most
probable condition that future body-identity might take? The primary aim is to
establish what special state postmodern corporeal identity has already acquired.
A preliminary and speculative concept will be outlined in order to detect relevant
parallels, reiterations and prototypes within contemporary post-industrial body-
identity formations. These will then be utilized to analyze the character of the
impending post-human body-identity.

17
In Chapter 2, I will investigate post-human body-identities from various
theoretical perspectives. Schizophrenic body-identity will focus mainly on the
writings of postmodernist thinker John Storey (1997) who will be investigated to
determine the correlation between hybrid-media image saturation and the
increasingly schizophrenic (fragmented, illusory, hallucinatory) nature of the
postmodern era. Light will also be shed on de-centeredness and how it forms an
integral part of the postmodern condition. Prominent philosophers such as Gilles
Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1988) are essential to this investigation as they use
an unconventional/non-conformist model of deductive contemplation to explain
the schizoid-like hyper-inundation of the data era. This should provide a clear
picture of just how unbalanced current body-identity is.

Virtual body-identity centers on the science fiction novelist William Gibson

(1984) and cyber-theorist Marshall McLuhan (In Horrocks, 2000). They are
cardinal sources in explaining the evolutionary tendency of holistic
communications technology and relevant definitions of cybernetic space
(cyberspace). Cultural critic Benjamin Woolley (1993) clarifies why the personal
computer is considered an enigmatic virtual machine that may be compared to
the processing faculties of the human brain. I will use the theories, thoughts and
personal perspectives of popular postmodernist writer Jean Baudrillard (1983).
His philosophies focus on the crossroads of simulation, the substitution of
perceptual experience, the hyperreal body and the liquefying boundary between
artificiality (fiction) and empirical reality (non-fiction). This research will indicate
how body-identity is, as a result of simulation technology, slipping into a state of
concurrent presence and absence.

Furthermore I briefly explain the subtle intricacy of sex and sexuality on the
virtual frontier. Norman Katherine Hayles’ (1996) standpoint on the isolation-
inducing capacity of online communication is noted, while the Christian cyber-
theorist Paul Virilio (In Gray, 1995) is briefly mentioned for his prediction
concerning the loss of inner or internal bodily privacy and his somewhat
controversial opinion on the God-like aptitude of state-of-the-art biomedical
scanning hardware. Although the loss of body-identity is not the main issue of
18
this paper, the multiplication of gender (i.e. loss of the standard male and female
gender) and the loss of inner bodily privacy are relevant to explain the nebulous
and unexpected post-human character of virtual body-identity.

In The new transcendental body-identity, the views of popular cultural theorist

Mark Dery (1996) play a crucial role. The focus is mainly on cyber-subcultural
movements such as techno-paganism and cyber-shamanism. Erik Davies
(1998), a new writer within the milieu of cyberculture, specializes in subjects
relating to technologically enhanced religion and spirituality, and lends some
insight into Scientology. The German academic Erich Schneider (1993) is vital in
explaining the role of the cyber-shaman (techno-spiritual psychiatrist) and neo-
technological rituals. Science-fiction film and literature analyst Scott Bukatman
(1993) sheds some light on why the infinite fractal form is thought to be the new
emblem for the techno-transcendental subculture. What is specified is that the
new post-human body-identity continues to have a connection with ritual and
thus the pre-modern identity, albeit a technological one.

The essays of culture specialist Steve Mizrach (2003) are mentioned throughout
this section. His knowledge on the formation of new subcultures, types of virtual
reality, contemporary identity transformation, and simple explanations of cyber-
anthropology are imperative to understanding post-human body-identity.
Neurotheologist Iona Muller (2001) clarifies the different ways in which neuro-
technology is employed to induce and simulate altered states of consciousness
and an array of related transcendental/metaphysical conditions. Muller thus
suggests that the body is neuro-chemically designed to generate spiritual states
of awareness, bliss and awe.

In Cyborg body-identity, contemporary feminist philosopher Donna Haraway

(1985) is a fundamental source of new definitions and theories involving cyborg
body-identity. It appears that, for Haraway, the cyborg is not merely an assembly
of flesh and steel, but a socio-political system from which one cannot escape. A
comprehensive picture of enhancing and normalizing biocompatible prostheses
is formulated by focusing on hybrid machine system authority Chris Hables Gray
19
(2002). In addition, Gray (2000) provides some insight into the aesthetics of the
body-identity modification art of Stelarc and Orlan. Gray contributes some
credible insight and predictions on the future form of the cyborg or post-human
body-identity.

James Geary (2002) is used because of his extensive understanding of

restorative bioelectric prostheses such as the micro-based visual prosthesis, the
Clarion cochlear implant, and the like. American robotics specialist Rodney
Brooks (2002) provides some interesting yet unsettling insight into subtractive
bioelectric innovation. Genetic research academic Francis Fukuyama (2002),
neuroscientist Susan Greenfield (2003) and cloning expert Nicholas Agar (2002)
are among the key thinkers to whom I have turned for information on somatic
cyborg conditions. It is important to note that this investigation not only focuses
on man-machine amalgamations, but on the biological (chemical, genetic,
cellular) body as a mechanism as well.

Chapter 3 is an in depth investigation into the objectives and aims of post-human

body modification arists Stelarc and Orlan. By the end of this chapter, a
comprehensive correlation, which might be better described as a persistent
exploration of corporeal otherness, is made between the artists’ creative output.

Finally Chapter 4 summarizes the re-emerging monstrous characteristics of post-

human body-identity. It explicitly addresses the irregularity, uncertainty and
positive nature of the probable mutant-like post-human body-identity.

20
 Chapter 2: Postindustrial body-identities

In this chapter I will introduce four specific postindustrial body-identities. The term
‘postindustrial’ is preferred here because the principal focus is on the
development of body-identity after the transition from traditional industrialism and
modernization (1750s-1950s), which is mainly defined by its revolutionary
mechanical or automated progress, to postmodern industrialism (1960s
onwards), which is characterized by its correlation with complexity of thought, the
development of hybrid media technologies, an explosion of information
processing power and virtual systems, the micro-miniaturization of machines and
the like.

Other terms such as ‘post-humanist’ or ‘transhumanist’ are neologisms that are

synonymous with the term ‘postindustrial’. They refer specially to the transitional
digital era and its certain impact on the corporeal body and thus on identity. The
meaning of these seemingly obscure terminologies will become more apparent
with each newly introduced body-identity. For the moment it is only necessary to
understand that these terms, like the term ‘postindustrial’, signify social revolution
and conversion in the meaning of corporeal identity due to its continual real,
representational, or temporary techno-experimental reassignment.

To maintain the flow of logic the following section will firstly introduce
schizophrenic body-identity. The reason for doing this is because it introduces a
holistic model of postmodern body-identity and its close affiliation with the
transitory, the fragmentary, the hallucinatory, de-centeredness, and other post-
binary qualities that typify the postindustrial era.

21
2.1 Schizophrenic body-identity

Some aspects of the postmodern condition can be related to the distinctive

characteristics of schizophrenia (dementia praecox). The schizophrenic
personality may therefore be used as an appropriate model to explicate a certain
facet of the postindustrial body-identity.

According to psychiatrist Dr G.W. Kisker (1984:351), the schizophrenic patient

displays a “severe disintegration of personality” and usually exhibit symptoms
such as “disorientation, delusions, hallucinations, symbolic language
disturbances” etc. The schizophrenic personality should not however be
conflated with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). Still, the schizophrenic self is
multiple in the sense that it is never stable, never centered, and in continual flux.
Similarly the postmodern self is being exhausted by its frantic search for a
constant identity amongst the multiple masks worn from day to day, and it is also
excessively intersected by simulated reality.

A simple example of the intersected state of the schizophrenic postmodern self

would be the effect of television on one’s emotional states and behaviour. One
experiences TV-reality in much the same way as a schizophrenic might
experience actual reality. In seconds one browses through a number of channels,
each projecting different visual and auditory input. Like the emotionally unstable
and habitually unpredictable schizophrenic, one experiences and exhibits rapidly
changing emotions and behaviour. Within a few minutes of watching television
one can experience shock, sadness, horror, laughter, dissatisfaction,
exhilaration, joy, sympathy, anger and many other temporary, abstract
sentiments.

What is interesting is that the postmodern/postindustrial self experiences all

these emotions within a very short space of time, almost as if they were a
multifarious solo emotion. According to postmodern academic, John Storey
(1997:187), one can compare this phenomenon to the schizophrenic who

22
“experiences time not as a continuum (past-present-future), but as a perpetual
present”.

It seems then that the constant bombardment of images and words via the
television, cellular phone equipped with digital camera, Internet, electronic
advertising boards and cinema have played a role in the desensitization or
numbing of those selective senses that aid in the process of specified and
articulate identity formulation. One might conclude that postmodernism with its
extreme and endless array of possible identity configurations might have caused
many individuals to resign from the seemingly impossible task of deciding on a
collection of suitable exterior (corporeal) or interior (psychological) identities.

According to the postmodernist thinker Joseph Natoli in his essay David Lynch
(In Bertens & Natoli, 2002:38), the postmodern self has become more or less
schizoid-like as it “has no still point, no center, and no place to rest. The center is
everywhere”. Like the schizophrenic, the selves of this era are victims of
confusion and disorder. Moreover, the instability of the contemporary self also
results in a highly flexible or metamorphic self. An example is the way in which
one’s favourite film or preferred style of music, including the way in which it
dictates one’s perspective and attitude, changes rapidly as new films and sounds
are introduced to an innovation hungry culture. The postmodern self is in a
constant state of fluctuation and adjusts itself ad infinitum. It is thus justifiable to
state that it has a highly ephemeral temperament. Like the schizophrenic, a part
of the postindustrial self is incoherent, scattered, cluttered, multi-intersected, and
experiences ‘hallucinations’ in the form of interactive games and impossible yet
familiar realistic digital images as seen in most films or television programs.

To return to an earlier statement that clarified schizophrenic time as a perpetual

and de-centered present; “The center is everywhere” (Bertens & Natoli, 2002:38).
The schizophrenic’s experience of reality is only occasionally interrupted by a
vague sense of past and future. Comparably, postmodern culture has little past
or future awareness. John Storey (1997:187) states:

23
 To call postmodern culture schizophrenic is to claim that it has lost its sense of
history (and its sense of a future different from the present). It is a culture
suffering from ‘historical amnesia’, locked into the discontinuous flow of perpetual
presents.

Using the schizophrenic as a metaphor for the type of coping mechanism needed
to break ties with modernism and survive in the excessive ambiance of
postmodernism is not new. Early postmodernist thinkers such as Deleuze and
Guattari, “championed a fragmented, ‘de-centered’ self in opposition to the
bounded, integrated ego that supposedly anchors the rationalist, capitalist world-
view” (Dery, 2002:par 12). They put forward the condition of schizophrenia as a
creative model which could possibly lead to the end of modernist oppressions
such as scientific and moral rationalism, virility, artistic genius, totalizing
institutions, individualism and many more. It was their belief that modernism was
stifling the emergence of the ‘true’ inner self.

A schizophrenic operates in an isolated world that is largely self-constructed. No

logical or solo identity exists within the schizoid mind. Fragments of personality
exist within a labyrinth of delusional projections fuelled by hallucinatory
understandings of reality. As cyber-psychology researcher Vernon Reed
(2003:02) in his essay An introduction to dissociative identity disorder as a model
for distributed subjectivity in cyberspace writes:

[The schizophrenic sphere] is a world where it is almost meaningless to talk

about having “personality” at all. The task of Deleuze and Guattari’s happy
schizophrenic is to harness this condition of non-referentiality to the use of
forging a new kind of self, in an essentially linguistic transformation, free of the
moral and psychological despotism of Modernism.

In this light one could argue that postmodernism is a sort of schizophrenic anti-
modernism which uses pluralism, multiculturalism, environmentalism, feminism,
queerism, anti-capitalism and the like to simultaneously act against the
oppressive structures of modernism and create the ideal cultural conditions for
the birth of “a rootless self…dedicated to relentless change” (Reed, 2003:01).
24
Understood from this perspective, it would seem that the anti-modernist
schizophrenic condition opens many doors of freedom for the construction of
nomadic, morphological, oppression-free identities. In the same way, the screen
of one’s psychological or abstracted identity, the body, becomes a site ready for
change. One might say that the schizophrenic personality of the postmodern
conscience has laid down the ideal foundational condition for the reassignment,
realignment, and readjustment of the corporeal body.

The new post-humanist environment called cyberspace (simulated space

generated by online or offline computers) has helped transform the once
monolithic and solid self into a fluid cyber-spatial self. Cybernetic technology
such as the Internet enables the new self/body to destruct and reconstruct itself
without much effort. As visual arts director Christiane Paul (2002:par 3) states,
“windows and screens are the metaphors that influence our experience of life,
and virtual life allows people to have a presence in several windows and contexts
simultaneously”.

The advantage of the de-centered schizophrenic self is that it is capable of

assuming multiple unrelated personalities. Once it has depleted the potentials of
a given identity, it sheds its ‘skin’ and modifies its attributes. However, despite
the advantages of this disseminated schizoid identity, it has generated an
immense array of supplementary postmodern forces that complicate the
formulation of traditional concepts of personal or body-identity. Along with the
loss of a unitary subject come other equally obscuring postmodern factors such
as “time-space compression (hyperreality)…the supremacy of the image (and
simulacra), the death of the (teleological) metanarrative; and the atrophying of
community-based or collective identity” (Thurlow, 2002: par 2). Thus it might be
appropriate to focus on a parallel between Deleuze and Guattari’s schizophrenic
and asexually produced plant stem or rhizome model, and Donna Harraway’s
man-machine or cyborg model. It is the aim of Deleuze and Guattari (Butler,
2003:03) to define the postmodern subject through the schizophrenic/rhizome
model. Deleuze and Guattari believe that the “schizophrenic model [was] better
suited to the postmodern subject than the model of the unified ego”. This is
25
reminiscent of Haraway’s cyborg model that “destabilizes boundaries” between
modernist dualisms such as culture/nature, truth/illusion, man/machine, self/other
(Janes, 2000:137). Their schizo-rhizomatic model too renders oppositions
irrelevant through its perpetually present re-patterning and reconfiguring of the
subject.

In their book entitled A Thousand Plateaus (1977), Deleuze and Guattari apply
this originally schizophrenic and later rhizomatic model to explain the perpetual
presence of multiplicity within postmodern subjectivity. Guattari as cited by Judith
Butler (2003:02) states:

The message of the rhizome is cross-fertilization to the 9th degree, and the
creation of hybrids. The creations of hybrids imply sidestepping oppositions and
oppositional discourse (debate). Instead of trying to convince the other to come
over to your side…one strives for an inter-influence which will alter both parties in
creative ways, so that their monster and your monster meet and mate…In this
way, desire is allowed to mutate and the “gene pool” if you will of creativity is
enhanced.

Akin to the common inability of the schizophrenic to discern between reality and
unreality (fantasy or hallucination), which can be described as an involuntary
psychological fusion of binary opposites, many post-industrial selves, the
schizophrenic self in particular, have become equalizers amid contrary binaries.

It seems the schizophrenic condition, which the majority of postmodern selves

endure, has had an affirmative effect on identity insofar as it has facilitated the
releasing of the self from the clutches of confining binary dualisms. The
privileging of male over female, speech over writing, presence over absence, real
over virtual, self over other and so forth may be coming to an end. Nonetheless,
it has also left the quest for identity in perplexity-based crisis that is repetitively
exacerbated by a pluralistic age of concomitantly proliferating, splintering, and
altering alternatives. As postmodern academic Mark Tribe (1993:04) writes:

26
 As schizophrenia, the postmodern condition is…a crisis of subjectivity. [In a]
world that is hypersaturated with technologically mediated representations [of
identity], the conception of a unique self and private identity…becomes
increasingly difficult…

There is no denying that contemporary cybernetic technology is, firstly,

contributing to body-identity instability (biology-technology mergings) and,
secondly, stimulating identity multiplicity. Furthermore, as a result of the
proliferation of electronic surveillance during virtual transactions and
communication, individual autonomy is threatened. Body-identities
communicating via the Worldwide Web become traceable data-bodies. An online
body-identity becomes a post-human body operating in a post-human space
scanned by intelligent software.

It would seem that in addition to identity’s susceptibility to ‘schizophrenia’, it is

likely to suffer paranoia as well. It seems logical to me that a private identity
deficiency might give rise to a deceptive body-identity. For example, one way in
which Net-users are achieving a highly deceptive identity is through a virtual
personality “characterized by heterogeneity” (Paul, 2002:par 4). One could
conclude from this that postmodern cyber-technology and virtual systems
specifically, encourage the conception of a paranoid schizophrenic identity that is
exceedingly polymorphous. In relation to this Tribe (1993:06) has described the
postmodern identity “as an implosion of binary relations into a dense and
uncertain field of shifting differences”. One might say that a schizophrenic body-
identity draws its characteristics from being uncertain and formless in an
environment that is more of an electronic meta-continuum than an animate
reality. All system-identified individuals are schizophrenic citizens. If the system
changes, identity (information) changes.

The next section aims to sketch a picture of the heterogeneous and protean
temperament of virtual body-identity. Reminiscent of the schizophrenic condition
that accepts hallucinogenic chimeras as reality, so the electronically immersed
self begins to grant simulation the same, if not a higher, degree of reality status.
27
In this way, simulacra (digital representations of the self for example) reach a
paradoxically false yet hyper-real authenticity. Virtual body- identity explores
prominent contemporary sub-identities that make up the collective virtual self.

2.2 Virtual body-identity

In order to understand the term ‘virtual self’, one must start by defining the term
‘virtual reality’.2 Virtual reality owes its origin to the United States Department of
Defense, which in 1989 “launched Simnet (simulator network), an experimental
network of microcomputer-based workstations that enabled military personnel to
practice combat operations on interactive, real-time training systems” (Merriam-
Webster, 2001: no page number). In addition, virtual reality technology was also
utilized by U.S. troops for training prior to the Persian Gulf War in the early
nineties. Although virtual reality emerged as early as 1960 in the form of flight
simulators, it was the constant production of immersive simulators by Simnet that
led to the massive success of contemporary entertainment and communication-
oriented virtual reality devices.

Today virtual reality technology is used in, and applied to, a vast spectrum of
fields, notably architecture, entertainment in the form of three dimensional
personal computer games, medicine, biotechnology, advertising and the like. It is
certainly not my intention to explore all these virtual reality related fields, nor to
provide an extensive general or historical background to virtual reality itself. What
I intend to provide is an explanation of how virtual body-identity proliferates while
maintaining its virtual nature.

It makes sense that if one is to investigate a post-industrial self such as the

virtual self, a post-industrial or post-human space3 also needs to be investigated.
This space is called ‘cyberspace’. The term was originally coined in 1984 by
William Gibson, author of the science-fiction fantasy novel Neuromancer, to
describe the ‘space’ within an online computer. What exactly this space is,
however, is debatable. According to Scott Bukatmann (1993:119) it was William

28
Gibson who “introduced the world to… [a] vast, geometric, limitless field bisected
by vector lines converging somewhere in infinity, permeated by the data systems
of the world’s corporations”. What Gibson describes in Neuromancer is not
merely a sensory-immersive4 virtual reality, but rather an anti-body or neural-
direct5 mode of virtual reality, i.e. the body (meat) is left behind while the real
body-identity in the form of consciousness/data is downloaded into the vast world
of cyberspace.

Steve Mizrach (2003b:01) describes the neural-direct mode of identity as follows:

The neural direct model would mean that all types of sensory input (which could
include olfactory, gustatory, or other perceptory cues difficult to create through a
[VR] bodysuit, or simulator) are ‘jacked’ into the proper areas of the brain…
consciousness is entirely transferred into virtual reality. It would no longer be a
question of simulation or computer-generated artifice: sensations exactly
identical to “real” ones could be created… .

This total transmigration of the self into a virtual space at present remains fiction,
or science fiction for that matter. An absolute transference of the body or mind
into cyberspace would mean complete disembodiment: a pure detachment from
the material body resulting in a certain loss of identity as a personal construct
derived from the body. Who knows how far cyberneticists on the virtual frontier
are from achieving this Gibsonian dream? This notion of cyberspace as an
optional space (geography) to claim and to populate is presently an alien concept
to many people. However, the cyberspace that people are familiar with is the
information space commonly known as the Worldwide Web or Net for short. This
kind of cyberspace sounds far less reality-threatening than the endless alien
space imagined in Neuromancer and is often informally termed the ‘Information
Superhighway’.

Over the last decade the Internet has become increasingly familiar to much of the
Western, middle-class population. They perceive the Net as a finite, linear and
universal interactive space that transforms data into ordinary, familiar and

29
entertaining forms such as mpegs6, free screensavers, online games etcetera.
The Net is not an intimidating site, but an addictive one. Some online users lose
complete track of time once they start to browse the Net. For example,
pornographic images on the web enslave men and women alike. The virtual body
as an online user is susceptible to image dependence because the spaces to
which the Information Superhighway lead have the capacity to stimulate
compulsion. Evidently it is not a void that attracts the online self, but rather a
consumerist empire colonized by virtual casinos, limited offers, porn site
contracts and so on, controlled by a progressively strengthening electronic
media. In this context cyberspace may be thought of as a persuasive enslaving
space posing as an alternative space that offers body-identity freedom.

In addition to cyberspace being an information space, it can also be interpreted

as a cybernetically produced space that paradoxically leads to the demolition of
real space. The neo-philosophical precursor of virtual reality, Marshall McLuhan
(In Woolley, 1993:123-124), who understood “technology as an extension of the
body” and the “communications network [as] an extension of the nervous
system”, supports this model of the cybernetic annihilation of space:

After three thousand years of explosion, by means of fragmentary and

mechanical technologies, the Western world is imploding. During the mechanical
ages we had extended our bodies in space. After more than a century of electric
technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global
embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned.

Seen in this light, our central nervous system extends to the point of covering the
entire planet. How does this equal implosion? According to Californian professor
of history Mark Poster (In Woolley, 1993:124), the death of space occurs
precisely because “time and space no longer restrict the exchange of
information”. In this context, the expansion of the central nervous system results
in a global nervous structure (Internet, global village), which in turn leads to the
exchange of knowledge without the interception of time and space. I prefer to
perceive it as a timeless, endless or ‘spaceless’ space that does not take up any

30
real space, and in which a virtual community consisting of an inordinate number
of virtual body-identities are increasing rapidly.

Moreover, the concept of implosion can be traced to the city. Sci-fi culture
theorist Jameson (In Bukatman, 1993:123) talks about “the new nonplace urban
realm” instead of the city. Cyberspace is in the process of relocating the city in
the non-space dimension, making it invisible, but accessible. Consider the variety
of online travel agencies, music shops and bookstores from which one can
purchase using a credit account. These are imploded shops and those who
purchase from them can be thought of as virtual customers.

Reminiscent of actual cities, virtual cities in the form of licensed web pages seem
to also have a need for art in the form of monuments or sculptures. The
difference is that one would require a virtual or data artist (interactive media
designer or VR artist) to devise these new monuments. As Bukatman (1993:119)
puts it, “What material is more pervasive, more plentiful, or more axiomatic of the
era than data?” The monuments for the imploded cities with their virtual citizens
are no longer constructed of physical (natural) materials like marble, bronze or
concrete, but of synthetic resources such as light pixels, lasers, flashes and
sound. Furthermore, most of these artificial materials come pre-packaged in the
form of software. As cyber-theorist Paul Virilio (In Bukatman, 1993:120) says, “If
‘monuments’ in fact exist today, they are no longer visible”. The real creative self
(traditional artist) is systematically being forced to surrender to the demands of
virtual space and exchange his time-honored palette of raw materials for
malleable data. It goes without saying that the virtual artist’s chief and preferred
tool is the computer, which is in itself a virtual machine.

It is my belief that merely by working on a computer and experiencing a

computer, one’s understanding of the term ‘virtual’ is enhanced. The personal
computer is at once a word processor, a calculator, a photo-copier, a cloning
apparatus, an airbrush and so on. Based on this multi-device nature of the home
computer, Benjamin Woolley (1993:69) argues that digital computers are “purely
abstract entities, in being independent of any particular physical embodiment, but
31
real nonetheless”. Understood through Wooley’s point of view, the personal
computer is a form of replicated reality stemming from computation. Therefore
computers are virtual entities. One may even think of them as a technological
substitute or extension of the artist’s mind. Not only are the artist’s authentic
materials being replaced by artificial and simulated ones, but so are his tools. His
real tools (brush, pencil, eraser) are exchanged for virtual tools (virtual pen,
virtual eraser, virtual brush). I am not suggesting a complete erasure of traditional
artist tools, but rather an undeniable displacement of them. At the same time it is
this diverse tool, the personal computer, through which one accesses a new
space that is “produced by the invisibly penetrating network of satellites and
terminals” (Bukatman, 1993:126).

These satellite networks facilitate the existence of the new space (cyberspace)
and, in addition, contribute to the relocation of the ‘city’ into the secluded space
of the suburban home. No longer is it necessary, for example, for an individual to
physically venture into the various metrocenters (malls) of his or her de-centered
city for consumerist or entertainment purposes. As a result of the online
computer, all members of the virtual community are free to climb onto the
Information Superhighway and obsessively browse through sites that
electronically branch out into endless lanes of virtual advertisement and
entertainment. All types of shopping are done without having to leave home. One
could conclude from this that virtual body-identity as an online identity could quite
easily become an immobile self. This becomes particularly pertinent, as Michael
Strangelove (2003:02) confirms in his essay Cyberspace and the changing
landscape of the self, that “there may well be half a billion homesteaders on the
virtual frontier”.

Now that humans are gradually losing their non-corporeal geographic position
due to telepresence and other long distance communication techniques made
possible by Internet-facilitated communication technologies, one could expect
that the information space might initiate a radical re-definition of body-identity. As
Strangelove (2003:01) states, ”Both communities and individuals, cultures and
psyches, are defined…by the physical geography of their community and the
32
physical shape of their bodies. The principle is simple: change the geography of
existence and you change the nature of the self”.

Thus, Internet-facilitated communication technology gives rise to an entirely new

mode of existing. Firstly, this geography is extremely dissimilar to that to which
individuals are accustomed. Secondly, it involves the mass contact and
participation of a diversity of cultures and races. Global immigration into the
online circuit results in an interconnected, internalized multicultural domain.
Moreover, thousands of users add to the information-richness of this domain
every day. The space eventually becomes a spring of inexhaustible and
uncensored information.

A few hundred years ago, information (written/published) was extremely rare,

despite the invention of the Gutenberg press. Even in recent postindustrial
society vehicles of mass communication have been controlled by the governing
elite. But now, with the introduction of cybernetic communication, all this has
changed. According to Strangelove (2003:02), “…the state has lost control over
the means of production and distribution of knowledge…”. One might find this
dramatic shift from an information starved society to a society with unlimited
access (at least to the middle class) to information (knowledge, power) both a
positive and a distressing transformation. It is an affirmative alteration in the
sense that freedom of thought is sustained. However, the future consequences of
such an information deluge remains uncertain. One may speculate that an
abundance of knowledge in the form of virtual information could cause a sense of
de-motivation amongst the connected society, just as the scarcity of information
often serves as an incentive that stimulates a frantic search for more knowledge.
As is, the body’s current software, the brain, is incapable of processing the
quantity of information (data) that bombards it on day-to-day basis. The human
brain has been pushed to its limits. Now, cybernetic technology should lend an
enhancing hand and upgrade the individual’s mnemonic (memory) faculties as
well as his or her processing capacity. One could go so far then as to describe
the virtual self as a wholly uncertain self in the sense that it could initiate dramatic
changes for future living.
33
Although one can easily be blinded by cyberspace as an abyss of data, one
needs to remind oneself that the information space is essentially an electronically
generated space; a simulated space. Within this simulated space, sensory
information (the very information that contributes to one’s private experience and
understanding of empirical reality) can be replaced by simulated sensory input.
This type of experience is currently made possible by sensory-immersive virtual
reality or simulation technology:

The immersive variety of VR is the one in which an individual [wears] goggles

and perhaps other devices [such as data-gloves] for sensory feedback (maybe
even a whole bodysuit [data-suit], providing even tactile response).The key to
this type is that the individual is cut off from ‘ordinary’ reality and its sensory cues
(Mizrach, 2003b:01).

Furthermore, science fiction films or documentaries on pre-historic times

frequently employ virtual reality or simulation technology to generate convincing
simulations of animals and landscapes. Today, entire films (Final Fantasy, 2001)
are cast with simulated actors and actresses. In fact, the characters in this
particular film are so realistic that only perfection betrays their artificial
naturalness. They seem more real than real. As Woolley (1993:197) states,
“reality no longer exists…it has become fiction”. These characters or actors are
thus improved copies of the original (real) actors and actresses.

Baudrillard (1983:124) mentions the “derealizing [of corporeality] into a

hyperreality of simulation”. The Gulf War, which took place just over a decade
ago, may be interpreted as a war that did not take place in the Arabian desert,
but in one’s home and on one’s television screen. The entire world saw photos,
video representations and other images that captured the war, but never saw the
war (actual war) itself. “It was a postmodern war, a war where there is no reality,
just, in Baudrillard’s language, a simulation of it” (Woolley,1993:197). If
Baudrillard saw the Persian Gulf War as a simulation, then logic follows that it
was a virtual war fought by virtual bodies and simulated artillery. One might add

34
that human life, as the body-identities with which one might identify via the
screen, has been reduced to a sort of fiction. Baudrillard (1983:02) asserts:

[The] era of simulation is inaugurated by a liquidation of all referentials [such as]

binary oppositions and combinatory algebra. It is no longer a question of imitation,
nor duplication… . [Rather it] is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the
real… .

Thus, Man has, through the technological art of substitution and replication,
managed to make himself more comfortable and less anxious in the real face of
death (war), horror and destruction. One might call it a loss of compassion for
corporeal body-identity through visual communication as a form of
desensitization technology. It seems as though simulation in the form of live
global depiction (BBC, CNN) during warfare is a nearly unnoticeable endeavor to
make military action seem justified. It is clear that by simulating the reality of war,
it appears far less disturbing. Imagine how playful warfare can seem when
recorded simulated material is played in slow motion, played backwards, a
missile paused in mid-air and re-launched several times. Moreover, the body
seems to contain immortal powers as a recorded image. Virtual technology may
be capable of transforming the corporeal body into a simulated identity, but in
repeatedly doing so, it could cause one to forget that corporeal body-identity is at
the same time a vulnerable and mortal body-identity.

According to Baudrillard (In Woolley, 1993:197), “In our fear of the real, of
anything that is too real, we have created a gigantic simulator”. Thus when
meeting someone via text-based Internet-facilitated communication, one’s
psychological and body-identity becomes a simulated identity. This way, one can
remain unreal and safe (anonymous or pseudonymous) while interacting with the
electronic presence of a stranger. Some critics however would argue that the
proliferation of simulated body-identities on the Net is not a result of anxiety
produced by the super-real, but rather a product of anxiety produced by the
possibility of losing reality. Consider how parents often become fanatical about

35
taking photographs of their children so that one day they can remind themselves
that their now adult sons or daughters were children once.

But what exactly does Baudrillard (1983:121) mean by “simulacra of simulation

as a cybernetic game [of] total operationality…control [and] hyperreality”? One
can illustrate or define hyperreality by sketching a hypothetical example of an
image of a woman’s face on the cover of a magazine. When the face of the
female model is photographed, the resulting photograph is considered an
accurate (realistic) copy of an original (the model’s actual face). When the
photograph is digitally manipulated in an attempt to remove blemishes, for
example, the copy becomes a deception derived from reality. Furthermore, it
concurrently becomes an improved copy of the model’s actual body-identity. The
model is firstly simulated (copied) by means of the digital camera, i.e. turned into
a simulated (virtual) body, and then cybernetically manipulated and transformed
into a photorealistic (hyperrealistic) copy of her real (original) body-identity.

The lure of photorealism is the simulation of reality, creating an image with all its
attributes intact except one: its fixed relationship to what it depicts. It is the
achievement of this level of simulation that shows how reality has itself become
part of the artificial realm (Woolley, 1993:209).

One could argue that all representations are part of this artificial realm, however,
what makes the simulated body, existing as a hyperreal image within the
information space, so much more troubling is that in many cases it seems to be
preferred above the real. The technologically enhanced ultra-realness of fiction
makes one skeptical of reality.

Furthermore, the female model in the example is photographed using a digital

camera. Apart from the model being simulated in the form of a photograph, she is
also encoded. Prior to the printing of the photograph she exists purely as data. I
will attempt to explain the encoded corporeal identity (or encoded virtual body) by
referring to the Visible Human Project . “In 1989, the National Library of Medicine
established the Visible Human Project” (Thacker, 2002:01). The purpose of the
36
project was to create a reliable digitized archive of male and female anatomical
information that would reduce the need for real cadavers for the purposes of
practicing surgery. The aim was to give physicians the opportunity to apply and
experience their surgical procedures before operating on live patients. The
project was planned in two chief phases. The first phase consisted of the
production of selected male and female digital images using a variety of virtual
medical production techniques.7

The second phase involves the classification of the acquired data, the structuring
of it, and the actual volumetric rendering or animation of the anatomical body.
The end result is an internally and externally precise physiological copy of the
natural (biological, real) human body. Its entire visual human structure however is
embedded in cybernetic codes that can be endlessly decoded and re-encoded. It
can, so to speak, be digitally remodeled and effortlessly downloaded onto the
virtual memory of a Pentium computer. It can therefore be easily stored and just
as easily deleted. Moreover, it is also “available over the Internet under licensed
agreement with the National Library of Medicine” (Thacker, 2002:02). In a way,
this digital body is a manifestation of the ‘hyper-texted’ body.8

Apart from successfully converting a tangible body into an intangible body, the
Visible Human Project has placed a virtual body-identity in an intangible world of
electric energy and complicated information sequences using Web-facilitated
technology. Corporeality has been reduced to a program or file that can be
copied onto the hard-drive of a computer or onto recordable compact discs. In its
virtual state it can be erased, rewritten, spread, and randomly accessed across
the universal communications network. Instead of a corporeal body-identity, the
body as a virtual representation now has discrete binary codes. “Change the
code, and you change (render docile) the body hardwired as that code”, explains
Thacker (2002:06). This means that even the slightest alteration in the coded
sequence of the digital anatomy may result in either a representational
malfunction, a visual anomaly or abstraction, or complete erasure within the
confines of virtual space. One could say that the cybernetic codes of the encoded
self/body replace the functions of the fleshy internal, life-sustaining organs. In this
37
sense, gender identity is at the mercy of data consistency. The slightest
inaccurary during downloading or code-burning procedures may result in a
representational, fragmented de-gendered body-identity. Moreover, it appears
that through the Visual Human Project, medical technology has eliminated an
immense amount of the disparity between information (the disembodied body
that exists as encoded files or data) and anatomy (the embodied body that exists
as material or real flesh).

It may be argued that the Visual Human Project has had a harmonizing effect on
the property differentiation between corporeal body-identity and virtual body-
identity. It manages this by proposing equal value and interdependence between
the otherwise dualistic humanist binary oppositions. Another interesting angle to
the virtual self as an encoded identity is the actuality that its ‘existence’ was
made possible by technologies (magnetic resonance imaging, brain scanners, x-
ray devices) with the capacity to look into and scan the interior of the body.
Identity is thus no longer a matter of external properties such as gender and skin
colour. Corporeal identity has been interiorized.

Furthermore, virtual reality and Internet-facilitated communication technologies

make it possible for virtual members of the worldwide web to access (under
licensed agreement with the National Library of Medicine) and travel through the
human body. The body created by the Visual Human Project is in a sense an
omnipresent body. To culture theorist Paul Virilio (In Kroker, 1997:45) there
exists something divine in these new cyber-technologies. He argues that
cyberspace “acts like God” in the sense that it is omnipresent like God. The
Visual Human Project’s body can simultaneously be in a room accessed via a
personal computer in Canada and in Hong Kong for example.

One cannot ignore the possible connection between the techniques

(computerized topography, ultrasound ) used in the Visual Human Project and
Virilio’s statement (In Kroker, 1997:44), “The technologies of virtual reality are
attempting to make us see from beneath, from inside, from behind…as if we
were God”. Even virtuality precursor Marshall McLuhan (In Horrocks, 2000:03)
38
perceives Internet-facilitated communication technology and cyberspace in a
spiritual light. According to him, “[The] Christian concept of the mystical body - all
men as members of the body of Christ - becomes technologically a fact under
electronic conditions”. In this context, the Visual Human Project’s encoded body
/self transcends the real body through its God-like omni-nature and therefore has
no distinct nationality. It incorporates multiple nationalities because it
cybernetically penetrates all online countries.

Yet, this omni-space is often perceived as a hostile void that could ultimately
become dominant and preferred over reality. But techno-idealist McLuhan (In
Horrocks, 2000:49) however, does not agree with the proposal of cyberspace as
a forged and potentially precarious version of reality. He recognizes virtual reality
as a potent medium and as an “extension of man’s sensory faculties”. It is his
belief that, “[to] define cyberspace as ‘unreal’ or inauthentic in comparison to
reality is itself deceptive” (Horrocks, 2000:49).

It is likely that the real threat in virtual reality lies in its potential to suppress reality
by blurring barriers between the authentic and the artificial. New media such as
the Net and Super Simulators possess tremendous powers of reality infiltration
and distortion. There are, in contrast, radical views that contend that there is
literally no difference between conscious reality and virtual reality. To others,
reality is a socially acceptable illusion serving as a substitute for immediate
experience. Scott Bukatman (1993:30) elaborates:

What we regard as “reality” stands revealed as a construction - a provisional and

malleable alignment of data….It is increasingly evident that society, ever more
defined by a system of electronic representations, is based on an accepted
fiction, or a “consensual hallucination”, to use William Gibson’s definition of
cyberspace.

But according to Michael Heim (In Horrocks, 2000:49) “immediate experience is

compromised” by the power of postmodern media to continually warp “non-
mediated experience”. These types of speculations that dwell on the equality of

39
real nature and virtual nature, and the inevitable immersion of the human race in
a cyber-communications complex, spread the anguish of losing real interactive
interdependence, a corporeal community, and ultimately, an individual, singular,
and relatively stable body-identity.

It is a fact that in the last few years, computer mediated communication has
proved to have a profound effect on the identities of online users as virtual
entities. Face-to-face communication has been replaced with face-to-interface
and text-based communication. In Baudrillard’s words (In Bignell, 2000:194-195),
“All our machines are screens. We too have become screens, and the
interactivity of men has become the interactivity of screens”. The citizens of
technologically advanced countries are no longer defined by their geographic
position or semiotic boundaries. In fact, the self and the community to which the
self belongs are “being constructed in cyberspace on the basis of common
affiliative interests, transcending boundaries of class, nation, race, gender, and
language” (Mizrach, 2003:01). There is no doubt that simulation or computer
mediated communication technology holds enormous potentials for redefining
existing conceptions of nationality, gender and identity.

Of particular interest is the postmodern individual’s new ability to reproduce him

or herself virtually in a cybernetic space using the necessary gear such as the
data-glove, gyroscope, data-suit, digital video camera et cetera. What makes this
cyber-phenomenon noteworthy is its relevance to natural (biological) human
reproduction. Primarily it was only the female body that could reproduce. Today,
with the aid of advanced simulation technology, the male reproduces his body by
transmuting it into a virtual space. According to N. Katherine Hayles (1996:02),
“the material body, which is encoded as feminine, is left behind”. The central
classification of women as female on grounds of their ability to reproduce has lost
an implicit portion of its viability.

Body-identity is further problematized on the text-based frontier of the Net. It is a

common trend for online users to mail false details concerning their corporeal

40
identity. According to Ignacio Martin Baro (1999:136), “identity is relatively
stable”. This however does not seem to be the case in the new post-human
environment of the Internet. Contemporary postmodern theory “has raised doubts
as to just how coherent and stable [the postmodern] identity is, given that the
subject [on-line user] is able to exhibit multiple self-portrayals when interacting
with the other in cyberspace or virtual space” (Baro,1999:130). The on-line body-
identity can thus be defined as a ‘natural’ identity-shifter, a flexible self, a de-
centered self - a multiple self.

Cyberspace is frequently, because of its various modes of extended interactivity,

described as a disembodied technology because of its potential to contribute to
an out-of-body experience, especially when the body is subject to sensory-
immersive systems. However, the fact remains: the body wears the different
virtual reality hardware, sits in front of the keyboard, and develops the software to
make this experience possible. As cyberpunk culture theorist Rob Milthorp
(1996:47) puts it:

Communications technology is not a substitute for the intimate communication of

the body, of the raw and holistic experience of the senses. Improvement in intra-
personal and social relations is unlikely to be made purely as a result of
technological advance.

However, the ability of cyberspace to lend on-line users the freedom to change
their gender does add to a potential shift in social relations. The most common
form of social interaction on the Net takes place in interactive computer
environments such as MUDs (Multi-User Domains). Multi-user domains are text-
based environments in which an avatar can be set up using standardized
keyboard commands. An avatar is the character that represents the MUD-user. It
can be created by choosing bodily characteristics from a wide spectrum of
options that include gender variations, approximate age, weight, height and so
forth. One’s psychological qualities are represented by a collection of optional
visual or symbolic characters or animals. By selecting, for example, a
Tyrannosaurus Rex as a preferred avatar one might convey the impression that
41
one is physically strong, aggressive or that one has an interest in pre-historic life
forms.

Moreover, multi-user domains have the option of neutral gender or multiple

genders. The virtual self as a MUD-user thus has the option of being multisexual
or omnisexual as it were. It is believed that "while there are many more male
MUD-users than female, this imbalance is redressed by the choice by male users
to become female avatars" (Bignell, 2000:214).

Both sexes are clearly drawn to the virtual ability to switch gender. Being bi-
gendered in a psychological sense is not in any case a new concept in a world
colonized by transgendered people, transsexuals, transvestites, bisexuals, and
many other gender perplexed individuals. The idea of a coherent multiple sexual
identity seems to be a fitting one in a world in which conventional sexual
categories are ceaselessly under attack because of outmoded stances on gender
subjectivity.

In addition, the expression of new online roles can be positive when, for example,
an unassertive man becomes an assertive woman in the online world. As Turkle
states (In Atkins, 2003:03), "It's positive when people express aspects of the self
that are inhibited". Sandy Stone (In Atkins, 2003:02) goes as far as to suggest
that the virtual on-line self "can be happy with multiple personality disorder".

What diversifies the nature of online body-identity further are the dynamics of
cybersex (online type-based sexual interaction). A homosexual man, for
example, could quite easily engage in cybersex with a woman if the woman
involved in the online sex is posing as a male user. Similarly a heterosexual male
could unknowingly participate in cybersex with an illusory female online body-
identity. Therefore one might conclude that although the majority of the world's
online population are heterosexual off-line, the virtual online self unintentionally
and unknowingly becomes bisexual on grounds of habitual text-based deception.

42
This confusion of boundaries is brilliantly illustrated by a virtual community
member called Howard Rheingold who belonged to a MUD-like virtual
environment entitled Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (Bignell, 2000:213). When
Rheingold attended a party at which he met up with his virtual interlocutors in the
flesh, he felt like a stranger among strangers. Bignell (2000:215) explains:

The party is a public space, parallel to the public space of the [Whole Earth
Lectronic Link] itself, but where the bodilessness of others gives Rheingold an
experience of otherness and defamiliarization. What was other becomes
familiar, and what was familiar becomes other, with the body as a liminal and
indeterminate separator between these two modes.

Moreover, it is worth pointing out that instead of the gendered self experiencing
intimate (bodily) sex, it now has sex at a distance. This can be extremely
problematic, as a natural human action is shifted towards remoteness. In a sense
the human being is being split from its corporeality. One could read this as a
threat to the sincerity of human sexual intimacy. This episode of sex at a distance
can be compared to the simultaneous freedom and segregation of the Net user.

According to N. Katherine Hayles (1996:31), “Technology eliminates direct

human interdependence…we can travel the world via the Internet, yet we are
spiritually isolated. We have unlimited informational freedom, but we are alone”.
The self is seen as detaching itself from the host of the spirit: the body. In this
context virtual body-identity can be understood as encouraging a secluded sub-
self that dismisses the self-defining and socially interactive language, rules and
other physical attributes of the body.

Finally, culture theorist Paul Virilio (In Kroker, 1997:43) sketches an anti-
Baudrillardian scenario within which he argues that “there is no simulation”, but
rather “new technologies are substituting a virtual reality for an actual reality”.
Virtual reality is therefore not reality simulacra9, but a substitute for reality. The
world is divided into a virtual and an actual one. The real becomes an option
when substitution replaces simulation. In this light, the virtual self appears to be a

43
voluntary replacement for the real self. The repercussions of living in such a bi-
real world could raise a great deal of concern. It is questionable whether, by
producing a dual reality, the world really has freedom through choice of reality.

A Baudrillardian future world, wherein the substituted reality is a simulated one in

which the virtually real becomes increasingly more bona fide, immersive and
dependable, seems credible. Techno-theorist Steve Mizrach’s (2003:07)
predictions on the consequences of a simulated world is analogous to
Baudrillard’s viewpoint: “This will cause [our] expectations of “reality” to shift to
the point where anything less then the artificial or the augmented will
seem…unreal. Or at the very least, simply unsatisfying”.

It is evident through defining virtual body-identity from different and contrasting

angles that it is extremely ambiguous. It becomes apparent that the virtual self
includes a host of related sub-selves. No single definition is capable of capturing
the essence of virtual body-identity. This postindustrial post-humanist self is a
technologically polymorphous self with a collective body-identity, and its sub-
selves will continue to proliferate in conjunction with upgraded machines and
innovative advancements in contemporary cybernetic technology.

Corporeality it seems is losing some of its status as the prime mirror against
which one measures one’s comprehension of oneself. The non-corporeal body
has, at least to some extent, provided fixed gender with a virtual palette of
optional but impermanent body uniqueness.

However, it is exactly this temporality of the new virtual body-identity that makes
it unreliable and dangerous. Simulated corporeality can be a perilous form of
escapism. Once the online self disconnects itself from the virtual space that
allows multiple body personalities, it finds itself still firmly embedded in a world of
real meat, ongoing class and race discrimination, heterosexism and the like.

Moreover, internationally, very few individuals are wealthy enough to acquire the
technological facilities that stimulate access to the liberative sphere that is Net-
44
space. In this light, virtual body-identity is in itself a privileged form of existence. It
may blur the boundary between binary opposites such as real/artificial,
presence/absence etcetera, but it appears to strengthen the partition between
privileged (connected) and unprivileged (disconnected) in an all the more distinct
manner.

The following section will deal with what can be described as a metaphysical
postindustrial self – the new transcendental body-identity. The main focus is on
how various forms of cyber-technologies are utilized to enhance spiritual or
religious experiences and induce transcendental or altered states of
consciousness. Furthermore, the intention is to provide an indication of the
degree to which the metaphysical urge of postmodern culture is expressed
through the amplification of transcendental states by extending and integrating
technology, the body, and spirituality.

2.3 The new transcendental body-identity

In order to sketch a theoretical picture of the new transcendental self, one needs
to return to the influential counterculture of the 1960s. If one wanted to briefly
define the climate of this era, one would firstly have to recognize its sub-cultural,
anti-scientific or anti-technological attitude. The sixties can be defined as an era
that celebrated nature, was vigorously anti-war, obsessively emphasized the
value of spirituality, and perceived technological progress as an impending threat
to the natural environment. In contrast, since then technology has branched out
into a variety of categories, and the present postindustrial era has become a
celebration of the powers and promises that cybernetic technology holds.

In the introduction to Mirrorshades: The cyberpunk anthology, Bruce Sterling

(1988:12) defines sixties counterculture as “rural, romanticized, anti-science,
anti-tech”. This period in history is marked by a widespread nostalgia for a return
to nature, primitivism, spirituality and tribalism. Pop culture experts Jane and
45
Michael Stern (1990:164) write about hippies “living in harmony with the
universe, fighting against the white man’s perverted society of pollution, war and
greed”. The 1960s era is also notorious for its widespread use of psychedelic
drugs such as LSD and Magic Mushrooms, which induced altered states of
consciousness ranging from hallucinatory visions to powerful transcendental
experiences. It was this psychedelic sub-culture that contributed greatly to a
revival of ritual, paganism, mythology, shamanism and mysticism in the West. It
was also this overall sense of spirituality that lead to the birth of the New Age
movement in the years that followed. In addition, 1960s counterculture was
strongly fueled by a deep skepticism towards rationality and a discontent with
materialism.

The climate of the spiritual sixties will be used as a starting point to help define
the new postindustrial transcendental cyber-culture that evolved in the early
1980s, that continues to mutate within the contemporary sub-cultures of the early
twenty-first century. Before the 1960s however, there already existed some co-
mingling of technology and spirituality. According to Erik Davies (1998:139)
Scientologist L. Ron Hubbard wrote a book on psychotherapy entitled Dianetics
(1953) that combined “Freudian circuit diagrams… Buddhist psychology [and]
modern occult magic”. Hubbard encouraged cyborg technology with the
introduction of the electropsychometer or E-meter which was designed to register
galvanic skin response as a way of detecting the presence of Engrams.10 It would
appear as if the primary function of the E-meter was to operate as God, to an
extent, by detecting and eliminating signs of electronically traceable sin.

What occurs at present, the merging of the non-scientific spiritual aspects of the
1960s with the highly scientific computer culture of late postmodernism, is a
Hubbardian dream come true. As Mark Dery (1996:24) writes, “What
distinguishes the cyberdelic culture of the [late] 1990s from psychedelic culture,
more than anything else, is its ecstatic embrace of technology”.

46
The result of such a union is a retro-sixties-like culture that is pro-cybernetic. This
new cultural approach may be misunderstood as being a surrender to the
permanence of rationality, science and technology. It might better be seen as a
compromise between opposites. Some postindustrial technological innovations
are now taken to be magical or spiritual, while transcendental experiences are
often assisted and understood in technical terms and scientific languages. In
support of the inseparability of science and spirituality, science fiction novelist
and science researcher Arthur C. Clark (In Dery, 1996:50) once wrote, “Any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.

One of the most significant transcendental developments within contemporary

cybernetic sub-culture is the revival of a diversity of polytheistic nature and New
Age beliefs combined with digital culture. Dery (1996:49-50) refers to it as “cyber-
shamanism [or] techno-paganism”, which he defines as follows:

Philosophically, [techno-paganism] bespeaks a popular desire to contest the

scientific authorities whose objective consensus is a final, irrefutable verdict…on
what is true and what is not, despite the fact that most of us must accept such
pronouncements on faith. Finally, it evidences a widespread yearning to find a
place for the sacred in our ever more secular, technological society.

In order to grasp the concept of techno-paganism better, it might be necessary to

point out how it developed from traditional shamanism and paganism. According
to popular German culture researcher and writer Erich Schneider (1993:par 02)
the traditional shaman can be described as a “spiritual psychiatrist” to whom
members of a community go for “supernatural assistance”. Tools such as sets of
symbolic associations, feathers, nails, skin and other artifacts are used to contact
the divine realm. A claw, for example, might be used to summon the archetypal
spirit of the bear. According to Schneider (1993:01), the shamanic worldview
“involves a belief in supernatural forces that can be accessed to cause
alterations in external reality”. This so-called spirit world is accessed through

47
dreams, rituals that involve ecstatic dancing, psychoactive chemicals, meditation
and chanting.

The new techno-shamanic approach remains similar to the traditional shamanic

system. The use of psychoactive chemicals, such as Ecstacy, during ecstatic
dancing to shamanic trance or electronic body music (EBM), is common practice
at techno-shamanic dances. What has changed dramatically from old
shamanism to this new shamanism is the choice of tools. The techno-shaman
now turns to new tools such as the online computer, the satellite television,
cellular phone and other cybernetic communications devices through which to
access the technological infrastructure “as one sentient being negotiating with
another for the performance of a service” (Schneider,1993:02). The sacred is
being relocated within the technological or cybernetic sphere. Thus one might
cast spells via the telephone or use the white noise produced by an off-signal
television set to induce auto-hypnotic trance states. It is not improbable that
virtual space or cyberspace may soon be claimed as the new territory for spiritual
revitalization.

Almost like burning incense to aromatically generate a certain atmosphere,

techno-pagan ritual may include tuning television sets to empty channels at night
to equalize mood. The television, in a sense, becomes a new version of the
magical crystal ball. The high-contrast dots that vibrate energetically on the
screen like micro-organisms are focused on in an attempt to alter perception and
stimulate a hypnotic state. Electro-trance musician Genesis P-Orridge (In Dery,
1996:62) argues that it is “quite possible that the frequency and pulse rates of the
TV snow are similar to certain ones generated by other rituals (e.g. Dervish
dances, Tibetan magick, etc.)”.

The new transcendentalism is further sustained by the cyber-shamanistic aim to

assign religious status to computer technology. Computers are considered by
some to be magical and mystical, on the basis of their density. For example, the
48
computer performs millions of calculations in a second. This puzzling and
extraordinary ability of the computer is too intricate for the human brain to fully
comprehend. Mankind lives in a world where microprocessors direct and operate
millions of cybernetic gadgets. However, the majority of individuals possess very
little knowledge of the internal workings of even the simplest of ‘computers’, such
as the remote control device with which to program satellite television or the
videocassette recorder.

As Gary Chapman (1993:830-831), former executive director of Computer

Professionals for Social Responsibility, writes:

Many people probably have a vague idea that there is a computer under the
hood of the newer model automobiles, and that it helps run the engine… .The
automobile is no longer a ‘natural’ thing, that is, something that exhibits
properties that can be grasped by a person with a reasonable exposure to
physics, but is now a kind of ‘supernatural’ thing, since its operation is governed
by invisible changes, embedded in software.

The working of digital technologies can become more than just complicated to
the majority of individuals; it can become mystical and enigmatic too. Few truly
understand the cryptic codes and symbolic terminology required to program
computers. As soon as one grasps the inner mechanism of a specific device, a
new and vastly different microchip-driven cybernetic machine enters the sphere
of technology. The catalogue of a 1985 exhibition entitled Information art:
diagramming microchips held in New York, reads, “Despite their ubiquity, there is
an element of mystery to integrated circuits. They are mysterious because they
are sensorially inaccessible to us” (Bukatman, 1993:110-111).

It has become increasingly difficult to keep up with the pace of these new, arcane
technologies. However, cybernetic advances have made all kinds of magic
possible. Think of long-distance audio-communication via cellular phones, the
49
ability to share visual experiences with others through colour screen cellular
phones fitted with digital cameras, real-time distance communication with others
utilizing online computers connected to web-cameras. The magicians of today
are the computer programmers, the silicone architects, the laser engineers, the
microchip designers, and all the others who help bring unfathomable
technologies into suburban homes, factories and offices worldwide.

According to Village Voice writer Julian Dibbel (In Dery, 1996:66-67), the
computer functions on “the pre-Enlightenment principle of the magic word: the
commands you type into a computer are a kind of speech that doesn’t so much
communicate as make things happen, directly and ineluctably… . They are
incantations… .” In this light, computer programming can be interpreted as digital
magic. Cybernetic technology is gradually acquiring spiritual status. It is also
used creatively to generate and sustain various degrees of transcendental states.

A clear and familiar way in which technology is used to stimulate spiritual

conditions is the use of audio-technologies such as digital drumboxes,
synthesizers like E-mu’s Morpheus Z-plane and MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital
Interface) sequences to create electronic shamanic-like trance music. Such
progressive electronic trance music enjoys preference at big rave functions
hosted by European clubbing organizations and record companies such as Zillo,
Cyberpolis, SPV, Synthetic Symphony, and Orkus, to mention just a few.

In addition to producing these cyber-sounds (with the aid of a digital composer or

disc jockey), these musical machines, in conjunction with powerful Macintosh
computers or RAM (Random Access Memory) loaded Pentiums, are used to
project morphing fractals and hologramatic laser representations set to the
pulsing frequencies of equalizers. These abstract fractal images are frequently
displayed on the walls or screens within popular rave clubs to aid in setting a
dreamy or trance-like mood.

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The simulated fractal simulations, as described by Scott Bukatman (1993:112),
are based on the equalizations of “fractal geometry established by mathematician
Benoit Mandelbrot”. It was originally used for “the modeling of chaos: complex,
nonlinear systems”. The fractal image is converted into a sort of emblem for the
new cyber-transcendental sub-culture. Bukatman (1993:113) argues that “[t]he
Mandelbrot set, as the archetype of both chaotic orderliness and the modeling
power of the computer, has taken on an almost mystical significance – a
cybernetic mandala, if you will”. Abstract fractals in motion on digital screens are
quite perplexing in that the algebraic formulas that produce them have no end.
Within each new fractal equation exist endless strings of new untried fractal
equations. On a spiritual level, these infinitely morphing fractals resemble what
visual representations of psychic energy might look like.

Cyber-culture writer and theorist Douglas Rushkoff (In Dery, 1996:42) argues
that:

Inconsistencies ranging from random interference on phone lines to computer

research departments filled with Grateful Deadheads all begin to make perfect
sense…. The vast computer-communications network is a fractal approach to
human consciousness…. At the euphoric peak of a [psychedelic] trip, all people,
particles, personalities and planets are seen as part of one great entity or reality
– one big fractal.

Trance music and the accompanying fractal simulations aim at heightening the
tribal impulse amongst ritualistic and rapturous dancers at rave functions. One
might suggest that the trance music creates a synergy that merges the dancers,
forming a subliminally collective group. Dancing then develops into a type of
coherent cathartic technique or ritual. According to Mizrach (2003:04) in his
article entitled Iterative discourse and the formation of new subcultures, some
rave participants have mentioned that whilst dancing “they are able to see
meanings in the music through the intense synaesthetic experiences it creates in

51
conjunction with the visual displays” such as lasers, fractal representations,
strobe lights and video or laser grids.

The use of psychotropic and psychoactive chemicals that steer the brain into
sensorially deprived or expansive states analogous with religious experiences
have become common practice at rave clubs. Whereas LSD and Magic
Mushrooms were among the preferred psychedelic drugs in the sixties, it would
seem that the preferred substance by which to induce similar conditions now is
the synthetic neural stimulant MDMA, commonly known as Ecstacy (E, XTC). In
addition to MDMA, the rave subculture also shows an interest in cognitive
enhancers (smart drugs) such as Piracetam and Vasopressin. For further energy
enhancement, these pills can be flushed down with potent energy drinks
(Excalibur, Dark Dog, Volt, Red Bull) containing high levels of caffeine and
vitamin B and ephedrine. Related “(r)evolutionary effects were claimed for LSD in
the 1960s and are now being claimed for MDMA and its very potent alternative
DMT” (Appiganesi, 1995:165).

The contemporary preferred drug MDMA supposedly heightens interpersonal

connectedness, emotional receptivity and sensuality. As Mizrach (2003:04) in the
article Iterative discourse puts it, raves are “about self-expression and
nonconformity”. The aim is to break down bodily alienation and find the spiritually
connected self through ecstatic dancing as a means of introspection. What the
majority of these techno-ravers have in common, is an amiable attitude. Very few
of these technoheads, cyberpunks and Goths seem to display signs of
aggression or hostility. It is comparable to the carefree psychological atmosphere
at clubs in the 1960s. The difference now is that technology is celebrated as an
integral part of the spiritual process.

Moreover, there exists an almost palpable aura of equality within the rave club.
No strict dress code is enforced. One dresses according to one’s emotional state.
Techno-music (ambient, electro-industrial, trance, dub, acid jazz, house, jungle)
52
involves very few vocals. It is a sort of faceless music. There is no popular rock
or pop star as reference. Body-identity dissolves into the dance and becomes
transcendentally collective. There is only a constant progressive flow of samples
and high-pitched rhythms mixed by disc jockeys to cause the maximum elevation
of body and soul. According to Mizrach (2003:05), techno-music is specifically
formulated. He holds that such music “is cerebral [and] aimed at the mind;
hardcore techno is kinetic, and aimed at the feet; and dub and jungle are soulful;
aimed at the spirit”.

Above all, rave music, projected onto the clubbers in their various sublime states,
is aimed at dissolving bodily boundaries between individuals of different races,
nationalities, sexualities and class. By allowing one’s body to merge with a
ritualistic and flowing crowd of non-discriminative dancers, one may succeed in
extending the often inhibitive boundaries of one’s thought patterns.

Drug addiction is a well-known negative facet of the rave culture, yet despite this,
thousands of teenagers and young adults flock to these functions to free
themselves temporarily from their often mundane, systemized, repetitive and
‘soulless’ existences within a mechanized capitalist society. There seems to exist
a desperate need to relocate interpersonal interaction, spiritual and emotional
upliftment, self-expression and self-discovery outside the often-emotionless
confines of obligatory routines that are the norm in the lives of many. Some
people are searching for identities that are both authentic, substantial, and in
agreement with their corporeal appearance. However, in postmodern times there
is “a celebration of disintegration, fragmented desires, superficiality, and identity
as something you shop for” (Ward, 1997:108). What the techno-rave experience
attempts to do is create a sense of belonging.

Ravers frequently mention a semi-conscious transcendental-like experience

during which “each person [has] a unique ‘vibration’ or frequency that is sensed
and transformed by the music, and groups of people gathered in synchronous
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body movement form a self-iterative fractal of harmonious motion” (Mizrach,
2003:05). In a way, this synchronous dancing is a form of collective or group
escapism. The participants may well be escaping from a non-spiritual and
emotionally oppressive system, and placing themselves in a technologically tribal
environment that encourages emotional awareness or freedom and group
transcendence.

The ritualistic rave experience is not so much aimed at generating a religious

experience, but rather at allowing each participant to experience unrestrained
emotion coupled with anxiety-free elation. According to neo-tribal expert Rufus C.
Camphausen (1997:101), man holds an innate need to participate in
transcendence-inducing rituals. He refers to a “genetic memory” which is carried
by humans “in their genes as well as in [their] collective unconscious”.
Understood from this perspective, a return to tribalism in postindustrial times is
inevitable and natural.

As a result of this renewed interest in the primitive and spiritual aspects of the
contemporary self, science has also shown renewed curiosity in the biological
mechanics and psychological factors behind the transcendental episode. A
respected field of scientific study known as neurotheology, along with other
related sciences such as evolutionary psychology, behavioural genetics and
cognitive neuroscience, is placing the spiritual mind under a microscope.
Neurotheology is a new field of research that respects and applies both the views
of neuroscience and theology or spirituality to altered states of consciousness.
Albert Einstein (In Muller, 2001:02) once remarked that, “The cosmic religious
experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research”.

Neurotheology involves brain imaging and monitoring using devices such as the
electro-encephalogram, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and
computerized axial tomography (CAT). Secondly, it entails brain stimulation, such
as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). The primary intention of
neurotheology is to do away with the divide between cognition and holism,

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intuition and logic, art and science, and spirituality and science. It is defined by
Iona Muller (2001:07) as “a trans-disciplinary specialty concerned with the innate
hard-wiring of the brain for spiritual or mystical experiences and other altered
states of consciousness”.

Neurologists suspect that certain individuals are genetically and/or

temperamentally predisposed to transcendental abilities and experiences ranging
from visions, nirvanic raptures, white light, visitations from angels and spirits, to
feelings associated with the presence of God. Intensive research is being
conducted on the likelihood that specific brain areas produce mystical or God-
experiences. It might be that people who welcome ambiguity, are creative and
dissociative, tend to be more receptive to mystical experience. This leads to the
deduction that excessively rational and controlled individuals could well be less
open to the transcendental experience.

Recent cognitive neuroscientific research has found that the “brain scans of a
large sampling of people lost in prayer or deep meditation reveal certain common
neurological underpinnings which correlate with religious states from
transcendence, to visions, to enlightenment and feelings of awe” (Muller,
2001:04).

In neurology, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is used to arouse specific

areas of the brain. It would seem that the basic objective of this type of
experiment is to locate a neural basis for religious experience. Attention is given
mainly to the “frontal lobe, temporal lobes, parietal lobes and amygdala” (Muller,
2001:04). For an individual to be receptive to the altered states of transcendence
and enlightenment, particular circuits of the brain need to be interrupted. When
the parietal lobes quieten, a person may experience feelings that can be
described as an expansive cosmic merging. Similarly, the amygdala, which
registers anxiety and detects danger within the immediate surrounding space,
must also become less alert. And finally, the frontal lobes and temporal lobes
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“which mark time and generate self-awareness, must disengage” (Muller,
2001:04). What is interesting about the temporal lobes is that they have been
redefined by neuropsychologist Michael Persinger (In Muller, 2001:09) as “the
God Module” because of their ability to produce emotions such as bliss, awe and
intense or overwhelming joy.

It makes sense that when an individual passes over into deep meditation, those
parts of the brain that assist in distinguishing between self and the external
environment need to quieten. Without it happening, the one cannot dissolve and
lapse into cosmic unity because attentive temporal lobes impair transcendental
receptivity. Altered states of consciousness are clearly only possible once the
brain is optimally tuned in to the proper neurological settings.

To return briefly to the psychological effects brought about by collective ritualistic

and ecstatic dancing to electronic compositions that pulse at an approximate 130
to 160 (bpm) beats per minute, it is believed that the elevated condition
experienced during such dancing has a unique pragmatic neural basis.
Neurologist Richard Allen Miller (In Muller, 2001:05) explains:

Hyperarousal by sensory stimuli, such as drumming, dancing or incantations, can

amplify emotions and send the system into hyperdrive. The equilibrium of the
hippocampus is overwritten, inhibiting the flow of signals between neurons.
Certain regions are then deprived of neural inputs. When the orientation center is
isolated with ritual and liturgy or meditation, the boundaries of the self begin to
dissolve.

As I have already mentioned, it is precisely when the sentient local self

diminishes and expands omni-directionally, due to the disengagement of the
temporal lobes, that the possibility of a transcendental experience is heightened.

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In Phantoms of the brain (1998) by neurologist Vilayanur Ramachandran,
comparisons are made between temporal lobe dysfunction or epilepsy, and
spiritual experiences such as NDE (Near Death Experience), cosmic unity, a
sense of eternity (cosmic or sacred time) and deprivation meditation. It is
Ramachandran’s belief that “there are neural structures in the temporal lobes
that are specialized for religion and spirituality, which are selectively enhanced by
the epileptic process” (In Muller, 2001:08).

It has already been mentioned that traditional spiritual workers, such as the
Siberian or Central Asian shamans, used natural tools (feathers, stones, claws)
to perform their ritualistic and symbolic rebirth magic. The shaman of the
technological era uses cybernetic tools (televisions, online computers, cellular
phones equipped with digital cameras, hyper-instruments like synthesizers) to
summon the spiritual realm. The new transcendentalists (neo-pagans, cyber-
shamans, New Age Cyberians) are pursuing the unscientific (mysticism,
spiritualism, intuitionism, irrationality) with the aid of science and digital
technology. They seem to be at the forefront of “attaining mystical status,
mending the mind/body rupture, reweaving the alienated modern psyche into the
fabric of the universe, [and] healing the breach between religion and science, the
sacred and the mundane” (Dery, 1996:59). In doing so, the new
transcendentalists are making spiritual models relevant to highly technological,
non-spiritual individuals whose concept of the real is bound together with
scientific proof. At the same time, the growth of the science of neurotheology is
reevaluating the transcendental mode by using state-of-the-art medical
technology for scrutinizing, mapping and recording neuro-electric impulses
prompted by transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Unlike religion or any form of spiritualism, neurotheology gives little attention to

spirit activity or the existence of God. Its attention is shifted rather to a cause and
effect investigation into the likely constructive potentials and probable negative
results that could stem from a transcendentally competent mind. Once there is

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more concrete evidence of these potentials and how they can be accessed, the
new transcendentalism may become common practice. The new postindustrial
transcendentalism is not a movement forcing individuals to turn to the spiritual or
a particular religion for answers to reality or life, but rather a global, technological
re-exploration of spiritual issues such as meaning through intuitional sense, a
better understanding of consciousness and reality through chaotic replicating
fractal systems, dream symbolism and technologically enhanced meditation.
Science and metaphysics are fused in an attempt to see what constructive new
perspectives they can produce. However, on a psychological level, the new
transcendentalism “represents an attempt to come to existential terms with the
philosophical changes wrought by 20th century science” (Dery, 1996:50).

On the opposite side of this spiritual future sustained and motivated by cybernetic
technology there is an equally extreme proposal; a devolutionizing retreat back to
a global state of primitivism as proposed by some extreme anti-technology
transcendentalists. The rapid cybernetic progress of the last twenty years has
estranged many from spirit and nature, however, technology is becoming more
versatile. It seems that technology has now reached a stage during which it can
be manipulated into new shapes serving new purposes.

In conclusion, technology does not necessarily have to be perceived as a

suppressor of the transcendental. It can be ‘spirituality-friendly’. Religious
individuals should not perceive technology as an opposing and intimidating force.
Thousands of Christians in suburban homes all over the world pray
synchronously with the recorded prayers of popular evangelists broadcast on
television. Thus the possibility of mutual harmony between the postindustrial
individual and the potentially anxiety-inducing technology exists. One no longer
needs to be reluctant to use current cybernetic technology to achieve personal
transcendental aspirations. One could argue that the new transcendentalism
(cyber-shamanism, techno-paganism or any other technologically assisted
religions or spiritual pursuits) promotes the integration of technology as a

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precautionary tactic to ensure the security and continuation of spirituality.
Neurotheology might be identified as counter-transcendentalist, however, I prefer
to perceive it as a way of recasting the spiritual in technical terms for the benefit
of the non-religious who have endured incontestable transcendental experiences.

Humankind seemingly has never been able to detach itself from the spiritual urge
or metaphysical craving. It seems almost to be a natural part of man. If the
transcranial magnetic stimulation of the temporal lobes can produce the
sensation of contact with God or angels in religious individuals, sensations of
contact with aliens in superstitious individuals, and feelings of pure ecstasy,
trepidation and wonder in atheists, then one might say that neurotheology is
closing the gap between God and the human being. While the brain (frontal and
temporal lobes) may be interpreted as the embodiment of God, the corporeal
body, the cranial skull in particular, becomes a container for God.

In this light, one’s earthbound body-identity is fused with the non-corporeal

identity of God. God, his angels, aliens, devils and demons are recast as
common transcendental forms of reference whose ‘existence’ relies on specific
brainwave patterns and neuro-chemical constitutions. The spiritual, one might
argue, is an integral and inseparable component of one’s psycho-neurological
identity.

The following section is an investigation into the multiple identity of the cybernetic
organism (cyborg) and cyborg body-identity. The general aim is to explore
specific facets of the cyborg figure as its parameters are very wide. The subject
incorporates ideas such as prosthetics, bioelectronics, artificial intelligence,
genetics, cloning and the like. However, the principal intention is to define the
cyborg as a monstrous body-identity, as an ideal condition for the conception of
fictional/simulated and real anomaly.

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2.4 Cyborg body-identity

Cyborg body-identity, which is the fourth and final post-industrial body-identity to

be discussed, is perhaps the most complex of the four post-industrial identities
discussed in this paper. The intricacy of cyborg body-identity can be attributed to
the richness and proliferating nature of the cyborg subject within the image-
stream of popular culture. It overlaps and intersects with such a variety of
discourses that it becomes hard to define its parameters. Robots and machines
have taken the leap from a purely mechanical existence to an electronic, micro-
electronic, biomechanical, bio-electric and digital existence. Furthermore, unlike
the mechanical robots11 of the past, post-industrial machines are uncannily good
at mimicking and imitating humans and human behaviour. In an essay by cyber-
feminist Donna Haraway (Janes et al. 2000:52) entitled A manifesto for cyborgs:
science, technology and socialist feminism in the 1980s, there is mention of the
disturbing evolution of the automaton:

[B]asically machines were not self-moving, self-designing, autonomous. They

could not achieve man’s dream, only mock it. They were not man, an author of
himself, but only a caricature of that masculinist reproductive dream. Now we are
not so sure. Late twentieth century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous
the difference between natural and artificial … [and] other distinctions that used
to apply to organisms and machines. Our machines are disturbingly lively, and
we ourselves frighteningly inert.

Great strides are being made in the pursuit of the construction of responsive but
artificial sentient beings. Robots, whether mechanical, biomechanical, electronic,
bio-electric, pneumatic, kinetic, or a combination of all of the above, continue to
enjoy attention and status within extropic12 space innovation and military
development. The robot is no longer just moving metal; it has evolved into a
polymorphous creature of reality and the imagination – the cyborg or cybernetic
organism. Moreover, distinguishing between cyborgs as man-machine
assimilations and robots has become very complicated as a result of the
accurate and convincing simulation of the organic. The robots in science fiction
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films such as AI (Fig.2.1) and Bladerunner (Fig.2.2) are constructed of soft
prosthetics, silicone implants and synthetic skin. They may therefore also be
defined as cyborgs due to their artificial corporeality camouflaging their
electronic-biological systems.

The cyborg signals the end of a mechanical era and the commencement of a
post-human age in which the body of man is enhanced, restored, normalized and
reconfigured by advanced technologies. In a sense, it is not only the corporeal
body that matters, but also the endless number of digital representations of the
body that run through the image-stream and are sustained by an image-addicted
popular culture. Haraway (In Csicsery-Ronay, 1991:no page number) proposes
the cyborg figuration “as a revolutionary being, simultaneously defined by
technology and emancipatory aspiration”.

Fig.2.1: Steven Spielberg’s AI or Arificial Intelligence (2002) Photographic still, (320 by

460 pixels), http://www.spiegl.de/img/0,1020,141687,00.jpg

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Fig.2.2: Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner (1982) Photographic still, (420 by 321 pixels),

http://www.sentierselvaggi.it/foto/Agosto/sez_67/bladerunner.gif

The cyborg might be defined as an ideal condition for the beginning of human
transformation. It is a post-human organism that holds immortal promises while
facilitating the proliferation of body-identity options by dissolving binary dualisms
between real/artificial, organic/inorganic and the like. Yet, concurrently it steers
the human subject closer to the uncanny, the anomalous – the monstrous. As
Chris Hables Gray (2001:11) states, “Our interventions are presently crude, but
new technosciences promise that soon we will be creating creatures from
ourselves that cannot even be classified as humans”. In some macabre way it is
comforting to know that, for now, the cyborg is dependent on the ‘old’ body for its
existence. For example; the cyborg relies on the merging of flesh and machine
for its existence; the cyber-body of the Internet user might be flying, floating, and
falling in cyberspace, but the real body remains trapped in the real world and
cannot yet transmigrate into the matrix; artificially intelligent robots, which can be
defined as purely mechanical or cybernetic cyborgs, continue to rely on the
human brain for intelligence upgrades.

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This brief overview of the cyborg subject will address selected cyborg types. The
aim is to divide the subject into several categories to demonstrate the de-
centered body-identity of the cyborg. Although this section explores a few of the
ways in which the cyborg subject has changed human self-perception and
consequently identity, its primary intent is to sketch a basic picture of what the
cyborg signifies, relates to, and is turning into. One could say that this section
provides the basic foundation needed to understand why the cyborg is almost
exclusively defined, not as a figure made of flesh and steel, but as a propitious
condition for the conception of a multiplicity of monstrosity.

2.4.1 Prosthetic body-identity

My reason for terming this section ‘Prosthetic body-identity’ instead of ‘Human-

machine system’, ‘Man-machine augmentation’, or ‘Bionic man’, is because of
the differing range of implants and prostheses that are utilized to augment the
natural human body. Implanted prosthetics range from the bio-electric,
biomechanical, silicone-based, to the purely plastic. Devices such as plastic hips
and joints, spectacles, contact lenses, stainless metal plates substituting
craniums and so forth are all examples of inanimate non-electric prostheses.
These restorative items might not seem radical today, however, a hundred years
ago, these simple prostheses were considered major innovations in the field of
medical technology.

Now techno-science has introduced remarkable and evolutionary prosthetics.

Humans are entering an age in which dysfunctional biological systems are being
restored with bio-electric prostheses. Natural senses are being restored and
replaced by bionic ones. One could go as far as to say that all humans are
turning into cyborgs in one way or the other. As Gray (2001:02) states:

If you have been technologically modified in any significant way, from an

implanted pacemaker to a vaccination that reprogrammed your immune system,

63
 then you are definitely a cyborg. Even if you are one of those rare people who is
in no way a cyborg in the technical sense, cyborg issues still impact you.

Gray’s definition of a cyborg might seem somewhat wide, but deductively makes
for a valid statement. Another definition sees the cyborg as “a self-regulating
organism that combines the natural and artificial together in one system” (Gray,
2001:02). This is also the preferred form in which the cyborg is portrayed in
popular culture.13

The cyborg does not threaten to transform humans into emotionless machines.
One result of cyborg experimentation is to positively modify the physically
disadvantaged body-identity. It is probable that this alteration will improve
psychological self-perception. Biotechnology might be able to create disease-free
bodies, amplified intelligence, supernatural senses and facilitate the production of
generally better bodies. This is the utopian view of the cyborg. In contrast, the
essential processes that lead to these better body-identities are under immense
threat from positive and negative forms of post-industrial monstrosity.

Nina Lykke (In Grenville, 2002:77) in her essay Between monsters, goddesses
and cyborgs: feminist confrontations with science writes:

Frankenstein’s monster is only an early harbinger of the cyborg world of the late
20th century. Cyborgs, which, like Frankenstein’s monster, transgress forbidden
borders are becoming more and more common, and their repression, conversely,
less and less successful.

Meanwhile, biotechnology continues to restore and improve our bodies in

astonishing ways. The cyborg gives the sensory body a second chance despite
these predictions of monsters. Many of us are becoming bionic beings through
the use of restorative bioelectric prostheses. The micro system-based visual

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prosthesis (MVP) (Fig.2.3), designed by Claude Veraart and collaborators at the
University of Lovain in Brussels, is an example of restorative bioelectric
technology. Its function is to improve and restore partial vision to people suffering
from retinis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration. These
degenerative eye diseases destroy the photoreceptor cells (rod and cone cells) in
the retina, leaving the rest of the eye healthy. This means that the retina is
rendered completely insensitive to light. To improve this condition, an electrode is
implanted around the optic nerve. The electrode is connected to a stimulator
which is permanently installed in a small cavity inside the cranium.

James Geary (2002:10) explains the prosthesis as follows:

The video camera, worn as a cap, transmits images in the form of radio signals
to the stimulator, which converts these signals into electrical impulses and sends
them along [the] optic nerve. The optic nerve ferries the signals to [the] visual
cortex, where they are reassembled into an image.

The MIVIP is not a cure for blindness; however, the implant helps people
suffering of age-related macular degeneration to cope with their impairment. It
aids the sufferer in distinguishing between brightness and shadow as well as
discerning the outlines of basic shapes.

Another groundbreaking prosthetic implant that, to a certain degree, restores the

function of otherwise inactive or non-responsive biological senses, is the Clarion
cochlear implant (Fig.2.4). In this particular case it is the sense of hearing that is
restored.14 Deafness occurs when the 3500 hair cells situated in the cochlea are
damaged or die. Hair cells are not regenerative, which means deafness is
permanent. James Geary (2002: 47-48) explains how the Clarion cochlear
implant is different to a conventional hearing aid:

65
 While conventional hearing aids simply amplify sound – in effect, giving hair cells
a bigger jolt by pumping up the volume – the cochlear implant uses a microphone
and processing unit to bypass the damaged hair cells altogether and deliver
electrical signals directly to the auditory nerves, in much the same way as Claude
Veraart’s visual prosthesis bypasses dysfunctional photoreceptor cells to reach
the optic nerve.

Fig.2.3: Claude Veraart’s Microsystem Visual Prosthesis (637 by 421 pixels)

Geary, J. 2002. The Body Electric: an anatomy of the new bionic senses, Great Britain:
Phoenix Publishers

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Fig.2.4: Illustration of the Clarion Cochlear implant
Geary, J. 2002. The Body Electric: an anatomy of the new bionic senses, Great Britain:
Phoenix Publishers

The Clarion implant is not merely a device that heightens the sensitivity of hair
cells. In effect, it actually replicates electronically what the ear does biologically.

In another example of bioelectric innovation, American robotics expert Rodney

Brooks (2002:226) has collaboratively conceptualized some profound new
innovations on visual perception. His ideas on how to “close the gap between the
online user and the information space” or Internet are, for lack of a better word,
revolutionary. Currently the space between the Internet user and the Internet
itself is bridged only by one’s natural sense of sight. It is Brook’s techno-scientific
dream to see this breach closed once and for all. He proposes that the external
information space become an internal information space; allowing shift access to
all Internet channels. What he proposes is a thought-controllable mouse.

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Moreover, what he predicts is a future in which online users will browse the
Internet using their eyes instead of their fingers and external mouse. But Brooks
(2002:228) proposes to take his new mouse even further when he states:

Now combine the mouse with an implanted retina chip. Instead of having the
artificial retina be a camera, make it a display device, connected to the computer
that the thought mouse controls. Now the person could wander the information
ways of cyberspace within a mental cocoon.

This all might seem like a positive and augmenting concept for visual processing
in a digitally saturated age, however, it requires the sacrifice of one eye. The
implementation of this sort of cyborg technology is therefore subtractive. It
subtracts from natural body-identity in order to create a body that interfaces more
affectively with virtual technology.

The sacrificing of a single eye for a super-fast mouse sounds unethical now, but
if such technology came to pass and proved to be capable of speeding things up,
it would not be surprising if thousands of information technology specialists such
as programmers, software developers, and data capturers were persuaded to
surrender to it. On the other hand, these extreme measures will not be necessary
if bionic experts could find a way to insert the virtual image on the screen of the
monitor directly into the “visual-processing area at the rear end of the brain”
(Brooks, 2002:228). This would eliminate the eyes as a prerequisite to work on
the online computer.

Other innovations, such as an enhanced silicone retina and an automatic iris, are
also currently being considered. For the auto-iris, an eye is once again sacrificed;
this time for the special ability of night vision. Bukatman (In Badmington,
2000:99) quotes cybernetic body performance artist Stelarc as stating, “We’re at
the time now where we have to start redesigning the human body to match the
technology we’ve created”. It is not absurd to suggest that more intricate future
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prosthetics could be Internet adaptable. It would be convenient to download the
program needed to run one’s prosthetic implant from an online personal
computer. However, this could also mean that one’s prosthetic body-identity
becomes a potential target for artificial viruses such as Internet worms that
corrupt program files.

It is my understanding that dissatisfaction with the limitations of the natural body

is increasing rapidly. Instead of just replacing or partially restoring naturally
degenerating and dysfunctional internal and external body parts, roboticists and
biotechnologists suggest the removal and artificial replacement of them. Take the
thought-controllable mouse and auto-iris as examples. Both these cyborg
inventions subtract from and amputate natural body-identity. Despite these
losses, they also provide the body-identity with super-normal abilities (shift
Internet browsing and night vision). Recently only a few individuals possessed
cellular telephones and computers linked to the Net. Now, only a few years later,
one finds it difficult to function without these simple technologies. It could be that
several years from now, living without a thought-controllable mouse might prove
to be difficult.

Although there are extremists who would seize any opportunity to have
enhancing prostheses implanted into their bodies, the majority of individuals
seem to consider the incorporation of bioelectric technology as a last resort to
restore a cardinal biological function. However, there are some biological
dysfunctions that receive an enormous amount of artificial or synthetic attention
despite the fact that they are usually non-terminal. A good example of a non-
terminal malady would be the inability of a man to achieve or sustain an erection.
Despite the non-fatality of sexual tribulations such as unsustainable erections
and premature ejaculation, “the malfunctioning penis has been a major focus of
[surgical] interventions” (Gray, 2002:104).15

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Unlike efforts in the field of artificial intelligence, which aim at creating androids
(purely cybernetic beings with human features and humane behaviour),
bioelectric technology results in the creation of cyborgs (cybernetic organisms).
Bioelectric prosthetic devices fuse the natural (organic) and the artificial
(inorganic) to produce hybrid beings. Moreover, the replacement, restoration,
enhancement, and subtraction of corporeal identity through bioelectric
technology could change one’s perception of the external world, and therefore
could change the way one perceives oneself.

The integration of bioelectric technology into the natural body could mean an
unavoidable identity paradigm shift. Various cyborg states may produce unique
cyborg identities. Mizrach (2003d. par.23) stresses that, “such an identity would
transcend, maybe even refute, the ongoing anthropocentrism (humano-
chauvinism) and maybe even biocentrism of the classical Western tradition”. The
bioelectric cyborg could certainly lead to the recasting of concepts such as
consciousness, life, soul or spirit, and free will. There already seem to be a
number of similarities between technological systems (artificial life) and the
organic properties and behaviour of natural life forms.

2.4.2 The somatic cyborg

Science fiction film and the digital image stream constantly portray the cyborg as
a conglomeration of flesh, steel, electronics, artificial organs etc. This is only one
profile of the cyborg. As much as it is a hybrid of man and machine, it is also a
mutational product of somatic technology. Somatic technologies, i.e.
biotechnologies that involve body modification, are inclusive of genetic (DNA)
engineering, nootropic drug research (smart drugs), cosmetic surgery, cloning,
artificial insemination, and the like. Mizrach (2003d. par36) seems to be quite
impartial about biotechnological alterations to the body when he writes:

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 The era of biotechnology and genetic engineering has meant that the body has
itself become malleable. While the alteration of the body has always been part of
self-expression in many cultures, what is now occurring in Western post-
industrial societies is an attempt not merely to ‘write’ (inscribe, mark making)
upon the body as a pre-existing template, but also to ‘rewrite’ the body itself
through the genetic code of DNA.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) is a map of the human genetic code that has
recently been completed through a process of decoding. The apparent primary
aim of this project is to eliminate hereditary diseases. However, there is no
reason for this project not to capitalize on its unique ability to pre-determine
body-identity. The ability to determine or increase intelligence in specific children
would obviously present even more complex ethical considerations.
Biotechnology in the form of sperm separation techniques and artificial
insemination procedures is already pre-deciding the biological sex of infants. But
what about the pre-determination of sexuality itself?

Homosexuality for example, is frequently explained as a hereditary accident that

poses a problem for evolutionary biology. Cultural commentator Francis
Fukuyama (2002:37) states that “based on studies of mice, it has been
hypothesized that male homosexuality is brought on by deficient exposure to
prenatal testosterone”. Other scientists have found comparisons between
homosexuality and certain spots on the x chromosomes. Some neurologists
speculate that the hypothalamus of a homosexual male is anatomically different
to that of the heterosexual male. Whatever the cause, scientists are working on a
cure for homosexuality. It is possible that in ten years from now the birth of
potentially homosexual children could be reduced or even eliminated by the
taking of a pill. This would mean that, although most people might be accepting
of homosexuality, few people would be homosexually oriented.16

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Whereas bioelectric technology turns one into a prosthetic cyborg, somatic
technology changes one’s biological, genetic and neurological properties.
Furthermore, it changes one’s behaviour. Psychotropic drugs such as Zoloft and
Prozac are designed to increase levels of serotonin, which in turn stabilize one’s
mood. Ritalin, for example, is used to normalize the behaviour of hyperactive
children. Other prescription chemicals like Dormonoct are specifically designed to
induce sleep. For thousands of years the human race has left the
“neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, dopamine and norepinephidrine [to
naturally] control the firing of nerve synapses” and transmit signals across the
neurons of the brain (Fukuyama, 2002:42). Now, with inconceivable advances in
the field of neuropharmacology, the human race is taking control over the levels
of these transmitters and transforming themselves into what may be termed
‘chemical cyborgs’.

By controlling these natural neuro-chemicals pharmacologically, humans are

deciding their emotional states and psychological behaviour. Moreover, since
behaviour is one of the chief determinants of personality types, one might
conclude from this that many post-industrial personalities are also
psychotropically resolved.17

Some stimulants called nootropic drugs are designed for the specific purpose of
increasing and prolonging concentration levels. Steroids are frequently used by
male and female bodybuilders and athletes to improve their performance. One
runs faster than the body would naturally allow. One builds bigger muscles than
the body would naturally allow. One can concentrate longer, changes one’s
mood chemically to suit the circumstance, and can fall asleep instantly if one
needs to. The internal and external body becomes the cyborg territory of
scientific invention. It is almost as if biotechnology is testing the limits of one’s
internal body processes against its symbiotic cyborg capacities.

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The somatic cyborg is such a vast subject that it is virtually impossible to
formulate a brief overview of each of its facets in this study. What is important to
this research is that one should know that it relates to the modification of body-
identity through neurochemical alterations, genetic engineering, cosmetic
surgery, research on the prolongation of life and immortality, the injection of
microscopic machines into the body to perform internal repairs (nanotechnology)
and the like.

Most of these somatic changes made by forms of biotechnology are voluntary, or

at least more voluntary than somatic body-identity modification brought about by
the waves of radiation following nuclear disasters and serious biochemical
pollution. Taking all these ways of somatically changing the body into account, it
seems “the human race is making great strides toward directing its own
evolutionary process” (Mizrach, 2003d. par.38).

2.4.3 The genetic cyborg and the clone

More than the above-mentioned biotechnological developments, it is the genetic

cyborg and the clone that strike most fear into the hearts of postmodern citizens.
The Human Genome Project, which was primarily funded by the United States
Government, has successfully decoded the DNA sequence of the human being.
Yet, despite the success of this decoding, biogeneticists still know very little
about the actual causational processes of the gene network. It is one thing to
genetically alter corn or soybeans, but it is quite another to genetically change
specific somatic properties with accuracy. The human body has proved to be a
far more complex organism to master. Behaviours such as aggression, sexuality,
intelligence, and sadness remain highly enigmatic. Behavioural geneticists know
that they involve some degree of parallel processing and genetic causation,
however, that seems to be the extent of their understanding. As Fukuyama
(2002:75) writes, “Cell-signalling pathways are linked to regulatory pathways in

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ways we’re just beginning to unscramble”. There is no reason not to believe that,
when human genetic engineering is fully understood, it will have a radical
influence on the genetic makeup of the newborn. Biotechnology already allows
parents to influence the genetic makeup of their offspring through
preimplantation, genetic diagnosis and screening. As neuroscientist Susan
Greenfield (2003:128) states, “Already sperm can be screened for gender
selection”. In future it might become routine for parents to have their embryos
scanned for any sign of disease, disorder or any other possible biological
anomaly before implanting them into the womb. One could argue that screening
technologies such as sonograms, for example, have contributed significantly to
the imbalanced sex shift in some Asian countries where the female fetus is
regularly aborted.

Moreover, imagine the bioscientific discovery of a gene linked to aggression.

Imagine a future in which one’s genes become one’s inevitable destiny.
Greenfield (2003:114) suggests that ”as genetic profiling becomes more
sophisticated…we will all soon be able to blame our genes for any
transgression”.

Although the primary aim of genetic engineering is presumably to find methods to

delete malevolent genes and minimize severe hereditary diseases such as cystic
fybrosis, diabetes or arthritis, its crucial focus might shift to the production of
babies with pre-specified genetic profiles. Anne Balsamo (1995:p.03) in her
essay Reading the body in contemporary culture explains that similarly to the
“natural body [which] is technologically transformed [through cosmetic surgery]
into a sign of culture”, the culturally ‘perfect’ body may soon be achieved through
genetic manipulation. However, the technology that is likely to mature much
earlier than refined human genetic engineering is human cloning.18 The clone is
probably the most threatening biotechnological cyborg in that it disturbs many
moral and bio-ethical beliefs, standards, and laws.

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What complicates the cloning process is the intricacy of adult cells. The reason
for this is that adult cells are highly differentiated (Fig.2.5). In the very beginning
of an organism’s life, when a gamete (sperm) fertilizes another gamete (egg) to
form a zygote (fertilized egg), totipotent stem cells are born. These cells are far
less differentiated, exceedingly versatile, and can transform themselves into
virtually any cell type. They are the ideal cells for cloning. However, as these
totipotent stem cells evolve, they differentiate into pluripotent stem cells. These
cells then turn into multipotent stem cells, and eventually into blood and other
committed stem cells. By this time the cells have become highly differentiated
and therefore non-polymorphous. According to Agar (2002:31), “Most of the
genes [DNA] in differentiated adult cells are permanently switched off”. Nature
sometimes, for no evident reason, switches these dormant genes back on with
anomalous consequences.

Bowel tumours containing partly formed gums, teeth, nails and hair are often the
result of sleeping genes being reactivated in the adult body. It was the complex
task of cloning professionals to discover an approach to reactivate genes, i.e.
reverse the ageing process, without unleashing chaotic de-differentiating and re-
differentiating cells. Bio-scientists now use a complex method of germ-line cell
and gamete fusion to create the desirable totipotent stem cells. Greenfield
(2003:133) mentions that “[t]his discovery of how to switch adult DNA back on
and clone from adult cells [has] opened the door to cloning dairy animals with
high milk or wool yields”.

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Fig.2.5: The process of differentiation

Agar, N. 2002. Perfect Copy: Unravelling the cloning debate, UK: Icon Books

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Fig.2.6: Illustrating somatic cell nuclear transfer

Agar, N. 2002. Perfect Copy: Unravelling the cloning debate, UK: Icon Books

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In addition to the possible calamities that bio-engineered body components might
hold, which can be interpreted as synthetic bio-compatible replacement parts that
contribute to the disappearance of the natural body, cloning is threatening to
delete the necessity of a naturally conceived body-identity. Moreover, it will pose
an undeniable threat to what constitutes a normative human body-identity.
Moreover, cloning could have drastic implications in store for immediate
hierarchical family identity. For example, William Saleton (2002:120) writes:

If gay parenthood means that Heather has two mommies, cloning doesn’t just
mean that Heather has one mommy; it means that, genetically, Heather is her
mommy. So if Heather’s mommy has a husband and daughter, then genetically,
Heather is her sister’s mommy and her daddy’s wife.

Some individuals feel that cloning is intrinsically evil and should be avoided at all
costs. Some religious groups seem to find it hard to believe that a clone could
possess a soul, since it was not naturally conceived. Others are concerned about
ownership issues. Should sentient clones own themselves? Do cloned body
parts, subsequent to the incorporation of these parts into or onto other bodies,
still belong to the DNA donor? Some individuals even find it hard to believe that
clones are really alive. Consistent with the writings of Gray (2002:120), a United
Nations senator by the name of Orrin Hatch doubts that clones could be human
since they “are just asexually produced totipotent cells”. It seems that more than
any other cyborg technology, cloning foregrounds the issue of post-humanism.

2.4.4 The monstrous cyborg

In the beginning of this section the focus was on the cyborg as a human-machine
system and the evolution of bioelectric prostheses. This cyborg, as I have
already stated, diffuses the boundary between the inorganic (electronic machine)
and the organic (biological body). But it is clear that the cyborg is a multiple

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figuration in that its form is never quite stable or predictable. As Haraway
(1985:66) in her essay A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and socialist
feminism in the late 20th century states, “Modern medicine is … full of cyborgs, of
couplings between organism and machine, each conceived as coded devices”.

The genetic alteration of human physiology and of human behaviour is still in its
early stages. Regardless of this, there is already fictional speculation concerning
the eugenic and genetic creation of human-animal transgressions. The
contemporary clone presents one with an equally potent metaphor of confusion
and potential horror. It distorts the border between sexually reproduced
organisms and asexually copied organisms. Furthermore, unfathomable genetic
obstacles obscure the successful cloning of mammals and human beings.
According to Fukuyama (2002:78), “It took nearly 270 failed attempts before
Dolly was successfully cloned”. The cyborg is no longer simply a shadow
between human body-identity and electronic machine, but indicates an
intermediate and transitional phase characterized by an assortment of
biotechnologically and genetically stimulated inconsistencies.

One might find that postmodern theorists are often too eager to announce the
dawn of the post-human era. One might be nearing the post-human era, but one
is, at least for the time being, trapped in a pre-post-human era overflowing with
inescapable, erratic and puzzling anomalies. Perhaps an increase of attention to
what occurs between the post-industrial body-identity and the post-human body-
identity will generate some enlightening and fundamental knowledge that could
accelerate the shift to post-humanism in the strictest sense of the word.

Agar (2002:37) theorizes that we live in a time of abundant monstrosity facilitated

by problematic cloning experimentation:

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 Many clones have circulatory problems. They have heart defects and misfiring
immune systems. Add to these a haphazard-seeming collection of deformities.
Clones are born with squashed faces, bloated tongues and tendons that are too
short to allow the hooves to support the animal.

One may well argue that the clone is a post-human figure, though it might be
more valid to state that the cyborg is a more preferred prototype for the eventual
post-human condition. Haraway (1985:67) argues that the cyborg “is a creature
of the post-gender world”. Haraway (1985:71) sustains Agar’s above mentioned
monster theory by stating that the cyborg “is about transgressed boundaries,
potent fusions and dangerous possibilities”. Potent fusion is probably a good way
to describe a recent development in genetic engineering called ‘pharming’.

Pharming involves the cloning of larger animals that are then genetically
engineered using selected human DNA. These animals are not for consumption
purposes, but are merely experiments to assess probable outcomes. Gray
(2002:122) predicts that pharm products will soon incorporate “human skin,
cartilage, bone, bone marrow, retinal and nerve tissue…hormones, vaccines, and
therapeutic biologicals”. Soon there may even be pigs that produce human
sperm cells. In this instance one is dealing with cyborg animals. Once again, this
animal should not be categorized as a post-animal, but rather as a mutational
trans-genetic animal prediction of the future post-animal condition.

Prior to the post-human, it seems there exists a mutant body-identity. One could
compare this identity to the adolescent who endures a whole series of hormonal
and other biological changes before crossing over from childhood into adulthood.
The cyborg is redefined as a mutant, an essentially anomalous form that human
body-identity must take in order to pass over from biological human to post-
biological human. Mizrach (2003d:09) defines the mutant self as follows:

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 The mutant self is based in an identity that realizes that its physical template is in
flux and could change dramatically at any point. Mutant selves are ‘essentially’
anti-essential, because nature is no longer seen as the primary determinant of
one’s physical makeup.

In addition to somatic abnormalities brought about through cloning disasters, the

post-industrial era has also induced severe cellular malformations through atomic
radiation. One is reminded of the Chernobyl disaster and the trail of deformed
human fetuses and cancerous growths it left in its wake. One cannot help but
reinterpret the cyborg as a protean mutant that almost always utilizes human
body-identity as its preferred referential shape. As Haraway (1985:67) puts it,
“The cyborg is resolutely committed …to perversity”.

The cyborg should not be interpreted solely as a human-machine hybrid. It is my

understanding that the cyborg is a fugitive form of pre-post-biological monstrosity
that is skeptical about contemporary cultural norms of anatomical correctness.
The cyborg prescribes its own beauty. Mizrach (2003:10) supports this
perception when he states that the postindustrial self is ready to erupt “out of the
confines of restrictive ideals of human shape”.

Furthermore, it might be more accurate to describe the cyborg as something that

fractures body-identity through medical disassembly, reassembly (reconstructive
surgery), multiplication or replication (cloning), fusion (inorganic merges with the
organic), and chaotic differentiation. One could simplify the previous statement
by stating that the cyborg’s most effective method of fracturing body-identity is
through the chaotic and unpredictable production of pre-post-human monsters.

The cyborg becomes the essential mutational process that precedes and
facilitates the future birth of post-human beings and creatures, just as failed
experiments (biological perversities) are progressive steps or essential
components that lead to the eventual successful cloning of mammals and
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humans. Pro-post-humanists may feel that an increase in these chemical,
bioelectric, chromosomal, genetic or radiation-related malformations are
inevitable contributions that help redirect the human evolutionary process.
Others, however, may feel that it is a gross ethical and moral violation of human
integrity, or an unnecessary and unfortunate by-product of humankind’s
interference with nature’s natural discourse.

It is regrettable that the term cyborg typically conjures up the mental image of a
biomechanical humanoid of some sort when its meaning is so much broader. It
should be emphasized that the cyborg is not just a non-fictional creature, but also
a science fictional creature that has secured its rightful position within the popular
image stream driven by popular culture and the mass media. Other than this, it is
an anomalous condition or state that indicates a temporary phase of transition. It
serves as the supreme medium and host for the fabrication of contemporary
monstrosity. It is my opinion that it is also a superlative subject through which to
fuse somatic perversity and art. Film critic and culture theorist Linda Badley
(1996:101) remarks on “the cultural attitudes toward the flesh, toward difference
[abnormality], and toward other species’ need to change”.

In many ways the cyborg subject is doing just that. It is gradually familiarizing one
to the side-effects of dissolved margins, and in doing so it obliges one to accept
and adapt to new body-identity irregularities. The cyborg, in whatever form,
forces one to confront the ‘Other’ as a means of reevaluating one’s own body-
identity in an age of incessant metamorphosis. It may have started out as an
exclusively technological concept, but now it is revealing its affinity with abjection,
abnormality, and that place between grotesque horror and exquisite beauty. This
is, in my opinion, what makes it such a potent fusion. Like the monster, it has no
stable identity. In addition, monster signifies the replacement of humanity’s
humanness with what Canadian media professor William Beard (2001:216) calls
“insectness”. In this sense, the cyborg condition indicates “an uneasy but
consistent sense of human obsolescence” (Dery, 1996:243). The cyborg as

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monster threatens human ontology to stress the vulnerability of, and possibly the
need to preserve, individual body-identity. It appears the polymorphous cyborg
subject blurs more than just the machine and flesh dualism, it effortlessly
liquefies the border between human (self) and monster (other).

Furthermore, it is crucial that one considers why the cyborg is monstrous. What
features contribute to its monstrous appearance? Above all, one should consider
how the monstrous nature of the cyborg subject affects and changes gender
identity. Furthermore, it is the mixture of human and non-human dimensions that
constitute the monster’s monstrosity. The cyborg on the other hand is similarly a
mixture of non-human material (prosthetics) and/or natural, but sometimes
irrational, corporeal properties.

Whereas the virtual or simulated self seems to dissolve gender by distorting the
boundaries between male and female, the self as a cybernetic organism seems
to monstrously add to the existing normative genders. The idea of the cyborg
does not merely suggest that male could be female and vice versa. It fuses
corporeality and the various forms of cybernetic technology to construct whole
new genders – trans-human genders. The cyborg is a combination of man,
woman and machine.

The cyborg might place some pressure on the rules of duality, but it is the
immense challenge it poses to both male and female gender that echoes its
presence in the postindustrial age. Steve Dixon (2002:par 2) in his article Metal
Gender writes:

Cyborgic metal’s entry into the human body marks a distinctly new social and
cultural distinction, and new hierarchical relationship. This hierarchy no longer
solely functions in terms of gendered power relations between man and woman,
but opens a fresh pecking order privileging the cyborg over the man or woman by
virtue of its physical [superiority], mental superiority [or bodily difference].
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One could think of it as a tri-gendered hermaphrodite. One might also perceive it
as a superior gender. For example, having a micro-chip implanted into one’s
brain that allows for super memory storage would make one’s brain superior to
the average brain’s capacity for data storage.

Through what Kate Ince (2000:34) terms “morphological uncertainty”, the cyborg
amalgamates body-identity, distorts it, and in doing so prohibits the formulation of
a singular gender – a normative body-identity. Perhaps the only way to come to
terms with the cyborg situation is to accept imperfection, alteration, and self-
contradiction as an essential way of existing in the cyborg era. As Gray
(2002:196) puts it, “[w]e cannot stop the cyborg carnival; it is already under way.
We just don’t know how it is going to turn out”. It seems the future of the body is
a gray zone. The transgressive and mutant nature of the cyborg holds much
uncertainty for the new conditions of gender. Perhaps the time has arrived to look
past the cyborg/monster as an unnatural body-identity. Perhaps a method of
rescuing body-identity from further complication is to discover ways to identify
with the monster instead of measuring and determining ‘normal’ human body-
identity through comparisons with unnatural or non-human body identities.

This chapter has demonstrated how body-identity transformation has become

almost unavoidable in the postindustrial epoch. The range of corporeality-altering
technologies mentioned within this chapter serve as the underpinning to
recognize and appreciate the expressive and controversial post-human body art
of the artists Stelarc and Orlan that follow.

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 Chapter 3: Post-human body modification art

This chapter will focus primarily on two of the most recognized post-human body-
modifying artists - Stelarc and Orlan. Whereas Stelarc stresses the obsolescence
of corporeal body-identity by subjecting and transforming his body using mostly
high-tech information and biomedical technology, Orlan surgically modifies her
body to emphasize and reclaim identity as a personal construction. In this way
she launches assaults on the unending predicament that is gender inequality.
Contemporary body modification may be defined as the framing of the body as a
boundless border for technological improvement and the use of it to express
one’s political concerns, one’s aversions, one’s obsessions, premonitions, and all
the other conceptual facets on which one’s personality is constructed.

Extreme cyber-body artist Isa Gordon, better known as the Psymbiote (Fig.3.1),
like Orlan, pursues eccentric body-identity alterations using “anti-fashion
cosmetic surgery” (Pitts, 2003:13). Jesse Jarrel (Fig.3.2) also modifies himself
cosmetically (the subdermal insertion of grade Teflon and grade silicon implants)
to construct what appears to be a bionic arm. Isa Gordon has turned herself into
a “hybrid apparatus for social interface” and performs at fashion events wearing a
titanium data input glove (Fig.3.3) equipped with flex sensors (Van Brown,
2004:par 02).

Like Stelarc, Gordon is a pioneer of ‘cyborganic’ prosthetics and explores how to

integrate and align incoming and departing information with outmoded bio-body
identity. With these two body modification artists serving as a brief background to
cybernetic body art, I intend to investigate the art of Stelarc and Orlan. Stelarc’s
performances link more directly with the prosthetic cyborg, i.e. biotechnological
extensions and interfaces, whereas Orlan’s correspond to what may be termed
an intentionally anomalous cosmetic cyborg induced by state-of-the-art
biomedical technology and modern synthetic surgery techniques.

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Fig.3.1: Isa Gorden, Psymbiote (2004) Fig.3.2: Jesse Jarrel, Bionic Arm

http://www.infogargoyle.com with silicon implants (1998)

http://www.infogargoyle.com

Fig.3.3: Psymbiote data glove with sensors

(2004) http://www.infogargoyle.com

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3.1 Stelarc and cybernetic body modification

It is no longer a matter of perpetuating the human species by reproduction, but of

enhancing male-female intercourse by human-machine interface. The body is
obsolete. We are at the end of human philosophy and human physiology
(Stelarc, 2002:09).

Stelarc, an Australian cybernetic body performance artist, launched his art career
in the early 1980s performing a series of visually excruciating suspension acts.
Akin to the Native American sun ritual, “these events involved raising the naked
artist skyward by cables attached to stainless steel hooks embedded in his skin”
(Dery, 1996:157). Events such as Seaside Suspension: Event for wind and
waves (1981) and City Suspension (1985) have the appearance of cultural rituals
similar to Hindu religious rites or yogic acts. One could also associate them with
a type of sadomasochistic astral projection exercise. However, Stelarc never
meditates prior to his performances and claims never to have had any type of
“out-of-body experience” (Dery, 1996:159). He objectifies the skin and perceives
it as a barrier destined for evolutionary penetration. As he states (In Murray,
2002:81), “The solution to modifying the body is not to be found in its internal
structure, but lies simply on its surface”. In his later performances, such as
PingBody or Fractal Flesh, for example, his skin becomes a host for activation or
signaling sensors. In addition, his body is transduced into a digital representation,
transforming his corporeal skin into live data. The monitor screen on which his
body is displayed becomes, as it were, an extension of his material skin.

These early suspension acts had less to do with the mystical and more with
heightening perceptual awareness. Moreover, the aim of these extreme acts is to
get the audience to react to the steel hooks as they puncture the body. The
viewer’s skin is subjected to horripilation19 although it is Stelarc’s skin that is
pierced. On a psychosomatic level the viewer’s body “is the same as Stelarc’s
and goes through a simulated physical response” (Fernandes, 2002:01). In this

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way, the phenomenological experience of the audience becomes more important
than the sensations experienced by the artist.

In relation to Stelarc’s recent work, these early suspension acts seem primitive.
Since then Stelarc has become one of the foremost cyber-artists dealing with
body augmentation. His new performances are primarily aimed at re-evaluating
and redefining the borders of physiological and sensory associations with the aid
of cyber-technology. He has ‘enhanced’ his vision with lasers, transformed his
bloodflow into electronic body music, extended his locomotive capacities with a
pneumatically powered prosthesis, amplified brainwaves, and subjected his body
to choreographed tele-operation.

In one of his new performances he utilizes the Internet to virtually conceive an

extended, external, and cyber-spatial nervous systems for the human body.
Stelarc, as quoted by journalist Pablo Baler (2002:47) in his article The doors of
expression:the work of art in the age of quatum processing power, believes that
electronic space holds endless ways of merging the body with the machine:

Just as the Internet provides extensive and interactive ways of displaying, linking,
and retrieving information and images, it may now allow unexpected ways of
accessing, interfacing, and uploading the body [and its central nervous system]
itself.

Stelarc’s art has shifted from psychologically transferring sensation and

awareness to receptive viewers, to redesigning and remapping perception
through the extension of the body using biocompatible prostheses, virtual
technology and other heuristic20 machines. His beliefs, which are to an extent in
keeping with Marshall McLuhan’s, center around the assertion that:

[t]he extensions of any one sense (such as the ‘auto-amputational’ extension of

the foot by the wheel, or the extension of the mind in the form of the hard drive of
a computer) alters the way we think and act – the way we perceive the world.
When these ratios change, men change (In Dery, 1996:37).

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Accepting that reality is a personal construction of one’s sensory experience of it,
then would it not make sense that new cybernetic technologies in the form of
Internet-facilitated communication, immersive virtual reality body gear, symbiotic
man-machine systems and the like, are exacerbating the volatility of reality and
body-identity as one knows it? Perhaps this change in perception is not
necessarily negative. Artists such as Stelarc certainly do not recognize
technologically altered sensory perception as unconstructive. Stelarc’s cybernetic
body art performances may be interpreted as extropic experiments that aim at
extending the human body beyond its natural capacities. Furthermore, his bio-
electric interfacing devices and internal stomach sculptures invite consideration
of the “role of aesthetic enhancement in the construction of the cyborg body”
(Grenville, 2002:30).

It is not hard to detect the link between Stelarc’s cyber-body performances and
virtual body-identity. Stelarc forces the corporeal body to become an adjustable
structure and this results in an understanding of corporeal identity as an alterable
abstraction. In one of Stelarc’s virtual reality bio-system events entitled
PingBody: an Internet actuated and uploaded performance, which took place in
1996 at Artspace, Sydney Australia as part of the Digital Aesthetics conference,
his body was connected to the Internet via electrodes linked to modems.

In this performance, cyberspace or virtuality becomes the new space of action

and of movement. However, instead of disconnected body-identities (Net
operators and online users) controlling the ebb and flow of information, collective
online data activity is controlling (moving) the corporeal body. Moreover, instead
of a natural internal nervous system stimulating proprioception21 and prompting
muscles to move, an unnatural virtual system transporting electronic information
is executing the stimulation needed to activate the real body. In addition to
serving as a data transmitter, the Internet extends the limitations of the body by
acting as a transducer. Cyber-academic Fernandes (2002:03) explains the
techno-neurological process as follows:

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 The encephalon [the vertebrate brain] only adjusts the internal voltage to
stimulate muscle reaction. This regulates the chronaxie, i.e. the speed and
voltage at which a muscle or nerve fiber is stimulated. While the inner stimulation
is electrical in nature, Stelarc is adding additional electricity [in the form of
Internet traffic] to the chronaxie… that causes involuntary movement,
unregulated by the encephalon.

Although the aim of PingBody (Fig.3.4) is primarily to demonstrate the body’s

unpredictable reaction to a simulated nervous system, it may also be interpreted
as a performance that demonstrates the obsolescence of corporeal body-identity
within the parameters of a virtual environment and thus the possibility of a new
virtual-body-identity.

Fig.3.4:Stelarc performance/Artspace,2002.PingBody,

http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/pingbody/html.

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Why does the natural body become involuntarily contractive during information
overload? Evidently the processing power of the human brain cannot sustain the
data acceleration stimulated by virtual and other related technologies. Through
this performance (PingBody) Stelarc appears to suggest that the human body
fails as a modular design. Stelarc confirms this viewpoint when he comments (In
Atzori & Woolford, 2002:02) that it (the natural body) is “biologically inadequate”.
Stelarc and other Extropians (supporters of extropic art and innovation) who
share his dream of a body without organs suggest a new biocompatible shell
enhanced by “the most disparate technologies, which are more precise,
accurate, and powerful” (Atzori & Woolford, 2002:02). The aim is thus to
supplement body-identity with reconfigurable technology to aid it in tracking the
evolutionary pace of the machines of the Information era. The natural body might
have to become post-natural, i.e. techno-biological. Taken to the extreme, human
body-identity might have to become a post-human body, a body alien to itself, to
truly achieve symbiosis with its electronically extra-terrestrial22 environment.

In addition, in order for body-identity to expand and multiply its operational

possibilities, it needs to be “disconnected from its functions by technological
mediation” (Dery, 1996:164). It appears logical to conclude from this that the
corporeal body is subject to technological metamorphosis. It is likely that it might
have to take on an anomalous shape to exist efficiently in a world saturated with
machines.

If monstrosity is defined as severe abnormality due to bodily irregularities, then

the superior cyborg body imagined by Stelarc should also be categorized as a
monster on the basis of its unnatural technological extensions, integrations,
amplifications, additions, and organic subtractions. In the same way as
hermaphrodism monstrously introduces the conception of a bi-gendered being,
man-machine hybrids (cyborgisms) initiate a multi-gendered genus. As Dixon
(2002:par 02) states:

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 Cyborg ontology similarly symbolizes a trajectory towards a significant inner
gendering as metal and machine, whilst retaining or extending exteriorities of the
masculine and/or the feminine.

Stelarc’s concept of a cyborg is not merely about replacing malfunctioning body

parts, but rather about intensifying the erasure of human body-identity as it exists
today. Stelarc’s third sex (cyborgs) could, at least in theory, be the first steps
toward the standardization of human sexuality. But does this necessarily mean
the destabilization of the fundamental differences between a man and a woman?
One could dispute that the mass introduction of cyborg body-identities will
obscure gender rather than standardize it.

Post-humanist theorist Margrit Shildrick (1996:08) believes that it is imperative to

understand the cyborg condition beyond conventional dual structures:

I am on the side of the monsters [cyborgs] as signifiers of the radical

destabilization of the binary processes of identity and difference. Monsters clearly
cannot exist apart from ‘normal’ bodies, but at the same time they are excessive
to the binary, uncontained by any fixed category of exclusion… .[The]
catachrestic term ‘monster’ both escapes binary closure and displaces simple
difference.

From this perspective it is evident that although the monstrous condition of the
cyborg could to some extent free the self from the binary opposite that is
masculine/feminine, it suggests the formulation of new, inescapable, multipart,
trinities (male/female/machine). Although it is not always clear what
consequences the cyborg will have on body-identity, it is very clear that it brings
with it a state of ambiguity.

In a cyber-body performance prior to PingBody entitled Fractal Flesh (Fig.3.5)

and subtitled Split Body:voltage-in/voltage-out (1995), Stelarc connected his
body and his collaboratively designed Third Hand (Fig.3.6) (a humanoid-like
electromechanical hand) to muscle-activating circuitry using a powerful online

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Macintosh computer. The Macintosh computer was Net-linked to online
computers in Paris, Amsterdam, and Helsinki. Participants at these stations were
able to jolt Stelarc’s muscles into action by pressing on a touch-sensitive screen
on which a three-dimensional representation of Stelarc’s body appeared. The
aim of Fractal Flesh is more or less the same as PingBody, although, in this
case, the physical actions of Stelarc’s body are induced by online participants
(tele-operators) rather than the statistical noise caused by Internet passage.
Stimulators attached to specific muscles such as the deltoids or biceps are
consciously activated via an interactive system.

During PingBody Stelarc’s musculature was randomly affected by an unaware

virtual consciousness in the form of data flow.

Fig.3.5:Stelarc,1995. Fractal Flesh, http://www.artscat.demon.co.uk/htm/eots/stelarc.htm

International Performance video still (620 by 800 pixels)

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Fig.3.6: Stelarc, 1995, Third Hand, http://www.artscat.demon.co.uk/htm/eots/stelarc.htm
Australian Performance video still (320 by 640 pixels)

Fractal Flesh can be understood as a dystopian prediction. Imagine a post-

human future in which the remote control of robots by human operators is
inverted. Stelarc (In Cassidy & Dixon, 1998:121) appears to be undisturbed by
this new possibility in tele-operation when he writes in his essay From psycho-
body to cyber-systems: images as post-human entities:

Given that a body is not in a hazardous location, there would be reasons to

remote–actuate a person, or part of a person, rather than a robot. Technology
now allows you to be physically moved by another [artificial] mind.

In this performance the term ‘fractal’ in Fractal Flesh may as well be replaced
with the term ‘split’. Currently much of one’s identity (medical records, credit
history, member details etcetera) is stored within databases on the Worldwide
Web. If tele-technology is evolving to such an extent as to allow individuals to

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activate the physical bodies of others, then the idea of sharing bodies should not
sound absurd.

In addition, one might argue that, to a degree, Net users are interchanging their
minds on the global telecommunications web. This is the split body and mind that
is the subtext of Fractal Flesh. Identity becomes fluid in an online environment.
Moreover, it becomes partially schizophrenic due to its displacement and virtual
ability to proliferate in simulated space. Body-identity is de-individualized and the
science fiction hive-mind or communal consciousness moves into the territory of
reality. The Fractal Flesh experiment turns Stelarc into a “posterboy for the
poststructuralist cult of the schizophrenic” (Dery, 2002:par 12).

Comparable to the schizophrenic self referred to in chapter two, the fractal body
adds to the notion of the de-centered and fragmented self that typifies the
philosophical writings of Deleuze and Guattari. Schizophrenia, in this instance,
can be defined as sharing one’s body with an artificial tele-operator, online
operator, or connecting with the thoughts of multiple Net users in the virtual
domain. Identity singularity is converted into partial selfhood.

Fractal Flesh also hints at fractal mathematics, possibly implying that the human
body has the potential to chaotically mutate when it is transferred into a decimal
construct. Furthermore, fractal flesh as a neural-direct body-identity is immortal
flesh since it is impervious to catabolic and terminal microbiological bacteria and
viruses. One could argue that artificial viruses exist in cybernetic systems. This is
true, however, cybernetics allows one to duplicate, rewrite, store information in
back-up systems and on compact discs. There always seems to be a way to
avoid or at least partially retrieve lost information. Digital body-identity can steer
clear of termination because it has protean abilities. An extreme view is that the
body as a digital image may be stored in random access memory eternally. As
Stelarc (In Cassidy & Dixon, 1998:123) puts it:

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 Technologies are becoming better life support systems for our images than for
our [natural] bodies. Images are immortal. Bodies are ephemeral. In the realm of
multiplying and morphing images, the physical body’s impotence is apparent.

It is exactly this prospect of a perpetual body that allows one to draw a

comparison between fractal or digital flesh and monstrous flesh. Akin to the
fictional immortality and shape-shifting abilities of mythological and science
fictional gods and monsters, the virtual cyborg identity is claiming its privileges to
an eternal and mutational existence. Essentially, the final product of the Fractal
Flesh project is the creation of a voluntary bio-virtual mutant identity (Stelarc)
serving as a host for a multiplicity of directing online sub-selves. It seems
multiplication and mutations are often the same thing. Mutation and deformity
often seem to share the same qualities. Furthermore, deformity and abnormality
are almost synonymous. It is my personal observation that the concept of the
monster or mutant is bound to be an inevitable by-product of bio-technological
symbiosis.

The concept of involuntary body-identity is taken one step further in Stelarc’s

1997 body performance called Parasite. With this project, Stelarc forces the
cyborg body into a new liaison with sequenced information. During the
performance a search engine randomly auto-scans the Net for anatomical,
medical and cyborg images. The JPEG (low-resolution image) data from these
related representations are then translated into electronic stimuli, which in turn,
are directed at the musculature of the body to produce involuntary body
movement. Fernandes (In Kroker, 2002:par 14) explains that “the simulated
visual body, or meta-body, moves the actual body”.

A symbiotic/parasitic relationship is established between the real body and the

simulated body-identity in cyberspace. The relationship is referred to as parasitic
because the corporeal body relies on an “extended virtual nervous system”
(search engine software and representational data) for movement (Stelarc,
1997:par 05). Simply stated, the immobile natural body becomes dependent on
an artificial consciousness. In this context the Internet is perceived as an
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independent entity that might be capable of existing without user connectivity.
Cyber-culture extremists may well construe this autonomous space as an
opportunity to leave the ‘meat’ behind through neural-direct transmigration.

In addition, one could consider that Parasite is an experimental performance that

borders on an omnipresent body correlation. McLuhan (In Dery, 1996:45) writes
about “a psychic communal integration made possible… by the electronic
media”. Instead of one body, one might have multiple bodies connecting and
reacting to loops of online body representations in the form of electric data
signals. In this fashion, the body becomes omnipresent or transcendental, not
only because a JPEG image of the corporeal body itself circulates the Web, but
because it reacts to images submitted to the Web around the globe.

The Internet facilitates a global awareness, stimulates body-identity, and serves

as a space for psychic transcendence. Stelarc (In Schaber, 1996:par 07) has on
more than one occasion stated that the body is no longer “a site for the psyche or
for social inscription, but rather… a structure [an object] for possible redesign”.
Instead of natural body-identity serving as the primary host for the psyche, Net-
space now gives the impression of being an alternative and competent
substitute. Apart from furthering the concept of an involuntary cyber-body,
Parasite addresses the possibility that consciousness or mimesis no longer
strictly exists innately within the human mind, but externally as well, i.e. within
cyber-simulated space as a collective and virtual intelligence.

Moreover, the term ‘parasite’ suggests that the biological body is steering away
from human qualities towards a non-human/parasite/cyborg persona. Since
Stelarc insists that corporeal body-identity is obsolete in form and function, it
comes as no surprise that he proposes an involuntary, virtually stimulated cyborg
creature as an impending replacement.

The term ‘parasite’, which, in my opinion, has an insectoidal ring to it, takes
physical shape in one of Stelarc’s 2001 performances entitled Locomotor: a
hybrid human-machine system (Fig.3.7). Similar to a previous walking machine
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called Exoskeleton, which involved a “six-legged, pneumatically powered walking
machine”, the Locomotor too resembles an insect (Geary, 2002:112). The
difference with this improved version is that the robotic insect is autonomous, i.e.
powered internally, and far more flexible. The aim of the project was to explore
the field of cyborg choreography. The actions of the body performance
artist/operator/dancer are cybernetically translated into mechanical locomotion.
Not only are machine and material body unified through the integral employment
of biocompatible technology, but through expression as well. According to Stelarc
(2001:par 05) this interdisciplinary performance, which brings dance,
engineering, art and adaptive human-machine interfacing systems together,
promises to broaden the frontiers of cyborg choreography in the following ways:

How body structure can be extended through machine mechanisms points to

how the body can perform beyond its biological form and functions as well as
beyond the local space it inhabits. How human movement is transduced into
machine motion and then can be both expressed and extended into virtual
performance on the web [hold] possibilities in both conceptual approach and
aesthetic application.

Whilst reading the article on Locomotor, one realizes that Stelarc discusses his
walking machine as if it were a superior structure for future intuitive movement. It
is also worth noting that Locomotor is Stelarc’s second insectoidal structure that
concentrates on body movement extension. In part, this performance project is a
result of behaviour research. “In examining ants, spiders and other insects”,
writes Stelarc (1998:par 03), “there is a realization that the complexity of their
behaviour is the manifestation of the complexity of their environment”.

One could infer from this that Stelarc has taken it upon himself and his team of
collaborators to invent machines that will enhance human action and
consequently behaviour in a continually expanding, complex, and governing
electronic environment.

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 Fig. 3.7: Stelarc, 2001. Locomotor: a hybrid human-machine system, Internet:
http://crossings.tcd.ie/issues/1.2/Stelarc/htm

Fig. 3.8: Stelarc, 1998. Exoskeleton – Event for extended body and walking machine,

Internet: http://www.werkleitz.de/~pape/d/04projects/1998stelarc/stelarc.html

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So the insect turns out to be a metaphor for the human beings that reside in
electrically powered cities. As controversial culture critic Timothy Leary (In Falk,
1993:04) writes, “We see our cities, our civilizations, as insect hives, ant colonies
peopled by larval crawling creatures”.

It becomes apparent, when reading cyberpunk or contemporary science fiction

novels, that Stelarc is not the only artist or thinker who has conjured up the idea
of a technological insect or arachnid. For example, there is the popular
contemporary and commercial Swiss artist H. R. Giger, who, ad nauseam, fuses
alien insects and machines in post-apocalyptic and biotechnological landscapes.
However, it is science fiction writers such as Greg Bear and particularly Bruce
Sterling who excel at providing the extraterrestrial-obsessed public with
spectacular mental images of insect-like machines.

In some of Sterling’s texts the insect becomes a metaphor for the transgression
of biology and technology – a symbol of the otherness of cyborg formations.
Scott Bukatman (2000:106) quotes from Sterling’s short story entitled Sunken
Gardens, “The crawler lurched as its six picklike feet scrabbled down the slopes
of a deflation pit. The crawler ran spiderlike along the crater’s snowy rim”.

In these examples, the modeling of machine upon insect is very clear. However,
Stelarc’s Locomotor is an insectoidal cyborg that combines more than just insect
and machine, it attempts to merge insect, machine, and human body-identity.
The alien/insect is no longer an intimidating entity from outer space, but a central
component and extended structure of the human body. Stelarc might be read as
an innovator of terrestrial aliens/insects. The first stirrings of alien life may well
come from planet Earth. Perhaps the idea of the cyborg is based on an inherent
human urge to leave this planet in search of new life through space exploration.
Would it not be necessary for the body to become technologically compatible in
order to achieve a durability that will endure in an extraterrestrial environment?
The body might need to transfigure itself into a Sterling-like anomaly to survive in
the uninhabitable and uninviting zones of space. Stelarc (In Cassidy & Dixon,
1998:118) appears to share this view when he proposes that the “the significance
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of technology may be that it culminates in alternate awareness – one that is
POST-HISTORIC, TRANSHUMAN and even EXTRATERRESTRIAL”.22

Much of Stelarc’s poetic cyborg philosophy is centered on the idea of

electronically expanding human physiology in such a way as to compose a highly
flexible body-identity that is less vulnerable in rapidly increasing techno-
surroundings. It is clear that not all of Stelarc’s projects revolve around insect
machinery, however, once Stelarc’s body is hooked up to his augmenting
cybernetic hardware, it resembles what can only be described as a ‘carnival’23
cyborg. The carnival cyborg celebrates its departure from the human
physiological norm and signals the end of bodily limitations with no particular new
form in mind.

Stelarc’s science fiction fantasy of hollowing out the soft, wet, fragile, mortal body
and hardwiring it to become a monstrous cyborg formation for space exploration
purposes has been criticized by Dr. Richard Restak (1991:16) as
“pathological…destructive [and] narcissistic…”. This may well be the case;
nevertheless, Stelarc does succeed in making one rethink the degree of control
one has over one’s body. Furthermore, although at times fanatical, his work
emphasizes the improvisation of corporeal body-identity.

Moreover, his speculative premonitions of the future state of body-identity is

worth noting since the technological means to achieve such bodies is detaching
itself from science fiction visions. In stating this I do not imply that Stelarc is some
kind of psychic or clairvoyant artist. He is merely receptive to the current
accelerated pace of cybernetic advancement in developing countries. He is, as it
were, taking bodily evolution into his own hands. His cyber-body experiments can
hence be construed as a series of enduring propositions on how to achieve
bionic body-identity. It could it be that, by proposing these post-evolutionary
cyborg bodies, Stelarc is nurturing bodies that are counter to obsolescence.
What is clear however, is Stelarc’s ability to blur the line between techno-
scientific concerns and artistic aspirations. There is no doubt that he aims at

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securing the artist’s role as “avant garde for humanity” (Hammerstingl, 1997:par
14).

Finally, Stelarc drives his cyborg experimentation into surreal territories by

proposing the construction and attachment of an extra ear. Rather than electro-
mechanical augmentation, as was the case with his Third Hand project, the Extra
Ear (Fig.3.9) is a soft prosthesis. However, similar to Third Hand, Extra Ear adds
to material body-identity rather than normalizes it. Needless to say, Stelarc’s
cybernetic projects are seldom, if ever, about replacing a malfunctioning body
part. Instead, his specialized biocompatible devices extend, amplify, supplement,
and diversify the body.

With the support of the Tissue Culture & Art Project led by tissue technologists
Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, Stelarc has been given an opportunity to construct a
quarter-scale tissue replica of his own ear. His new soft prosthesis will be
cultured “in a rotating micro-gravity bioreactor which allows the cells to grow in
three dimensions” (Catts & Zurr, 2003:02). From there, the ear might have to be
transplanted onto Stelarc’s arm while further cosmetic, orthopedic and re-
constructive surgery is performed. Cartilage from his rib cage will be carved to
form the ear framework. A skin graft is required to cover the ear. As an
alternative to cartilage, silicone (Medpor) might be used to sculpt an anatomically
proportionate ear.

The re-transplantation or disconnection of the ear from the arm, and repositioning
of it in front or behind the existing right ear, requires further cosmetic surgery
under general anesthesia. In addition, Stelarc wishes to implant a sound chip into
his ear cavity that will make it possible for the ear to emit sounds or words when
a miniature speaker is connected. The attachment of a micro-modem and
compatible microcomputer with enough artificial memory to record and store new
sounds is a further possibility. The additive soft prosthesis “becomes a kind of
Internet antenna that telematically and acoustically scales up one of the body’s
senses” (Stelarc, 2003:par 06).

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Fig. 3.9: Stelarc, 2003. Extra Ear, Supported by Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr of the
Tissue Culture & Art Project, Digital image (580 by 790 pixels)
Internet: http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/extra_ear/

As I have already stated, it is not Stelarc’s aim to bionically repair the corporeal
body. His cyber-art is not restorative, but rather focuses on counteracting
obsolete material body-identity by cyber-technologically generating a cyborg
body that is excessive to the natural body. Three ears are hardly a normal
feature of the human body as one knows it. It is a form of anatomical
inconsistency. In Stelarc’s instance, one might refer to it as a form of voluntary
abnormality. Here, cosmetic surgery and reconstructive surgery are employed,
not for the prolongation of beauty or the rectification of irrational flesh, but for the
purpose of designing a monstrous body. As Stelarc (2003:03) writes:

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 It is not simply about the modifying or the adjusting of existing anatomical
features (now sanctioned in our society), but rather, what’s perceived as the
more monstrous pursuit of constructing an additional feature that conjures up
either some congenital defect, an extreme body modification or even perhaps a
radical genetic intervention.

One could read Stelarc’s cyborg performances as post-humanist body art with
the aptitude to change conventional attitudes toward controversial body-
identities. He is progressively and systematically familiarizing viewers with the
dissimilar and unstable profile of imminent cyborg body-identity. As an alternative
to reading Stelarc’s projects solely as evidence of the obsolescence of natural
body-identity, one can translate them as confirmation that the obsolete body is
rescued from total loss by the substitution of multiple monstrous and/or
spectacular post-human/cyborg bodies. In relation to this Gray (2002:193) writes:

Cyborging ourselves is costuming ourselves from the inside out, a disturbing

techno-carnival with permanent consequences. [D]elightful and disturbing
imaginings of beautiful and grotesque technoscience. Some dreams and some
nightmares seem fated to come to pass.

It is precisely these abovementioned ‘nightmares’ that Stelarc, without it being his

chief intention, renders increasingly tolerable. With each new flesh-emphatic
cyborg experiment his “techno-surrealist sense of transgression” de-sensitizes
the public (Badmington, 2000:98). Each cyborg presentation is a step towards a
high post-humanist era in which monstrous cyber-humans have become
commonplace. Should one perceive this as a regrettable loss of human identity?
Perhaps, given that this revolution is inevitable, one should exchange this cynical
stance with a more optimistic one. Corporeal body-identity is not entirely erased.
What is more, it is not irreplaceable. Loss of human identity thus implies the
inauguration of new transhuman or cyborg identities. It might just be that the
transhuman/cyborg identity permits a far more extensive choice of body-identities
with capacities that overshadow the abilities of the present outmoded natural
body. In this context, loss of stable identity is balanced by the multiplication and
diversification of body-identity.
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3.2 Orlan and cosmetic body modification

This section will focus primarily on Orlan’s most renowned performance entitled
The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan (1990 onwards), which is an ongoing face-
altering project. Attention will also be given to the project entitled Omnipresence:
the second mouth (1993), as well as a series of digital self-portraits called
Refiguration/Self-Hybridation (1998-1999). However, prior to describing and
discussing the content of these works in detail, a brief background should be
sketched against which to read the artist’s intentions and motivations in relation
to traditional body art.

Orlan is a notorious contemporary French body artist who subjects herself to

cosmetic surgery whilst viewers from around the globe watch her via visiophone,
satellite and real-time video stream on the Net. Through these transformational
cosmetic operations she challenges old binary opposites. She removes the
divide between pain and pleasure, abjection and beauty, construction and
deconstruction, private and public.

Her real name remains a mystery while her new name is borrowed from the
synthetic fiber Orlon. In an essay by Linda S. Kauffman (1996:42) entitled Bad
Girls and Sick Boys: Inside the body in fiction, film and performance art, she
responds to this fitting pseudonym by observing, “Orlan – a synthetic name to
match a synthetic identity-in-process”. Just as Orlan’s real name is something of
a mystery, her artistic intentions may be unclear to a great deal of the public. This
might be due to the intricacy and compound symbolic messages within her work.

One may argue that she aims to determine whether self-presentation is true to
one’s inner reality. Orlan denies that her face-in-process is an attempt at a
feminine ideal formulated by phallocentric24 desire. She also denies that her face
is an artificial mask for marketing purposes. Her work may be construed as a
reaction against the evils of the beauty myth and a post-humanist response to
the possible obsolescence of the corporeal body. Unlike Stelarc, post-human

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exploration is limited to the face. Her face is post-human in that it deviates from
the norm and corresponds to the unfixed and de-centered attributes that define
the schizophrenic body-identity in the previous chapter.

One cannot ignore the diversity of technology Orlan employs to realize her work.
Apart from the use of cybernetic technology in the form of online and off-line
communication systems, she uses an array of biomedical technology. She is a
performance artist, a body artist, and a professed feminist with post-humanist
interests. Conceivably it would make more sense if one referred to her as a
technological body modification artist. In addition one might call her a self-
absorbed flesh artist since the emphasis is always on the alteration of her own
soft tissue. Orlan could also qualify as a neo-surrealist, because instead of
delving into the unconscious (dreams) as a means to acquire an irrational or
unusual image, Orlan relies on de- and re-constructive surgical methods and
techniques to sculpt an unnatural and sometimes monstrous facial identity. Just
as the metamorphosis of form plays a crucial part in surrealist objects, so too
metamorphosis acts as the essential process that leaves Orlan’s facial identity in
continual flux.

Moreover, her work draws a powerful comparison between “religious martyrdom

and the contemporary suffering for beauty through plastic surgery” (Rose,
1993:par 08)). There seems to be an association between ‘rebirth’ in the
Christian sense of the word, and Orlan’s endless facial ‘rebirths’. Her work should
however not be wrongly interpreted as an eternal striving for unachievable
perfection, as she is not concerned with satisfying the male gaze. Nevertheless
she perceives her body as a transitory uniform that must be disposed of, or as
meat that must be carnalised. Orlan (2004:01) defines her Carnal Art as follows:

Carnal Art is a self-portrait in the classical sense, yet realized through the
technology of its time. Lying between disfiguration and figuration, it is an
inscription in flesh. No longer seen as the ideal it once represented, the body has
become a modified ready-made.

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As one can deduce from this definition of Carnal Art, the new body art no longer
celebrates the body as an authentic and natural site for identity formulation, but
rather as a physical site mediated by twenty-first century technology. This new
generation of body artists (Stelarc, D.A. Therrien, Orlan and the like) have
detached themselves from many of the aspirations and motifs of their 1960s and
1970s predecessors. For example, the Actionists used the visceral and
inescapable natural qualities of the corporeal body. However, in contrast with
Orlan, they used it to address such issues as alienation, political anxiety, the
cruelty of war, class struggle, and the psychological implications of rapid
transformations enforced by modernity in the late nineteenth century. During this
time the body was celebrated as an organic pre-representational presence or
psychobiological structure under threat by new modernist ideals that denounced
the body as a holy embodiment of the spirit. The consumption of biological waste
such as excrement by the Actionist Gunter Brus can be construed as a “bitter
allusion to the closed circuits of modernism and as a performance of an organic
counterpart to the cold, alienated self-referentiality common to avant-garde
modernist art” (In Jones & Stephenson, 1999:146). By emphasizing the
humanness of the body during this transitional period characterized by
mechanical glorification, the Actionists brought attention to the suppression of the
biological body as metaphor for individuality and human rights.

Orlan, on the other hand, does not focus on the body as a politically charged
organic site, but as an alterable site that can be shared via virtual
communications technology to stimulate public debate. The result is that Orlan’s
‘real’ or present flesh is localized and isolated, whilst her mediatized body is
scattered worldwide. The visual recording, communication, and other cybernetic
devices that surround her during her Carnal Art procedures convert her organic
flesh into transmittable digital representations. Her organic flesh is translated into
virtual flesh and is as a consequence present (embodied) and absent
(disembodied) concomitantly. Orlan utilizes contemporary cyber-technology to
devise “a new psychological self-portrait, one that reflects the impact of those
technologies” (Smith & Watson, 1996:43).

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Many other new generation body artists who began their careers during the
media explosion of the late 1970s through to the 1980s employ video and related
electronic media. There has been a shift of focus from the pre-cybernetic natural
body in agony, to the synthetic and mutant body in the form of mannequins
(Cindy Sherman), cyborgs (Lee Bull), androids (Mariko Mori) and other
automaton-like figures. Orlan’s pro-technological ethics and aesthetics may be
considered as quite different from the anti-technological views of the 1960s
feminist body performance artist Carolee Schneeman. Schneeman was opposed
to technology because of its connection to war and militaristic weaponry. To
Orlan, the connections with technology are much broader and are primarily
centered on the communication of her new faciality. Without technology her
Carnal Art would lose much of its vitality.

Furthermore, Orlan’s art “does not desire pain as a means of redemption, or to

attain purification” (Orlan, 2004:01). Although Orlan’s performances seem
painful, her body is numbed by local anesthetics, epidurals, morphine and other
related analgesics.25 The body is no longer necessarily an agonizing
battleground. Modern medicine allows one to cheat pain.

Nor is her work about the celebration of blood as symbol of realness. Blood
symbolizes the sacrifice of the original body-identity. Bodily expulsions such as
urine and feces, which have been used ad nauseam by the Actionists, by Andy
Warhol in his oxidation pictures, by Andres Serrano in Piss Christ (1987), and
Helen Chadwick in Piss Flowers (1994), seem to have lost their shock value in
the field of contemporary body art (Ince, 2000:48). Orlan aims at redirecting
traditional body art (or body fluid art) with an erotic approach that involves the
active and obsessive extraction of flesh from her body. Once extracted, the meat
is measured, weighed and encased in resin for display purposes. Her subject
may be considered taboo, as not many artists use their own flesh as the material
for their art. In this way, Orlan’s body becomes a factory for a rare and limited
creative medium. Not only has Orlan extended body art, but she has rescued the
abject potential of corporeal art by providing it with a carnal26 new product that is
still largely suppressed in the artistic realm.
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Despite the use of such a material, Orlan (2004:par 03) insists that Carnal Art “is
not self-mutilation”. It should not be mistaken for an irrational and meaningless
assault against the body. Orlan is not psychotic. Her art is a continual refusal of a
consistent identity, which, in my opinion, is an ideal state or condition in a digital
era differentiated by ‘ephemerality’, multiplicity, schizophrenia, simulation
(virtuality), and fragmented desire.

Orlan’s surgical performance entitled The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan, which

began in 1990, is probably the most renowned and extensive project that Orlan
has undertaken. The surgical procedures are part of public display. Orlan is
usually dressed in Judeo-Christian garments surrounded by religious icons and
baroque ornaments while she reads from feminist essays or recites reinterpreted
quotes from the bible. Orlan’s self-remodelling involves the alteration of her facial
features into facial features taken from some of the greatest Western art icons.
These include Gustav Moreau’s Europa (because she glances at a foreign
continent, indicating a curiosity for the unfamiliar), Botticelli’s Venus (because of
her relation to creativity and fertility), Leonardo’s Mona Lisa (for her
mysteriousness and androgyny), Gerome’s Psyche (because of her yearning for
spiritual beauty), and Diana the goddess of hunting for her dominant and
aggressive personality (Clarke, 2000:201).

Thus the project is divided into a series of self-transformational surgical

operations that may be interpreted as self-indulgent acts of narcissism. However,
narcissism only plays a part in Orlan’s work insofar as it refers to a semi-erotic
preoccupation with one’s own flesh. Her narcissistic approach has little in
common with beauty, rejuvenation, and the counteraction of a progressively
maturing body. Still, one is tempted to make connections between Orlan’s facial
incisions, masochism and the possibility of sexual pleasure resulting from the
carnal procedures. But the urge is muted when one reminds oneself that Orlan’s
surgery does not come to pass without the presence of potent analgesics. If
there does exist some form of sexual perversion in her work it is voyeuristic, and
rests with the viewer. The narcissistic space opened up by her visceral modus
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operandi “is not lost in its own reflection” (Ince, 2000:49). Unlike the mythological
Narcissus, she does not fall in love with her fixed body-identity. Orlan is
mesmerized by her reflection as fractured, punctured, transitional, partial, and
alien. She acknowledges that the psychical atlas of her body is not a composed
and ideal whole. She counteracts the illusion before it can inflict its alienation. As
Orlan (In Rose, 1993:83-125) articulates, “Being a narcissist isn’t easy when the
question is not of loving your own image, but of recreating the self through
deliberate acts of alienation”. Here one can link the isolated schizophrenic body-
identity with the self-inflicted condition of alienation. Post-humanism is a constant
play of overlapping and enmeshment.

In addition, Orlan seems to be specifically interested in the process of cosmetic

modification as an exploration of transitional identity. One might say she is
primarily interested in the new non-fixed identities that arise between each
consecutive operation. One could easily misinterpret it as infinite pathological
dissatisfaction with new facial configurations.

As I have already stated, this project is not, according to Orlan, an extreme

attempt at achieving ultimate beauty, but a strategy “to work against notions of
aesthetic unity and identical resemblance” (Ince, 2000:46). It is not the final
metamorphic product with which she seems to be concerned, but the spaces
linking the pre-surgery and post-surgery subject.

After studying the cult of Kali during a trip to India, Orlan began to compare
herself to the mythological shape shifting Hindu goddesses. Early New Age
feminist Carolee Schneeman was also known to apply mythological deities to the
meaning of her art. Dery (1996:158-159) remarks:

Performances such as [Schneeman’s] Eye Body (1963), a neo-shamanic

[transcendental] ritual in which the recumbent artist, daubed with paint and
writhing with snakes, impersonated a statue of a Cretan goddess, prefigured the
passionate interest among feminist body artists in the Great Goddess, the Earth
Mother, and other pre-Christian deities.

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But while Schneeman uses these pre-patriarchal archetypes as symbols of
female empowerment, Orlan uses the Hindu shape-shifters as metaphors for
volatility, and the corporeal body as a vehicle for voluntary, technological
conversion. One could infer from this that Orlan’s Hindu-inspired inclination to
literally inscribe and reshape material or body-identity is in contrast to the Judeo-
Christian belief system that recognizes the biological body as a sacred temple
that houses the Holy Spirit. Some viewers of Orlan’s reincarnation may perceive
it as an artistic assault driven by blatant atheism. Moreover, her incessant body
modifications, which come across as being almost obsessive-compulsive, appear
to be reactions against Judeo-Christian religion’s rejection of bodily pleasure.

Every step in Orlan’s transformation is shared via telecommunication systems

and gives the impression of being demonstrative. It is almost as if she is tutoring
the viewer on the age-old language of the body. In relation to this Orlan
(2004:par 04) writes, “Carnal Art transforms the body into language, reversing
the Christian principle of ‘the word made flesh’ [to] the flesh made word”.

The comparison between Orlan and the baroque religious iconography that
surround her during the performance may be read as profane; however, it is not
the only possible reading. It is a response to the Western convention of dividing
the female image into either a Madonna (purity) or a whore (sin). What Orlan
attempts to convey is the inseparability and natural co-existence of these
opposites. These extreme poles should exist in equilibrium. Purity and impurity
should be balanced in both genders. Orlan’s project is thus a rejection of the
female as either exclusively Madonna-like or a whore. She strives to create an
ambiguous body that will challenge “prevailing Western concepts of identity”
(Adams, 2003:02).

The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan examines the inimitability of identity and re-
delineates it as an attribute loaded with suppressed uncertainty. When Orlan (In
Adams, 2003:02) states, “This is my body… this is my software”, she is in fact
suggesting that one’s corporeal body is one’s re-configurable asset and that its
biological destiny can, like virtual skin, easily be altered by probing its barrier.
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Exterior body identity becomes subject to the abstract desires of the interior or
psycho-self. In this light it would seem that Orlan’s facial reincarnation aims at
ceaselessly aligning facial identity with an inner reality that encompasses all the
traits of a developing and change-receptive personality, i.e. a conglomeration of
volatile emotions, shifts in behaviour patterns, and many other continually
distorting psychological attributes. The inner Orlan is therefore fragmented and in
continual flux. It is the skin that gives the illusion of a collected, organized, and
whole body. Once the skin is transgressed, the body discloses its true internal
temperament. The viscous interior of the body is irrational and unpredictable,
consisting of complex layers of interwoven muscle, a confusing mass of entrails,
acidic fluids, and other perplexing inter-somatic solids and fluids. Orlan’s face
becomes a screen, an imitation of her complex bio-interiority.

By employing sophisticated medical technology, state-of-the-art morphing

programs and precision surgical implements, Orlan demonstrates how the
heterogeneous properties of her corporeal body serve as software to re-sculpt
her physical identity and simultaneously evade the psychic illusion coupled with
the exterior body as a permanently composed gestalt. Simply stated, Orlan’s
visceral productions are acts of reconciliation that recognize the form-deficient
interior of the natural body.

Furthermore, her ever-new face has the ability to oppose “the reassuring
jubilatory pleasure of recognizing one’s mirrored body image as one’s own” (Ince,
2000:52). However, it is mostly Orlan’s audience that endures chaotic feelings of
anti-pleasure in the form of revolt and revulsion. She becomes an active display
of repeated disarray with which the audience can identify although she does not
seem to perceive her premeditated visceral discord to be a mode of grotesque
dismemberment. The capacity to glance into the wetter realms of the body
entices her rather than repels her. This is made very clear when Orlan (2004:par
05) observes, “Darling, I love your spleen; I love your liver; I adore your
pancreas, and the line of your femur excites me”.

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One might add that The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan produces what can be
termed bodily monstrosity. However, the transitory monstrous cyborg that she
sculpts from her own tissue during the surgical operations bears the conventional
connotations (repulsion, terror, fear) with monstrosity. Surgical reconstruction can
be considered monstrous, but Orlan displays it as something that holds great
attraction. Horror, in the shape of tainted flesh, is eroticised in that the operating
surgeons treat it so delicately and meticulously.

The abjection produced by the exposure of the uncoordinated territory beneath

the membrane is conveyed as sensual and exquisite. It seems her carnal acts of
transgression are more than just distressing visual assaults. They aim at
destabilizing conformist Western body logic in general. They are attempts to
reverse the stigmas attached to the body once it is contravened. It seems that
Orlan is at the forefront of accepting the ‘unnatural’ body identity of the
cyborg/monster.

The surgically discordant faces that define The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan
(Fig.3.10) need not be described as monstrous based on their incompleteness
and partiality, but merely as a more transparent form of beauty. The most
obvious function of Orlan’s surgical productions is that they do not protect the
viewer with the illusion of wholeness. As an alternative, they immediately
confront the viewer with the reality of the deficiency, inconsistency, and
macrobiotic chaos contained within corporeal body-identity. In the case of
Stelarc, these internal organic qualities (macrobiotic inconsistencies that often
render the body permeable to viral infection, premature aging and the like) might
be considered as the legitimate reasons behind the outmoded design of the
natural body.

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Fig.3.10: Orlan, 1993 Photos of The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan: Omnipresence Series
France: Sandra Gering Gallery (Ince, 2000:43)

It becomes clear that Orlan’s post-humanist subject matter can be divided into
two distinct yet related categories. Her work focuses on the post-human as
monster while conversely approaching the post-human in a technological or
cyborg sense. I will concentrate on those images that combine these two
divergent post-humanist categories. The emphasis is on the techno-monstrous,
the monstrous cyborg, and the monstrous cyber-feminine. Moreover, her art
seems to dwell on the incomplete stages of the technological modification of
human into non-human. During Orlan’s seventh operation performance entitled
Omnipresence (1993), which was transmitted live over the Net for all online body
art enthusiasts to watch, a photograph was taken of a surgical incision made just
below her chin (Fig.3.11) This was later titled The Second Mouth (Ince, 2000:41).
At first glance the crimson slit could easily be mistaken for a real second mouth
being tampered with by dentists and not one created by cosmetic surgeons. The
image is both horrific and surreal, bringing H.R. Giger’s simultaneously horrific
and erotic double-mouthed Alien (1978) to mind (Fig.3.12). Moreover, it is a
confrontational image for the spectators of the live surgical performance. Ince
(2000:57) supposes that there is “a kind of visual sadism” involved in this highly
visceral and graphic presentation.

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One might even describe The Second Mouth as a live body performance that
synchronizes repulsion and attraction. Like the female vagina, the mouth is an
entrance, albeit oral, into the damp and fleshy domains of the corporeal body.

Fig.3.11: Orlan, (1993) Omnipresence: Second Mouth, Video Still during surgery
Internet: http://www.win-edu/users/gjr100/orlangallery.htm

Fig.3.12: H.R. Giger, (1978) Alien, Giger’s Alien, Zurich: Sphinx Publishing
Airbrushed illustration of the two-mouthed alien species

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This ‘second mouth’ is thus analogous with a second vagina. Moreover, it is
monstrous because, like Stelarc’s extra ear, it is excessive. Just as subtractions
from normative human physiologies, such as the loss of a particular limb causes
the body to appear anomalous, so additions to standard physiologies lead to
atypical or monstrous anatomies. However, from a prevailing phallocentric point
of view, the normal and natural vagina might be considered monstrous
regardless of additional irregularities of the flesh. For example, David
Cronenberg’s film Dead Ringers (1988) provides a disturbing analogy. To the
twin gynecological surgeons around whom the film revolves, “even normal
women are abnormal by reason of their bodily [genital] difference from males”
(Beard, 2001:254). From this perspective, all women are deformed mutants.
Orlan’s second mouth/vagina adds an additional angle to the existing reasons for
possible vaginal/oral monstrosity. In this case it is the duplication and
displacement of the mouth/vagina that lends it its monstrosity.

Orlan’s Second Mouth attracts because it contradicts the familiar. It is a new

object of desire; it is an alien mouth and a mutant vagina. This bloody new mouth
takes the metaphoric place of the menstrual vagina and so assaults the viewer
with its gross intensity. As feminist theoretician Julia Kristeva (1982:53) writes,
“The abjection of those [blood] flows from within suddenly become the sole object
of sexual desire”. Second Mouth may be interpreted as suggesting a new and
excessive difference from both the male and female body. It carries with it the
power to concurrently assault and project desire onto the voyeuristic male gaze.
According to Ince (2000:59), deplorable, exhibitionistic, and assaulting
performances, which The Second Mouth certainly is, have equalizing powers:

While performance is aggressive spectacle, it is performative; it enacts a shift in

power relations between the sexes. The outcome, if the male spectator does not
leave the room, is greater equality between masculine and feminine positions in
the viewer-viewed relationship.

What is more, Second Mouth is a live performance broadcast worldwide via the
Net, hence its emphatic title Omnipresence. Since the act is made possible by a
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progeny of hybrid media equipment, the viewer-viewed relationship becomes a
play of interactive, virtual, digital, and global visual animosity. Orlan’s new mouth
is translated into a shared online experience, enabling her to inflict the magnetic
horror of her identity-in-process on men and women alike. One could go as far as
to redefine Orlan as a virtual monster that practices a somewhat perverse
addiction to surgical atrocity.

Her face, disjointed, uncoordinated, and blemished with multiple scars, is a

violent experience to the viewer, yet the eye is compelled to see more. One
might compare this urge to visually experience anomalous infringements on the
normative with the compulsion some individuals have to incessantly watch horror
and other splatter or slasher films. If horror cinema can be defined as endlessly
reiterated tales of terror, then Orlan’s reincarnation can be defined as incessantly
repeated spectacles of flesh adjustments. In an essay entitled The Eye of Horror,
cinema theorist Carol Clover (1992:213) equates this kind of repetition impulse
with a subconscious “historical suffering – suffering that has been more or les
sexualized as erotogenic27 masochism”.

Yet, beyond all this emphasis on grotesque horror, there subsists reason behind
it. Even though Orlan’s facial transformations may be described as monstrous
acts of overindulgence, her surgical experiments are highly aesthetic in that they
“test the possibilities for altering form and feature” (Gray, 2000:par 07).
Moreover, they are social because each consecutive operation arouses reaction
to such controversial bodily alterations.

If horror addiction is related to a sort of masochistic pleasure derived from

identifying with the suffering subject in the horror film, then not only is it possible
that some of Orlan’s spectators are experiencing this pleasure, but it is also likely
that she is experiencing it too. Orlan does not need to identify with a secondary
tormented subject since she is the subject, and the pleasure that she might
derive from the surgical experience is generously shared via an assortment of
communications technologies.

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Above all, Second Mouth suggests bodily deviation and competes for the
legitimacy of the non-normative. One might say that an extra ‘mouth’ partially
robs one of one’s humanness. However, because one knows that Orlan is in fact
unconditionally human, monstrosity is protected from being solely identified
through the externalized and confined space of otherness. One could argue that
the Second Mouth signifies the inseparability and connectedness of the human-
monster constitution.

In addition, Orlan does not create horror, anomaly, and repulsion as a separate
unit or work of art. She is the repulsion in existence. Like Stelarc, she puts an
explicit “surrealist sense of transgression” into practice (Bukatman, 1993:260). In
this way, she compels the viewer to question the perilous correlations she
makes, albeit unconsciously. One could call it Orlan’s traumatic tactic of
opposing the suppression of the post-industrial body in order to release
otherness (hybridity, horror, monstrosity) from binary isolation.

By challenging one to visually experience the visceral monster below one’s skin,
and the techno-monstrous associations in digital morph images of herself, she
brings the viewer face-to-face with that which was traditionally considered better
left ignored, concealed and confined. By technologically transgressing the
contemporary body she is, firstly, alerting one to the probable warnings
associated with the atypical post-human, and, secondly, taking it upon herself to
stimulate the active evolution of the deviant post-human.

One might find it difficult to grasp the reasoning behind Orlan’s simultaneous
feminist detestation of the unattainable ideals of beauty imposed on women in
particular, and her active support (corporeal reconstruction) in the sphere of post-
humanism. It seems almost contradictory. Her statement, “Like … Stelarc, I
believe that the body is obsolete. It can no longer deal with the situation,” (In
Gray, 2000:03) is clearly in defense of a universal post-humanist viewpoint. One
might find it hard to believe that Orlan is a true feminist with real concerns about
the suffering of women under extreme beauty expectations. Dery (1996:241)
observes:
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 Those who declare [cosmetic] war on the natural are in no position to bemoan
the unnatural standards of beauty imposed by our society; if the body is simply
so much RAM (random access memory) waiting to be overwritten with new data,
one cut is as good as another.

Dery, understandably, perceives Orlan’s intentions skeptically. However, her

attention to post-human or cyborg politics can also be understood as one of the
multiple facets that define her artistic motives. As a feminist it is one of Orlan’s
prerogatives to release the female gender from all Western, essentialized,
phallocentric notions that predefined women. The post-humanist aspect of her
work may then be understood as an effort to provide the collective female with
the opportunity to be reborn and exist without inflexible denotations born under
sexist oppression. Thus Orlan’s work relates to Haraway’s cyborg concept that
dissolves all pre-existing boundaries.

The notion of the cyborg appears to be a key formula in the renewal and
redefinition of womanhood. As Ince (2000:90) writes:

Among the continually self-renewing forms of feminist humanity called for by

Haraway, the cyborg is privileged because it figures innumerable possible
multiple and hybrid identities. Its disrespect for the boundary between fact and
fiction conjures prospects of as yet unimagined bodily identities and social
formations.

Furthermore, it is not only the cyborg subject that proves a way out of the
repressive condition of the modern Western body, but it is also that which is
known as the ‘inbetween’ or monster. More accurately, it is an amalgamation of
the two. If the monstrous is defined as a perilous connection between nonhuman
and human, it possesses the fundamental trait that allows it to be compared with
the boldest non-binary force – the cybernetic organism.

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An explicit example of Orlan’s transformation into post-human or cyborg
monstrosity can be identified in a series of digitally altered and enhanced self-
portraits (Fig.3.13) entitled Refiguration/Self-Hybridation (1997-1999) in which
she investigates “standards of beauty in other cultures, civilizations and epochs”
(Ayers, 2000:177). In these pieces Orlan works with morphed images (extended
forehead, inscribed skin, protruding and sunken eyes) and stresses her face as
the ultimate site for the development of cross-cultural cyborg monstrosity. Her
face as surface skin becomes symbolic of her entire body, i.e. it is the
embodiment of her body in totality.

As Deleuze and Guattari (1988:168) write, “…the face is a horror story… a

screen”. Orlan realizes this statement by literally framing her face on video
screens. In this way she creates a body/face that is mediated, fragmented, and
multiple. She seems to acknowledge the inescapable schizophrenic identity that
characterizes the postmodern self.

Self-Hybridation No.10 Self-Hybridation No. 38

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Fig.3.13: Orlan (1997-1999), Refiguration/Self-Hybridation is a series of digitally
manipulated self-portraits, Internet: http://www.win.edu/users/gjr100/orlangallery.htm

Furthermore, by representing herself digitally, she is concurrently present and

absent; a mere chimera of her material embodiment. Her reconfigured self may
therefore be interpreted as a prefigurative28 virtual cyborg that draws its
simulated existence from her recorded and incomplete facial identity. The figures
of the Refiguration/Self-Hybridation series are curious but not fully monstrous.
The alterations, such as the facial skin lesions and bulbous forehead, are subtle,
lending them immense credibility. One might say that they signify the primary
stirrings of digital incongruity. They still seem to possess a degree of humanness.
It is this impression of human anomaly that contributes to an unmistakable sense
of ambiguity, sinister banality, and reserved monstrosity.

Some portraits in this series, such as Refiguration-Self-Hybridation No.10,

appear to have surrendered fully to cybernetic body distortion. It holds a hardly
recognizable level of humanness and indicates an acute loss of a former identity.
These images are examples of the possible extreme otherness that accompany
dangerous facial connections and alterations. The face is no longer a proper skin

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or mask that “conceals a monstrous horror of bloody tissue”, it has become “a
detachable, graftable… prosthesis” (Ince, 2000:78). Orlan does not utilize
cosmetic surgery for the individualist construction of a unique and improved body
identity. Her aim is rather to obtain an identity with neither a distinguishable
beginning, nor a clear end. She strives for an imprecise identity that exists free of
confinement. It appears as if Orlan’s wish is for society to acknowledge the
technological presence of the monstrous ‘inbetween’ identity. As Bojana Kunst
(2002:07) states:

As our contemporary monster, the body offers to our gaze the very presence of
embodiment, symbolizing open choice, fluidity, secrecy and playfulness. At the
same time, it never ceases to remind us of the fact that monstrous difference,
and inhuman traits are inscribed deeply into ourselves with us being part of the
indistinguishable.

What Kunst is suggesting is that humanity is in itself inseparable from

monstrosity. One could confer from this that if the non-human (monster, other,
cyborg) is still left without a clear and accepted category to which it can relate,
then the human is also destitute insofar as an official and internalized space of
recognition is concerned. From this perspective it appears that the human relies
on the non-human for its humanness. In addition, not only does the Refiguration
/Self-Hybridation series embrace techno-surreal monstrosity through a method of
creation, but also through subject matter involving the embodiment of self-identity
via otherness.

In a related piece entitled Refiguration/Self-Hybridation No.38 (1999) Orlan is

digitally distorted into what appears to be a woman with a grossly distorted nose.
The image supposes what Orlan might resemble once the bridge of her nose is
lifted and extended to form a beak-like nose and silicone is implanted into her
forehead. Although the face is obscure, the real horror of the work is a result of
the implantation and highly visceral reconstruction process. The final product is
curious and possesses a bizarre sense of attraction. It seems to be more
connected to surreal eroticism than with actual horror. One might say that, in this

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particular case, horror does not lead to the grotesque, but precedes and arouses
a sublime and irresistible erotic monster. According to art critic Jennifer B. Smith
(2004:02) “our compulsion to stare at freaks is symptomatic of a psychic need to
affirm our own tenuous boundaries”. Correspondingly, Orlan’s Refiguration/Self-
Hybridation No.38 alleviates the viewer of any insecurities relating to ‘normal’
body-identity.

However, Orlan manages to obscure what is constituted as abnormal. Her Carnal

Art projects, whether digital or material, could quite well contain the visual
potency needed to transform beauty and the grotesque into relative notions, or
on a more fundamental note, normalize otherness through the normalization and
naturalization of technologically assisted body modification/mutilation.

Just as the body, accidentally maimed by the impact of a car, may be construed
as a cyborg body because of its physiological re-adjustment by automobile
technology, so Orlan’s surgery transforms her into a cosmetic cyborg with an
obvious connection to cybernetic abjection. Within this framework her enduring
operations may be thought of as techno-surreal experiments that assess
contemporary post-industrial society’s reaction and readiness to accept the
monster/cyborg as an integral component of its erratic and consequently
uncertain condition.

Apart from the RefigurationSelf-Hybridation series, Orlan’s 1990 self-portrait

entitled Bride of Frankenstein, which depicts her in a rare non-visceral state and
crowned with an eccentric hairstyle, evidently implies a relationship with post-
humanity and its propensity for a plural identity. In an age characterized by new
reproductive technologies such as human and animal cloning, in vitro fertilization
and genetic engineering, the Bride of Frankenstein serves as an appropriate
metaphor for “the power to create life by non-natural means of reproduction”,
while also serving as a sort of biotechnological presentiment (Ince, 2000:83).

In contrast to the horror probabilities that underlie the proliferation of cyborgs,

Orlan’s Bride of Frankenstein (fig. 3.14) shows a confident attitude toward the
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production of future cyber-bodies. Moreover, it is an approximate inversion of the
fictional connotation behind Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein (The
Modern Prometheus). For example, Orlan may be compared to the creator of
Frankenstein, Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Like the fantastic Victor, Orlan constructs
a monster. However, unlike Dr. Victor’s monster/cyborg, which is an
externalization and extension of his inner monstrosity (disordered mind), Orlan’s
monster exists as an ordered, rational, and undividable self-manifestation.

Even though both Orlan and Victor’s monsters incorporate otherness, Orlan’s
monstrosity is not an integration of science fiction and Romantic Gothicism, but
represents the post-human body, i.e. the condition of the human body once the
human race has taken full biotechnological and cosmetic control over
corporeality.

Moreover, whereas Victor’s monster develops destructive behaviour that stems

from persistent social prejudice and rejection from his creator/father, Orlan’s
monster is received and embraced by a schizophrenic image-addicted society.
However, according to Rhonda R. Kercsmar (2003:03) being ostracized was not
the lone reason for Frankenstein’s hostile behaviour:

There is a fragmentation of consciousness that influences the monster. The

fragmentation is what drives the being to seek unity or completeness by finding
his ‘lost Other’ [Dr. Victor Frankenstein].

In opposition to Victor’s monster, Orlan’s monstrosity does not exhibit

fragmentation (the permutation of an assortment of body parts belonging to a
diversity of body identities) as its ultimate consequence, but rather it experiences
disintegration (cosmetic deconstruction and reconstruction) as an imperative
preliminary step in the construction of a fixed and unified monstrous body-
identity.

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Fig. 3.14: Orlan (1990). Bride of Frankenstein. Self-portrait photograph
Ince, K. (2000:p.83) Orlan: Millennial Female, Oxford: Berg Publishers

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In conclusion one could argue that Orlan’s Bride of Frankenstein is a passive
monster that appears to convey an admonition against the blind and selfish
scientific ambition of Dr. Victor. The imminent Frankenstein monsters of today
(genetically modified organisms, clones, and humanoid cyborgs) may be
indispensable phases in post-human development, but they are also laden with
calamitous pre-imminent consequences if maltreated and left unregulated. In
addition, they are extremely random, possibly bringing with them all the maturity
of ambiguity. As cyber-culture logician Catherine Waldby (In Bell, 2001:145)
observes:

[Genetic and prosthetic transformations] involve the provocation of often

unpredictable instabilities and losses… . Such transformations may involve a
whole redistribution of the embodied subject’s qualities, capacities, orientations
and positioning in the world which do not necessarily produce a [conventional]
outcome.

Despite Orlan’s firm belief in the obsolescence of corporeal body-identity and the
need to transcend it, it is not her aim to endorse cyborg mutation without
somehow subjecting herself to it as a precautionary measure. However, for now
the aim is to reclaim the body as a personal property by “contesting the
regulation of bodies through calculated offenses against body disciplines and
codes of propriety” (Reitmeier, 2003:03).

Like Stelarc, Orlan is continually exposing her audience to what they perceive to
be a kind of techno-surreal monstrosity in an effort to desensitize and acquaint
them with contemporary anomaly. One might conclude from this that Orlan’s new
facial identities stand in support of the neutral or relativist space between human
and post-human, i.e. the space of the non-binary.

Orlan, her monstrous and positively cyborg intentions aside, reminds one that
one’s body is an individually owned attire for one’s identity. She transgresses
medical etiquette and so re-encodes her body in accordance with her
psychological authenticity. Technology and science do not have to have a

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stronghold over the state of contemporary body-identity. The body must be
granted the option to either accept or reject the new post-industrial corporal
conversions proposed by current virtual, bionic, cosmetic and other altering or
mediating technologies. The postmodern body should be free to shape its own
destiny, either as a permanently plural and fractured cyborg body-identity, or as a
strictly non-combinatory identity residing within the inescapable cyber-political
orb of hybrid media techno-science.

As has been stated earlier, the post-human subject is only one of many facets
that define Orlan’s cosmetic and cybernetic Carnal Art vision. The surgical
otherness of her work is therefore only one component of a multi-component
post-human subject matter. Its potential to liberate body-identity is specific and
not collective. It may thus be perceived as a discretionary alternative. Post-
human otherness should therefore subsist as something that specifically applies
to those who favor it out of freedom of choice.

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 Chapter 4: Conclusion

It is evident that contemporary or postmodern body-identity is challenging the

integrity of human anatomy. It is suggestive of a polymorphous form because its
optional body types or conditions are becoming increasingly disparate and plural.
It could be that body-identity is merely passing through a chaotic intermediary
phase that offers no unequivocal resolutions to the contemporary corporeal and
non-corporeal identity crisis.

However, of all the unusual shapes that body-identity might take, the cyborg
figuration appears to be the most appropriate embodiment to date. It
encompasses schizophrenic, virtual, and neo-transcendental body-identity while
it continues to move towards a particularly techno-surreal and transgressive
logic.

The aim of this research is to shed some light on how the cybernetic organism as
an inter-connective hybrid body-identity serves as possibly the most effective
post-humanist metaphor for the postmodern body in crisis. The intent is not to
predict or select a liberatory body-identity out of the post-human maze of
endlessly proliferating body patterns, but to use the underlying messages in the
art of Stelarc and Orlan to speculate on the possible loss of body-identity as well
as the multi-condition of the future body. Furthermore, this final section should
provide some indication as to what the cyborg body signifies now, and what it
might transform into.

Although the previous chapters have made it fairly clear that cyborg body-identity
is in opposition to most Western humanist dualisms, and that it serves as an
ideal site to continue the formation of excessive and monstrous amalgamations,
it does not necessarily imply that the anomalous cyborg holds no hopeful
promises. How is the cyborg, in whatever guise it may crystallize, a hopeful
monster?

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Both the cyborg bodies of Stelarc and Orlan are identities-in-process. While
Orlan’s cyborg body is a soft (organic tissue) identity-in-process, Stelarc’s is a
predominantly hard (electro-mechanical prostheses) identity-in-process. Orlan’s
former bodily or facial identity is erased with each new cosmetic procedure.
Correspondingly, Stelarc alters and takes each previous experimental cyborg
body-identity to new levels with his progressive development of more advanced
biocompatible hard- and software. The identities of these two cyberpunk body
artists are therefore never stable, never quite fixed, and always in the process of
transition.

If one had to convert this persistent biotechnological state of fluctuation into a

tentative forecast on future body-identity conditions, it would be suggestive of a
body that is ever changing, de-centered, and multiple. These would be body-
identities with neither a definite or distinct beginning, nor a certain end. One
might state that such a techno-mutant body-identity should have no difficulty in
adapting to a socio-cultural climate that is, in every inward and outward sense of
the word, schizophrenic.

Through unending change Orlan and Stelarc’s bodies are indicating a post-
human subject that might readily acclimatize in a world characterized by
“fractured subjectivity” and “spatial disorientation” (Springer, 1999:207). One
could argue that for body-identity to prevail in a split and perplexing environment,
it must neither be fully coherent nor entirely disintegrated, neither perfectly
connected nor completely disconnected. Orlan and Stelarc’s body identities-in-
process may be understood as signaling an intermediating polymorphous body-
identity that is primarily defined by its openness to rapid alteration. This would be
a volatile body that draws its uncertain constitution from situating itself in the
deconstructed non-space generated by collapsing binary opposites such as
solid/fluid, self/other, male/female and the like.

The previous chapter, which focused exclusively on Stelarc and Orlan, made it
quite clear that these artists, in their own unique way, supported the idea of
corporeal obsolescence. Stelarc is forcing the subject by proposing a
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‘reconfigurable’ and ‘upgradable’ post-human cyborg body-identity as substitute
to the present biological body. He is discovering fresh ways to extend the body
beyond its natural perceptual and physiological abilities. Orlan emphasizes body
obsolescence by reclaiming the body as a private possession that may be bio-
synthetically modified according to individual taste and psychological persona.
Both the artists seem to feel that the body as presently constituted does not hold
the capacity to adjust to the information technologies that have come to virtualize
one’s existence in the digital era.

It is my belief that the body is not as obsolete as Stelarc and Orlan would want
one to believe. It is my argument that despite the natural body’s outmoded
interior and exterior profile, it may still serve as a referential basis for the design
and development of the post-human body. I agree that corporeality may be
partially obsolete within the post-industrial techno-sphere, but it contains the
essential properties and components required for the construction of a
prototypical post-human body-identity. As cyborgology theorist Linda F. Hogle
(1995:209) writes, “[T]ransplanted human body parts become seeds that
replicate new cyborgs”.

Perhaps the body will not seem so obsolete as it does today if one simply
stopped contemplating redesigning the body to cope with cybernetic technology
and instead made an effort to embark on redesigning technology to suit one’s
body’s biological requirements.

Cyber-body projects such as Stelarc’s Stimbod and PingBody performances are

examples of undeniable support for virtual communication systems as an
alternative means of inducing body stimulation, activation and response. Virtual
communication in the form of predominantly online text-based interaction, may,
as the section on virtual body-identity in chapter two explains, be construed as a
‘faceless’ form of information exchange. It appears to be a form of social dialogue
that erases class, race and gender inequity. In relation to this media culture
researcher Austin Booth (2002:31) writes that “[t]echnology has not erased

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sexism, racism, and heterosexism… so much as it has exaggerated them and
given them new forms”.

The post-gendered humanity that the cyborg suggests seems destined to

develop into a hyper-gendered humanity. A multi-user domain on the Net such as
LambdaMOO offers online participants the choice of ten or more genders
(heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, tri-sexual, metro-sexual, transsexual,
hermaphro-sexual, asexual, omni-sexual, inter-sexual etcetera). Participants can
even take on “anthropomorphized animal identities” (Bell, 2001:125). Like
Stelarc’s Extra Ear and Third Arm, these identities are excessive. From this
perspective the virtual malleability of gender or sexuality does not set body-
identity free, but further obscures it through atypical replication.

It appears that, in a capitalist-driven socio-economy interwoven with selective

computer-mediated communication, a body-identity free of prejudice is an
impossible dream. Stelarc is notorious for his narcissistic promotion of cyborg
technology “without any reflection of the underlying assumptions or the political
and economical consequences” (Simanowski, 2003:08). For a body to be truly
liberated within a virtual social order, it might have to be of an entirely new
genus. One imagines an amorphous30 extraterrestrial body-identity that is
dissimilar to, but aligned with, all existing singular or combinatory body-identities.
A possible liberatory body-identity might combine all races but remain a mirror to
all existing nationalities. Moreover, such a body-identity would need to be
impervious to the global influences of a networked capitalist system or at least be
capable of evading it to some degree.

It might be in Stelarc’s best interest to focus his concern on the present social
dilemmas (domination, oppression, inequity) that the natural body faces. Not
taking these issues into account will only stimulate the futile formation of a post-
cyborg with additional facets to discriminate against.

A further unconstructive aspect of virtual technology as the ideal cyborg

technology is its ability to simulate (copy) reality and serve it up as actual
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(sensory) experience. Consider how many hours a day some adolescents and
perhaps even adults spend playing interactive pc games or watch films on
satellite television. As Philip Hayward (1993:160) observes, “[A]rtificial realities
are a medium of expression and experience… . Increasingly, people are
products of artificial experience”. My concern is that, as virtual technologies
multiply to the point that they cannot be avoided, one’s primary experience could
become largely artificial. This could mean that much of one’s psychology/memory
will be based on artificial or simulated experiences substituting reality. More than
this, it could mean that history itself will become a record, not of empirical and
chronological facts, but of simulated events. In this light, one predicts a future in
which a virtual cyborg body-identity functions as a predominantly
representational corporeality.

Despite Stelarc and Orlan’s pro-technological enthusiasm, their work may, as an

indirect result of its capacity to induce anxiety, repulsion, and general discomfort,
stimulate technophobia in the viewer. Apart from de-naturalizing the body by
extending awareness and converting it into representational (virtual)
embodiments, Orlan and Stelarc alike, are designing body-identities that might
counteract the present overtly fervent tendency in cyberculture to ‘post-
humanize’ the postmodern body. Experiencing the contravention of the body’s
innate limitations by watching “Stelarc choking on his stomach sculpture cable or
wide-awake Orlan undergoing a chin implant” may have a negative effect on
cyborg fantasies (Goodall, 2000:167). It is my belief that a degree of
technophobia will lead to a more precautionary and thorough approach to the
biotechnological transformation of the corporeal body.

It is clear from Orlan and Stelarc’s body performances that they possess a
scrupulous and methodical knowledge of the limitations of the body’s organic
systems. What one tends to forget is that, regardless of the body’s propensity to
split into virtual, monstrous, and other cyborg incarnations, it still remains rooted
in an essentially corporeal (flesh and bone) container. However, the
biotechnological (biomechanics, robotics, genetics, cloning, biochemical
engineering etcetera) transition from a biological body-identity into a post-
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biological cyborg body-identity seems inevitable. Stelarc and Orlan’s body art
performances are indications of just how complicated and prolonged this post-
evolutionary transition will be.

As the screen becomes a surplus, an excessive prosthetic extension of human

faculties, the body is converted into a fragmented, simulated, coded, malleable,
infinitely transmittable, immortal, de-centered and polymorphous identity. As
various synthetic and bioelectric prostheses become an integral part of the body,
so body wholeness is threatened by a permanently partial body-identity. It is this
fractured cyborg identity, whether real or fictional, that allows for techno-
experimental outcomes such as somatic mutations, biochemical inconsistencies,
and other monstrous bodily irregularities. Within the non-binary space created by
the deconstructive cyborg subject, these aberrations are normative. In this way
cyborg monstrosities become vital components in the quest for a cathartic and
perfect post-human body, and serve as a measure of departure from the
accepted body.

In discussing the body modification art of Stelarc and Orlan in chapter three
many comparisons were made that established synonymy between monstrosity
as corporeal abnormality and the cybernetic organism. The ability to reshape,
reinvent and repress body-identity in online or other virtual spaces is an example
of how easy cyberspace has made it “to rebel against so-called normalized,
accepted or usual body concepts” (Simanowski, 2003:02). In this context, the
cyborg as virtual monster, is in support of a grotesque, atypical body that
contrasts with the aesthetic, idealized classical body. One might add that the
cyborg as a grotesque virtual construction does not pose a direct threat to the
body as a cultural or social formulation, but as a bourgeois construction in the
Western classical sense.

Since the cyborg is decidedly flexible and unstable, it may be argued that the
cyborg’s body is erratic and therefore indeterminable. It may also be said that the
cyborg/monster is a category error. Cyborg deviations are neither natural nor
unnatural, but rather post-natural. They are conceptual or factual models for what
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occurs between human (self) and inhuman (otherness). They elude rational
categorization and readdress the issue of the impossibility to locate difference.
As Badmington (2000:96) states, “What appears to be natural… can be quite
alien to an individual from another culture which has its own set of norms, its own
conceptions of the ‘natural’ and the ‘unnatural’”.

Orlan’s face, which is an example of a relentlessly disassembled and

reassembled surface identity, is a reflection of the grotesque nature of the
cyborg/monster. Stelarc’s pierced, augmented and extended body, which often
seems to be in an uncomfortable alliance with bioelectric prostheses, reflects the
otherness of cyborg innovation. Both these artists, but Orlan in particular, may be
seen as “screen[s] on which we project our hidden fears of disfigurement [and]
abnormality” (Clarke, 2000:195). In a way the cyborg body acts as a scapegoat.
Similarly the dystopian31 cyborgs in comics and fantasy art are symbolic of
society’s dread of biotechnological disasters and the conception of deplorable
and dangerous cyborg beings.

The cyborg/monster may also be defined as a metaphorical embodiment of an

oppressed body. Stelarc’s performances such as Stimbod and Locomotor may
be aimed at extending human body movement, but they seem to show a much
greater aptitude for the restriction and control of human body movement.
Understood like this, the cyborg becomes an intimidating force that is
cybernetically associated with human enslavement. The body is seen as
imprisoned by mechanical devices, “whether the machinery be government,
economy, the law or cars and televisions” (Vakras, 2003:02).

If the cyborg is monstrous because it is a deviation from the human body’s

standard morphology, the result of modification in the form of lack, excess,
displacement, enhancement, inscription or extension, or the assembly of
unrelated body-identities/parts, then it seems to follow that body modification
always steers toward a monstrous ending. In most cases of fictional or actual
cyborg construction this route is the norm – the natural body is customized and
so body-identity moves closer to the monstrous. However, in some instances,
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such as in the case of congenital anomalies (Siamese twins born with three legs
or two heads for example), monstrosity serves as the starting point. In a situation
like this, body-identity modification will take the route of amputation as a measure
to reduce the disordered corporeality of the infant. The course that monstrosity
typically takes is thus reversed or inverted – the monstrous body is altered to
procure a more standardized morphology. It is imperative to realize that, in a
case such as this, “the standard is not normal but normative” (Shildrick, 2000:79).

In addition to the cyborg’s tendency to arouse bodily difference, it also has the
ability to normalize alternative body-identity. But cyborg technologies such as
cloning and genetic engineering could have the unfavorable effect of adding to
the human body’s already inherent capacity to produce transgressive congenital
physiologies. The cyborg is not merely a “confusion of boundaries”, but it opens
up a cosmos where meaning is absent and the integrity of wholeness is disrupted
by radical changes in symmetry (Cutler, 2002:191).

In the final section of chapter two (cyborg body identity) it is mentioned that the
current techno-cultural environment provokes the formation of contentious bodies
and that a juncture has been reached that makes it hard to further suppress the
amplification of unique bodily difference. It is my forecast that, like the virtual
body as a simulated hyper-real body (which could reach a point where anything
but the simulated body will seem artificial), the cyborg or monstrous body could
become customary and conventional.

More than this, the cyborg is a sign of postmodern apprehension. It symbolizes a

perpetual post-millennial nervousness of the rise of the irregular post-human.
Moreover, it represents the postmodern fear of losing control over the intelligent
hybrid-media technologies that keep the world and its connected cities
operational with a consistent flow of online data. Reminiscent of the monster, the
cyborg corresponds “to our confusion about our origins” (Kearny, 2003:117).

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The cyborg has shed its original guise as a biological-mechanical fusion. Of all
the probable interpretations and implications attached to the body modification
performances of Stelarc and Orlan, the most noteworthy lesson is the realization
of the body’s escalating aptitude to transmute. The cyborg is recast as a
biological machine that performs its transgressive duties as an amorphous
shape-shifter. The monstrous steroid and gym-honed bodies of male and female
body builders may be seen as biological (biochemical) cyborg bodies.
Anomalous or ‘normal’ clones and other genetically engineered bodies are
redefined as transgenic cyborgs. It may be argued that transgenic cyborgs such
as conjoined twins or micro-encephalic babies will not, as in the past, be
classified as failed conceptions on the basis of their deviation to a set standard,
but as more complex and intricate cyborg formations. These distinct and complex
transgenic cyborg bodies play a crucial role in biotechnological trial and error. As
Dery (1996:231) observes, “We live in an age of engineered monsters, when the
human form seems increasingly indeterminate… [and] infinitely manipulable”.

A further cause of the cyborg’s present transfer from human-machine

amalgamation to a polymorph is the ever-increasing impossibility of discerning
between real and unreal. The reason for this is that cybernetic systems in the
form of cellular automata are performing exceedingly well at imitating life.
Consider how similar a virtual virus is to a biological virus.32 Mizrach (2003e:05)
explains this likeness as follows:

The computer virus enters a host (computer), hijacks its programming for its own
purposes, and it makes copies of itself, often ending up overwhelming or erasing
all the data in the host. Through communications links or disk exchange, the
virus’ replicants then propagate to other hosts (computers).

Akin to a bio-virus, an artificial virus is an astute parasite. Like the

cyborg/monster, the virtual virus is polymorphous and thus mutates when anti-
viral software is installed into the system. The cyborg was traditionally defined as
a border creature that combined binary opposites and blurred borders. However,
with cyber-technological developments such as programmable viruses, artificial

136
intelligence, nano-robotics, synthetic derma and the like, the dual opposites are
not as disparate as they were previously. Boundaries are now dissolved prior to
the deconstructive, equalizing and combinatory formation of cyborg body-identity.
It may be assumed that the cyborg in late postmodernist times involves the
merging of parallel dissimilarities. But such a cyborg seems prone to
‘monstration’.

The neo-cyborg as a biotechnologically engineered monster may therefore be

thought of as a highly unpredictable body-identity. In my opinion, an
unpredictable body is a positive aspect of the neo-cyborg. Postmodernist
philosopher Jacques Derrida (1995:307) writes, “A future that would not be
monstrous would not be a future; it would be already a predictable, calculable
and programmable tomorrow”. It is the mutant unpredictability of the neo-cyborg
that makes for an exhilarating, diverse, progressively deviant, limitless and
enticingly irregular transitional body-identity experience.

After all the often-cynical speculation on future body-identity, the cyborg emerges
as a blessing in disguise by remaining enigmatic about tomorrow’s body
configurations. At present there seem to exist no pre-decided bodily form for the
impending future. For now it appears that the body is free to dream and fantasize
about its imminent condition as long as this fantastic condition remains
disassociated from natural or normative corporeality.

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Endnotes:

1. Humanism: “The tendency to emphasize man and his status, importance, power,
achievements, interests and authority” (Honderich: 1995:376). Humanism has many
different connotations and became associated with the Renaissance when it denoted a
move away from God to man as the center of interest. Humanism is associated with the
realization of dualistic binary terms such as good/evil, rational/irrational, subject/object
etc. As a result of conflict between religion and humanism, humanism acquired its
modern association with atheism and agnosticism. Humanism is often called scientific
humanism and compared to rationalism. Humanism constructs a western model of what
it means to be human based on our ability to reason and differences such as race, class,
ethnicity, gender, language, nationality, religion etc. However, humanism holds that
despite these differences, we are all human. This attitude reduces man to an abstract
cancellation; a state of sameness and indifference. In a way it deprives humans of
individuality and of the fulfillment of their need to be different. It prevents them from
constructing ‘original’ identities. Seen in this perspective, humanism is an oppressive
force.

2. Mark Tribe (1993:06) refers to virtual reality as a post-human space because of the
opportunity it lends to the online user to avoid a fixed identity configurartion. This is
explained from different angles and will point out its coherent, but diverse meaning. By
the end of this sub-section, due to the shifting, overlapping and unstable 'personality' of
the virtual self, it might seem as if the virtual self does not have a clear and stipulated
classification. However, this should not be perceived as a negative or detracting finding
since this is exactly the type of nature the virtual self needs to sustain in order to
connect, spread and cause other postindustrial selves to relate to it.

3. Cyberspace can be explained as a post-human space because of the opportunity it

lends to the online user to avoid a fixed identity configuration. Mark Tribe (1993:06)
states, “The net, then, is a post-human environment where communities are established
not by spatial proximity but through discursive affinities. In the net, post-human subjects
group themselves and are grouped by shared interests and communication styles.”

4. Simulatory hardware is used for the sensory-immersive virtual reality experience.

One’s normal or natural sensorial feedback is replaced using virtual reality goggles and
a machine called a gyroscope. This device increases the body’s maneuverability within
an interactive environment. Although the corporeal body remains grounded in reality, it
allows for a highly private experience.

5. Neural-direct virtual reality implies the fictional transmigration of the material body and
mind into the information space.

6. An mpeg is a compressed, digital video file that can easily be downloaded or sent
over the Internet.

7. CT (computer tomography - like the x-ray, useful for rendering images of solid
materials such as bone), MRI (magnetic resonance imaging - like ultrasound, useful for
rendering images more fluid or of moving materials such as internal organs), and
cryosectioning (whereby the cadaver is frozen then literally sliced into over a thousand

138
millimeter slices - useful for rendering cross-sectional images of the body (Thacker,
2002:02).

8. Not really the wired body of sci-fi with its mutant designer look, or body flesh with its
ghostly reminders of nineteenth century philosophy, but the hyper-texted body as both: a
wired nervous system embedded in living…[encoded] flesh… It does not want to be
interfaced to the Net through modems and external software black boxes, but actually
wants to be an Internet (Kroker & Weinstein, 1994:16).

9. Simulacra in this particular case refer to simulation as a copy without an original. N.

Katherine Hayles (In Moser, 1996:09) in her essay Embodied Virtuality: Or how to put
bodies back into the picture explains the concept of a copy without an original:

Consider, for example, an audio compact disk produced by sampling sounds

from several different recording sessions and digitally manipulating them to
achieve the desired effects. There never was a recording session that sounded
like the music on the disk, yet clearly the disk is a copy of something. In fact, it is
a simulacrum, a copy without an original. The simulacrum gives a sense of being
a copy because it replicates pattern, but in the absence of a referent it becomes
a copy without an original.

10. An engram is a neologism L. Ron Hubbard invented to describe any type of

psychological negativity or neurosis.

11. Finding a purely mechanical robot, humanoid or toy in the twenty-first century can
prove to be a difficult task. Even the simplest of toys, such as the ones that come free of
charge with the purchase of every Happy Meal at McDonalds, are often, if not primarily,
electronic. They have flashing eyes, sing if one claps one’s hands, and whistle or
scream when one applies pressure to them. These toys may seem simple or primitive in
relation to some electronically advanced action figures produced by the toy industry,
however, they would have been considered highly technological, if not magical, a few
decades ago.

The precursors of contemporary electronic figures can be traced back to the earliest
days of mechanical invention. During the height of the ancient Egyptian civilization,
mechanically operated statues had spiritual status. Rodney A. Brooks (2002:13) writes
about “an articulated statue of Ammon [that] chose the new king by reaching out an arm
under the unseen control of a priest”.

Leonardo Da Vinci, a major precursor of viable mechanical innovation, designed a

“mechanical equivalent to a human – a humanoid robot” in the early sixteenth century
(Brooks, 2002:14). The basic aim of eighteeth century toy-making and automaton
construction was that the automaton should imitate some kind of human action or
behaviour. For example, antique automatons were often designed to imitate mandolin
players, flute players or pianists. According to Brooks (2002:14), some automatons, like
the ones designed by Henri Maillardet in 1815, “could write script in both French and
English and paint a variety of landscapes”. These humanoids were impressive
machines at the time and left many people mesmerized. However, they had a collective
imperfection that robbed them of the realness of human action. They did not respond to
the environment. Their actions needed to be mechanically activated. Moreover, their
actions or behaviour were mechanistic, programmed, and resulted in a repetitive set of
consecutive movements subsequent to every activation.
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12. The term ‘extropic’ is derived from Extropic Art, a genre of Transhumanist Arts. As
Natasha Vita-More (2002: par 01) explains:

The word ‘extropic’ stems from the idea that things are forever expanding and
improving. Extropic art is characterized by the mediums of contemporary trends
in design. [It] focuses on a positive, meta-creative and enlightened view of
human potential, aesthetic design in technology [and] the prevalence of science.

13. It is not my intention to convince anyone that human beings are becoming, or are
machines. Nor do I imply that machines will some day supercede the human. I
completely agree with James Geary (2002:06) when he remarks that people will remain
essentially human “regardless of how many [micro] chips are implanted in their bodies”.

14. In order to grasp the Clarion cochlear implant one needs to comprehend the subtle
mechanics of the inner ear. On a layer of tissue (the basilar membrane) that carpets the
cochlea (a bone-like structure resembling a snail’s shell and located in the inner ear)
grow “an estimate of 3500 hair cells” (Geary, 2002:46). The basilar membrane serves as
a conductor for the three tiny bones of the inner ear. They are called the malleus, the
incus and the stapes. They are jolted into action whenever vibrations of sound tunnels
through the ear cavity. When sound waves surge through the inner ear, the stapes
begins to rap repetitively at the basilar membrane. This of course lead to tremors that
causes the hair cells to bounce furiously. Every hair cell movement causes bursts of
electrical signals. These signals then move all the way to the cochlea which in response
directs and sends the signals to the auditory centers of the brain. Within the brain they
are converted into a diversity of distinguishable and recognizable sounds.

15. This does not come as much of a surprise, since the major forces behind cyborg
technology are men. This however does not mean that women have little influence on
technology. It is women who monitor and judge the “social impact of technology” (Gray,
2002:104). Feminists seem to play a key role in analyzing and searching for signs of
underlying patriarchy in postindustrial cyborg technology.

Although technoscience has offered some degree of hope to men with malfunctioning
genitalia by introducing an artificial, implantable, inflatable penile prosthesis, it might not
be enough to save the penis from vanishing in the bigger picture. Prosthetics may
succeed in saving the malfunctioning biological penis, but it might fail in saving the
figurative penis. It seems the penis as a sign of masculinity is in crisis. The postmodern
theorists, Arthur and Marilouise Kroker (In Gray, 2002:105) declare the following about
the phallic crisis:

No longer the old male cock as the privileged sign of patriarchal power and
certainly not the semiotician’s dream of the decentered penis which has, anyway,
already vanished into the ideology of the phallus, but the postmodern penis
which becomes an emblematic sign of sickness, disease, and waste…the penis,
both as protuberance and ideology, is already a spent force.

16. One predicts that people might act differently towards the smaller percentage of
homosexuals whose mothers refused or simply did not have access to the specialized
pill. Gayness might be perceived as something which subtracts from one’s optimal
condition. Parents might not necessarily perceive homosexuality as immoral, yet they
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might still decide to avoid it because it can be avoided. It is my understanding that the
heterosexual infant becomes a biotechnologically mediated cyborg because natural
undisturbed biological processes might have, in all likelihood, produced a homosexual
infant.

17. Of course one could argue that the chemical alcohol and plant extracts, which have
been circulating for hundreds of years, have been altering personalities all along. This is
true, however, these new chemicals are dissimilar in that they are scientifically
formulated to alter specific neurological and psychological properties.

18. The process of cloning can technically take two routes. On the one hand there is the
technique of embryo splitting, which is more or less what occurs naturally with the
biological development of identical twins. On the other hand there is somatic cellular
nuclear transfer, which was the procedure employed for the cloning of Dolly; the world’s
first cloned sheep. Cloning expert Nicholas Agar (2002:32) simplifies somatic cell
nuclear transfusion (SCNT) by defining it as follows, “’Somatic cell’ describes the origin
of the DNA from which the clone is produced. ‘Nuclear transfer’ describes the technique
by which this DNA is induced to start a new organism”.

19. Horripilations is the “technical term for goose pimples or the bristling of short body
hairs [from Latin horripilare]” (Trent, 1993:01).

20. Although the term ‘heuristic’ also refers to the various formal languages and logical
modes of automata (computers), the usage in this case refers to technology used for
exploratory problem-solving.

21. Proprioception refers to the reception of stimuli produced within an organism.

22. The term ‘extra-terrestrial’ is used in this context as an indication of how the human
body has remained more or less the same over the last few hundred years, while its
surroundings has dramatically changed. Villages have turned into cities carpeted with
electric lights. Chariots and ox wagons have been replaced with super-fast automobiles.
Soon libraries (books) might be replaced by the Internet (virtual or online information).

23. One might define the carnival cyborg as the various ways in which human anatomy
is transformed as techno-science troubles the boundaries set by the laws of
impossibility.

24. The term ‘phallocentric’ is used to emphasize that much of the physical ideals to
which women aspire are centered around what the Western male perceives to be a
perfect and proportionate female body.

25. The word ‘analgesic’ is a collective medical term used to describe a variety of
painkillers.

26. The term ‘carnal’ is used here in its traditional or standard context which relate to the
sexuality and sensuality of human flesh.

27. Erotogenic is synonymous with the adjective erogenous, which relates to the
production of libidinal gratification when stimulated.

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28. The term ‘prefigurative’ is more or less synonymous with the term ‘predictive’,
however, it specifically stresses the future forms of art as predicted by contemporary
avant garde art.

29. Instead of specifically using the term ‘semantic’ in its traditional context that implies
the study and classification of words, it is used here to illustrate how preferred words are
loaded with deeper meaning and serve as indicators for sketching a psychological profile
of the individual using the words.

30. The word ‘amorphous’ relates to the lack of organization and bodily form
(formlessness).

31. ‘Dystopia’ is the opposite of ‘Utopia’ and refers to an imaginary place where people
live dehumanized and fearful lives.

32. Mizrach (2003e:04) defines a biological virus as follows:

Biological viruses are generally just strands of DNA surrounded by a

crystalline protein sheath. They reproduce by invading the cell and hijacking
its chromosomal machinery for making copies of themselves, thereby killing
the cell.

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