‘Cyborg Art’ as a Critical Sphere of Inquiry into Increasing

Corporeal Human-Technology Merger

Elizabeth Borst
Abstract
This chapter introduces and examines the concept of ‘cyborg art,’ which
describes literal and figural visual representations of corporeal human-
technology integration. The transforming and emerging (post)human being is
therefore the focus; who we are today, and who or what we may become, as
humanity increasingly interfaces with technology. Overall, theoretical
discussions that centre on visual representations of cyborgs (or posthumans)
relate predominantly to science fiction, in particular film and television, as
opposed to art. I argue that this constitutes an investigative limitation into the
broad and relevant field of human-technology interface inquiry. A profusion
of cyborg art and art practices abound within contemporary Western society,
each differing art form, for example, conceptual, interactive, performance,
digital, sculpture or painting, offering possible ‘symbolic function’ and
‘critical potential’ regarding increasing cyborgisation, and changing human
physical ontology. I suggest that the artistic melding of organic and inorganic
spheres alludes to the common ontology which exists between these states;
the scope of advanced technologies; the dissolution and rupturing of
boundaries and dualisms under postmodernism; and the far-reaching
ideological implications this evokes. The goal of this text is to present the
underlying theoretical breadth and creative depth of cyborg art, to introduce
new cyborg configurations, and to argue for the need to develop a specific
cyborg art genre as a recognised and valid area for research regarding
increasing body-technology amalgamation.

Key Words: Cyborg, art, corporeality, convergence, ontology.

*****

1. Introduction
Cyborg art focuses on technology as intimately interfaced with the
human body, no longer existing as an attachment or tool, but incorporated
within or altering the body’s inherent structures. These ‘cyborgian
technologies’ include pacemakers, synthetic organs and valves, artificial
joints and ligaments, genetic engineering, assisted/artificial reproduction
technologies, external gestation, xenotransplantation, cloning, cryonics,
biotelematic implants, direct carbon and silicon links, and the creation of
transgenic entities - all technologies in existence today, in varying degrees of
application and stages of development. 1 Steven Best and Douglas Kellner
284 ‘Cyborg Art’
______________________________________________________________
emphasise that these ever-evolving ‘Dramatic shifts in science and
technology force us to rethink conceptions of ourselves, humanistic
philosophies, and the very nature of reality.’ 2
The myriad of cyborg artworks created today offers ample avenues
for enhancing awareness and understanding of these developing corporeal
human-technology links. Additionally, most cyborg art, whether situated
within popular culture, fine art or performance art realms, is presented on the
internet which potentially reaches a large audience. Despite this, cultural
theory and analysis relating to cyborg art remains limited, adding to its
elusiveness as a concept, and lack of recognition as an art genre. I introduce
eight cyborg-inspired artworks in this chapter, created by artists H. R. Giger,
Joachim Luetke, Justin Fox, Philip Hitchcock, Viktor Koen, Christos
Magganas, Dave McKean and Heidi Taillefer. These artists represent a
diverse array of nationalities: Swiss, German, Australian, American, Greek,
English and Canadian, identifying the global level of interest towards, and
examination of, the cyborg concept.
This chapter is based on an in-depth study of cyborg art, which
developed in response to Chris Hables Gray’s call for critics to pay attention
to the growing cyborg aesthetic, and the critical potential of human-
technology interface art. 3 The base study includes qualitative empirical data
obtained from both research participants and artists whose artworks are
included in the study. Contributions from Luetke, Fox, Hitchcock and
Magganas sourced via email questionnaires are included here, alongside
theoretical discussion pertaining to the ideas and concepts which each
artwork depicts.
The artworks selected for this introductory text are metaphorical and
figural cyborg representations, with a focus on the convergence of flesh and
metal. Each artwork is situated within four key cultural-biological
dimensions of humanity: birth, death, gender and ethnicity; and within three
key spheres of corporeal-technological developments: prosthetics (machinic
technologies), telematics (electronic - computer and telecommunications
technologies) and genetics (biotechnologies). These artworks centre on
futuristic corporeal interface as both celebrations and warnings. As Best and
Kellner surmise, ‘Unless we first imagine various futures, both good and bad
… we will have nothing to guide us in the constitution of a viable world.’ 4

2. Birth
There is limited artistic representation focusing on birth/gestation
and technological interface. The concept of ectogenesis, or external womb
technology, however, has captured the attention of a selection of artists, and
has also become a heavily debated issue today. 5 H. R. Giger, the eminent and
enigmatic Swiss artist, was one of the first artists to focus on this concept
with the creation of his pen and ink artwork Birth Machine in 1967. His
 Elizabeth Borst 285
______________________________________________________________
bronze sculpture Birth Machine Baby, 6 shown below, is a continuation of this
work, and depicts one of the muscle-bound cyborg foetuses or babies from
Birth Machine, sitting in a bullet shell holding a gun and wearing protective
(and cyber-punk inspired) goggles. The mechanised baby is armed and
prepared for his or her biomechanical birthing process - of being ‘fired out’
into the impending technological world. 7 The bullet shell metaphorically
represents an external womb, and the cyborg foetus within represents the
increasing visuality of the foetus today.

Image 1 - Birth Machine Baby (1998)

Bronze Sculpture
8.5 in. x 21.5 in.
Artist: H. R. Giger

J. B. S. Haldane, a British scientist, coined the term ectogenesis in

1924 to describe how human pregnancy would one day occur in an artificial
womb. He believed that by the year 2074 the use of an ‘exowomb’ to gestate
a baby full-term would become increasingly viable and popular. 8 Advances
regarding artificial reproduction research indicate that it may one day be
possible for an embryo to grow to full-term outside of a woman’s body. To
date, Professor Yoshinori Kuwabara has kept a goat foetus alive for three
286 ‘Cyborg Art’
______________________________________________________________
weeks in an artificial womb filled with a liquid substance which mimics
amniotic fluid, and Professor Hung-Ching Liu has grown a human embryo
successfully for six days in an external incubator/womb. 9 Arthur and
Marilouise Kroker refer to these developments as the ‘flesh-eating
technology’ of technoscience. They suggest that the end of pregnancy
parallels the end of history and the constitution of the human body as it has
existed for thousands of years. 10
Donna Haraway surmises that the visible foetus is developing into
an icon of technoscience, 11 due in part to the proliferation of reproductive,
gestation and birthing technologies, and our increasing ability to actively
participate in the creation of our own progeny and evolution. 12 Birth Machine
Baby also stands guard outside Giger’s museum located in Gruyères,
Switzerland, in the form of a large street sculpture, identifying that the
cyborg baby or foetus has indeed ‘gone public.’ 13
Birth Machine Baby is ultimately a metaphor for humanity’s
propensity for self-destruction, violence, and over-population, which can lead
to social and environmental chaos. Giger alludes to the way in which our
destinies are irretrievably linked to technology, and the accountability that is
necessary in order to manage this increasing union with care. 14 Michael
Klein 15 identifies that science fiction films and books do not posit the
destructive nature of the artificially reproduced off-spring as a pivotal
concern, but rather the destructiveness of those creating the processes which
enable cyborg or posthuman entities to be ‘made’ or manufactured as
opposed to being ‘born.’

3. Death
While birth and gestation merged with technology is depicted in art,
the concept of death interfaced with technology (or necrotic cyborgs) is rarely
represented. Gunther von Hagens’ anatomical art whole-body specimens
shown in the Bodyworlds exhibitions 16 are among the most well-known
representations, however they do not present the convergence of flesh and
metal as such. Kreator: Enemy of God, 17 included on the following page, is
created by Joachim Luetke, the notable German artist who is one of only a
few artists to visually represent the junction between death and technology.
Kreator: Enemy of God is a section of a larger artwork which shows
macabre necrotic female cyborgs lined up in succession in military styling,
with growing human foetuses positioned in their mechanical wombs. The
necrotic cyborgs’ breasts are shown smooth, without nipples, implying that
the babies when ‘born’ will perhaps be intravenously fed. Luetke’s artwork
alludes to the concept of neomorts, which are cadavers whose bodies are kept
functioning in order to be utilised in some way, such as the completion of a
gestation cycle. Cyborgisation has reconfigured the meaning of death today,
 Elizabeth Borst 287
______________________________________________________________
the lines increasingly blurred between the living and the non-living, creating
a new category: the ‘living-dead.’ 18

Image 2 - Kreator: Enemy of God (2005)

Digital Art
Artist: Joachim Luetke

The flesh and metal symbiosis in Kreator: Enemy of God creates a

stark and poignant contrast between the human and machine, as the soft,
organic, warm, live body is juxtaposed against the hard, metallic, cold, dead
machine. In addition, these mechanical corpses and their ectogenetic foetuses
allude to Haraway’s premise that increasingly life is viewed as a ‘system to
be managed.’ 19 Ultimately, this artwork metaphorically demonstrates that
human beings may eventually begin to feel dead, if they relinquish the ability
to give life. Luetke presents a collection of his often frightening, menacing
and foreboding artworks in his extensive 2000 art volume Posthuman: The
Art of Joachim Luetke, where historical gods and demons are merged with
future visions, and transgressions relating to gender, life, death, religion and
spirituality are provocatively evoked. 20
288 ‘Cyborg Art’
______________________________________________________________
4. Gender
Cyborg imagery avidly depicts notions of gender, particularly the
representation of conventional feminine and masculine signifiers. Female
cyborgs are often sexualised and passive while male cyborgs are typically
muscular and active. 21 However, Justin Fox, the well-known Australian artist
and founder of Australian INfront (the online collaborative artist support
base) has created Bionic, 22 shown below, who ruptures normative notions of
gender. Bionic is a poignant metaphorical vision of Haraway’s post-gender
premise; 23 an androgynous dual-gendered cyborg presented as strong and
powerful. Bionic’s femaleness is subtly depicted by her face, breast shape and
the silhouette of her dress, yet her hair configuration is male, and the circuitry
and shapes superimposed on her dress show a phallic symbolic protrusion,
alluding to her joint gender status. Bionic also does not avert her eyes but
rather challenges the observer’s gaze, and her stance shows control and
determination rather than objectified passivity.

Image 3 - Bionic (2001)

Graphic Art Illustration
Artist: Justin Fox

Fox designed Bionic to be shocking, beautiful, kinky and

discomforting, and above all to have an impact. He surmises that the ‘Cyborg
is already “cool” and it’s only going to get cooler;’ 24 the fantasy is not just
wearing technology, ‘But having it mix with our flesh and bones.’ 25 Anne
 Elizabeth Borst 289
______________________________________________________________
Balsamo argues that we need to ‘Search for cyborg images which work to
disrupt stable oppositions’ of gender, and Bionic clearly answers this call. 26
Cyborg artworks such as Bionic promote a reconceptualisation of ‘The
current socio-cultural-biological consideration of gender’ where traditional
concepts pertaining to gender can be transformed from a ‘male/female binary
into a trinity of male/female/metal.’ 27
Gender, sexuality, and sex organs are increasingly viewed as
existing on a continuum today, therefore discussed more in relation to
degrees rather than polarities. 28 Blending, morphing and fluid transformation
is therefore a dominant theme of postindustrial, postmodern society. The
notion of fluidity collapses the modernist Western episteme of gender
binaries into postmodern gender polymorphism, exacerbated by the scope of
advanced (medical) technologies which can refashion the ‘natural’ body. 29
The fluidity of sex in relation to transgendered, transsexual or even
intersexed (hermaphroditic) individuals is what ‘confronts us’ in society
today. 30 Many people find the concept disconcerting and abject, while others
find the notion liberating. Ultimately, artworks which explore the ‘opening
up’ of the gender system and gendered scripts provide inspiration for those
who feel they do not sit at the polarities of female and male subjectivity, and
their socially determined ‘equivalent’ sexual and gender identities. 31

5. Ethnicity
Ethnicity and critical race studies, 32 have been largely omitted from
visual cyborg theory and analysis, with discussion focusing primarily on
computer access and use, cyberspace, and feminism. 33 Guillermo Gómez-
Peña, the well-known and controversial Mexican performance artist and
author, is one of only a few non-European artists working with visual ideas of
ethnicity and body-technology interface, 34 and Philip Hitchcock, the
renowned American sculptor, is one of only a selection of European artists
merging race, body and technology themes.
Hitchcock’s mixed-media sculpture The Black Knight, 35 included on
the following page, presents a powerful black male cyborg with engineered
or synthetic muscles, and a telematic and phallic helmet, thus being eroticised
both in flesh and metal. Yet The Black Knight is not shown to be hyper-
aggressive, as is common with male cyborg iconography. 36 Jeffery Brown
affirms that black male superheroes in general are depicted as ‘violent beasts’
inscribed with aggressive characteristics and violent tendencies. 37 The Black
Knight is a non-threatening cyborg entity; a mix of medieval and futuristic,
creating a new vision of humanity. He is also a complex and sophisticated
fusion of the three main spheres of corporeal-technological developments in
existence today - prosthetics, telematics and genetics - as opposed to a crude
and manual augmented entity.
290 ‘Cyborg Art’
______________________________________________________________

Image 4 - The Black Knight (2007)

Wall-mounted Mixed-media Sculpture
Artist: Philip Hitchcock

The Black Knight’s corporeal aesthetics include four rings linking

his neck-chest transmitter plate into his skin. Four wires are also positioned
on each side of the plate which link into his helmet, possibly enabling him to
see and hear what is being relayed to him, either by his own design, or via
others’ input and control. Hitchcock metaphorically represents the paradoxes
prevalent within technological interface; both pleasure/fear, beauty/abjection,
and control/being controlled - leaving it up to us to decide The Black Knight’s
fate. Hitchcock states his work is ‘metaphorical for the human condition in
modern society’ 38 alluding to the survival strategies required for living in
today’s Western culture, where gender, sexuality and race discriminations
still exist. 39 In 2000, Hitchcock published a collection of his earlier artworks
in his expansive art volume Dark Impressions: The Art of Philip Hitchcock.

6. Prosthetics
Viktor Koen, a multi award-winning digital artist and illustrator,
created Nutrition Man, 40 shown on the following page, as a figural depiction
of technological augmentation of the body via prosthetics. Koen’s futuristic
cyborg represents the enhanced techno-body in motion, where propulsion
units and machinic technologies are propelling him into the posthuman age.
 Elizabeth Borst 291
______________________________________________________________
The technology serves as a metaphor for superior nourishment of the human
body - interface technology as boosting natural systems. Stelarc, the
controversial and renowned Australian performance artist who centres his
artistic focus on prosthetics and robotics, is one of the staunchest proponents
of the inadequacy of the body’s functioning systems, and the outdated
concept of aging. 41 He refers to the natural body as ‘obsolete’ (no longer
viable), and theorists in general agree that the quest for enhanced
strength/beauty, longevity and immortality fuels the force and compulsion of
technoscience. 42

Image 5 - Nutrition Man (2005)

Digital Art Illustration
Artist: Viktor Koen

Increasingly, technologies are no longer an appendage or an

extension to the body, but directly incorporated and assimilated within the
body’s inherent organic structures. Today, many parts of the human body can
be replaced with prosthetic technologies and devices. 43 Therefore terms such
as ‘prosthetic couplings’ are increasingly used to define new cyborg
configurations. 44 Yet, corporeal-prosthetic melding can generate wary
reactions from individuals, as prosthetic limbs and devices are often viewed
as artificial components invading and contaminating the (natural) body,
challenging what Elaine Graham calls the human body’s ‘ontological
hygiene.’ 45 Koen’s cyborg represents this penetration, as technology is
grafted or interfaced into nearly every inch of his body.
Stelarc suggests that humanity should not view prosthetic/machine-
body interface for purposes of enhancement in a Faustian way - that we are
selling or relinquishing our souls in order to have the so-called forbidden
292 ‘Cyborg Art’
______________________________________________________________
advantages and energies that technological augmentation can provide. 46 He
supports Andy Clark’s premise that we have always been ‘natural born
cyborgs’ and it is our teleological destiny to become increasingly integrated
with, and augmented by, technology. 47 Augmentation and adaptations of the
body are also projected to become just as common and socially accepted as
procedures such as cosmetic surgery, blood transfusions and IVF. 48 Stelarc
believes that technology is what defines being human, therefore feelings of
guilt, shame or fear towards the interface are misplaced. He affirms that the
desire to prolong life and to be stronger and healthier is a ‘natural’ human
compulsion. 49 Nutrition Man aptly represents this desire.

7. Telematics
Christos Magganas, a Greek multimedia artist, has created
Hermes, 50 shown below, to metaphorically represent wireless telematic ideas
merged with the human body. In Greek mythology, Hermes was a messenger
to the Gods. 51 Magganas has transformed Hermes into a cyborg messenger,
receiving and sending the plethora of globally transmitted messages which
exist today. The messages enter and exit Hermes’ cranium and his back,
where signal shafts are interfaced with his spinal cord, tapping into the
energy source in order to assist the exchange of electronic data. The divine
cherubs have also been morphed into the ubiquitous iconic computer screen.

Image 6 - Hermes (1997)

Digital Art Illustration
Artist: Christos Magganas

Telematics is derived from the junction and infusion of computers

and telecommunications systems, for example, portable computers such as
laptops and advanced mobile phones. 52 Futuristic ideas such as wearable
 Elizabeth Borst 293
______________________________________________________________
wireless computers which can fit into buttons or on clothing and fashion
accessories are also increasingly being explored, signalling an end to the
desktop computer era. 53 Computer-mediated communications networking,
including cable and satellites, are increasingly linking and interfacing
dispersed individuals and institutions to data-processing systems, enhancing
both the pace and availability of human interaction. As such, telematics is a
central topic of discussion today as geographical borders diminish, and the
speed of communication increases. 54 Magganas is interested in the role of the
body and embodiment in the digital cyborg or posthuman era, management
by ‘remote control,’ Greek mythology, 55 and the ‘“shrinking” of the world
through communications technology.’ 56
Roy Ascott contends that ‘With the convergence of computers and
telecommunications, the “thinking system” becomes planetary.’ 57 Pierre
Lévy agrees, envisaging a future collective society linked by electronic
networks, where ‘A nomadic distribution of information will fluctuate around
an immense deterritorialized semiotic plane’ 58 - the global equidistant
internet. The quintessential cyborg is often viewed as a cybernetic
communication network entity, created by, and existing within, the realms of
information, communication and control. 59 Hermes alludes to this
quintessential state, as his lower torso is shown dissolving and disappearing
into pure energy.

8. Genetics
Lastly, the advanced developments existing within the sphere of
genetics generate a wealth of artistic inspiration for the creation of new
transgenic, triadic and quadratic entities. Dave McKean, an award-winning
English artist, has created Feeding the Machine, 60 included on the following
page, which shows a triadic fusion of animal, human and machine
components. McKean’s ‘techumanic tribrid’ has an upper body covered with
reddish fur, and a human-machine head and face pushing through the mouth
of a second face, symbolising our evolution from animal, to human, through
to machine, and increasing science and technology convergence. As Best and
Kellner state, ‘“Human beings” today can easily be part human, part animal
and part machine.’ 61
Norbert Wiener, who coined the term cybernetics in the late 1940s,
was the first to suggest that animals, humans and machines all had similar
cybernetic systems of control and communication, 62 and increasingly artists,
writers and theorists such as Donna Haraway, Eduardo Kac, Dave McKean,
Faith Wilding, Murray McKeich, Philip Hitchcock, Heidi Taillefer and
Viktor Koen are showing their interest in the common ontology which exists
within these spheres, and the far-reaching ideological inferences this evokes.
294 ‘Cyborg Art’
______________________________________________________________

Image 7 - Feeding the Machine (1999)

Surrealist Artwork
Artist: Dave McKean

Feeding the Machine alludes to Lewis Mumford’s concerns that our

increasing integration with technology will ‘anesthetise us,’ destroying our
creativity and empathy. 63 McKean’s tribrid is depicted as devoid of vigour,
passively awaiting ‘progress’ or ‘nourishment’ which cannot ultimately
satisfy him. This artwork is also a metaphoric representation of Martin
Heidegger’s warning regarding the negative effects of our increasing reliance
on and usage of technology; the way this dependence will slowly destroy our
capacity for thinking in any way other than one which is ultimately machinic.
Heidegger believed that the ‘essence’ of technology is nothing technological.
Rather, it is a technological understanding of being, where human beings
increasingly begin to see nature and each other as ‘standing reserves,’
subjected to the logic of instrumentality; mere resources to be mined and
controlled. 64 Heidegger surmised that individuals and ‘things’ are enframed
as a result of increased applications of technology; viewed as ‘one big gas
station,’ 65 and therefore easily used and subsequently discarded.
In this volume, Leighton Evans 66 links Heidegger’s premise to
online social networking sites, where he argues people also become
resources, or standing reserves. Individuals using these networking sites are
therefore exploited by the technology; able to be collected, displayed and
easily discarded. These ‘users’ exist in an environment where online profiles
 Elizabeth Borst 295
______________________________________________________________
and stratifications are key determinants contributing to the notion of
friendship. Heidegger feared that in an increasingly technologised society,
‘calculative thinking’ will be practiced as the only way of thinking. 67 The
essence of technology therefore exists as a productionist metaphysics,
depleted of creativity and social enrichment. 68 Mumford suggested that goals
to ‘humanise the machine’ are having the paradoxical effect of ‘mechanizing
humanity,’ and subsequently dehumanising society. 69 Feeding the Machine
symbolises these concerns, metaphorically pointing to the way the
transformation from ‘natural being’ to ‘mechanised being’ is not always
considered a progressive transition.
Heidi Taillefer, the celebrated Canadian graphic artist and painter,
moves even further into exploring the junction between organic and inorganic
realms with Venus Envy, 70 shown below. Taillefer combines human, animal
and technological components, and plant matter, within one image. In this
artwork, human female flesh and form covers internal technology and
machinery; snakes are presented as hair in the manner of Medusa, and fruit,
flowers and plants are also intimately incorporated within this female
cyborg’s corporeality. In addition, mechanical pipes are shown filling the
artificial breasts with milk, ready for the growing human foetus floating in
the fluid of the transparent artificial womb sack.

Image 8 - Venus Envy (1999)

Painting: Oil on Canvas
44 in. x 60 in.
Artist: Heidi Taillefer

Venus Envy depicts a new millennium quadratic entity, a fusion of

Eduardo Kac’s interspecies creations ‘plantimals’ (plant and animal genetic
296 ‘Cyborg Art’
______________________________________________________________
mix), and ‘animans’ (animal and human genetic mix). 71 Quadbrids are rare
entities created in response to what Best and Kellner call the new postmodern
‘Multiverse,’ 72 which refers to the way boundaries are collapsing between all
organic species, such as bacteria, fish, plant, insect, animal and human, and
machine. Ascott affirms that silicon, molecules, pixels, bits, atoms, neurons
and genes are all increasingly converging. He therefore suggests that a new
interspatial ‘moist domain’ exists between the ‘dry world’ of technology and
the ‘wet world’ of biology. 73
Taillefer’s Venus Envy also represents the paradoxes often felt
towards technoscience and its applications, alluding to the ‘miracles’ and
‘monstrosities’ which can be developed and created today, and the
ideological struggle over the distinction and disparity between the natural and
(the fascination with) artifice. 74 The cyborg and posthuman body can be seen
in transition in the twenty-first century, passing ‘Through a series of
gateways that seem now without end.’ 75 Boundaries are increasingly
collapsing and rupturing between species and the machine as a result of our
biotechnological capabilities and knowledge. Yet, despite this, and the
prevalence of tribrids depicted in art, the concept of triadic (and quadratic)
merger is extremely limited in theoretical cyborg or posthuman discussion.
Theorists and artists continue to grapple with the question of what it
means to be human today in an increasingly technologised, mechanised and
digital world. As such ‘The cyborg has been used to fill the void in
attempting to make sense of who we are and what we might become.’ 76 The
cyborg is therefore deemed a symbol or icon of the technoscientific age, its
dual status of being both organic and non-organic providing a symbolic
function for society, by existing as a mediator between these two realms. 77

9. Conclusion
This contribution has demonstrated the way cyborg art points to
important and relevant themes regarding increasing body-technology fusion,
including: sites of possible being (prefigurative representations);
transgression (the crossing of traditional Western ideological binaries and
boundaries, such as male/female, organic/artificial, culture/nature,
human/animal, born/made and public/private); and cyborgian paradox (the
human desires and fears felt towards advanced technologies, and the
‘marvels’ and ‘monsters’ which can be created). The artworks also allude to
the dehumanising impacts of, and increasing human dependency on,
technology; the instability of the symbiotic body/identity as constituting soft
(warm) flesh, and hard (cold) machinery; and the way skin no longer serves
as a barrier and boundary to the inner corporeal realm.
The potency of cyborg art centres on the way this artistic focus
articulates concepts pertaining to the changing human body which are often
‘inexpressible’ in words alone, and draws attention to the hidden underlying
 Elizabeth Borst 297
______________________________________________________________
processes of our increasing cyborgisation. Artists who focus on the interface
using two-dimensional art, sculpture or performance, can be thought of as
global innovators, both seekers and producers of meaning. These artists are
provocateurs and visionaries, generating ideas, questions and constructive
criticism. Artists help us to understand our relationship with technology in
more tangible ways, by exploring reality as it is now and future projections. 78
As Michael Zimmerman affirms, ‘Only by questioning the presuppositions,
perils, and promises of the technological age will humanity have any hope of
discovering authentic ways of living within the dangerous and the wondrous
possibilities opened up by that age.’ 79 Andrew Murphie and John Potts
rightly acknowledge artists as ‘the “antennae” of society, foreshadowing in
their art the social impact of technological change.’ 80
Ultimately, cyborg art is a discursive tool for addressing the
increasing interconnection and relationship between humanity and
technology. This artistic focus can therefore be viewed as having critical
potential, serving as a possible catalyst for increasing theoretical analysis
relating to, and societal awareness of (and interest in), advanced corporeal
technologies. Cyborg art can (and should) have social value and function, as
this art genre offers versions of the technoscience debate which are often not
considered, and forms of resistance not immediately apparent. 81 Overall,
cyborg art visually represents the altering human body and the scope of
developed, invented and discovered corporeal technologies, which impact on
all of us - and future generations.
Visual culture theorist W. J. T. Mitchell alludes to the importance of
paying attention to art which explores various developments of technoscience
and using it for critical reflection, discussion and debate. He states that:

Perhaps this moment of accelerated stasis in history, when

we feel caught between utopian fantasies of biocybernetics
and the dystopian realities of biopolitics, between the
rhetoric of the posthuman and the real urgency of universal
human rights, is a moment given to us for rethinking just
what our lives, and our arts, are for.82

I suggest a need arises to embed cyborg art in the realm of corporeal

human-technology interface debate; to recognise cyborg art as constituting a
specific critical and relevant art genre; for cyborg art to be acknowledged as a
significant arena for exploring issues surrounding changing human physical
ontology; and for cyborg art to be valued as complementary to theoretical
discussion focusing on increasing body-technology convergence.
298 ‘Cyborg Art’
______________________________________________________________

Notes
1
S. Best and D. Kellner, The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology,
and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium, The Guilford Press, New York,
2001, p. 184.
2
Ibid., p. 151.
3
C. H. Gray, Cyborgs, Attention, & Aesthetics, 1998, viewed 27 February
2005, p. 3,
<http://www.routledgeny.com/ref/cyborgcitizen/cycitpgs/kunst.html>.
4
Best and Kellner, p. 276.
5
I. Aristarkhova, ‘Ectogenesis and Mother as Machine’, Body & Society,
Vol. 11, No. 3, 2005, p. 45; S. Coleman, The Ethics of Artificial Uteruses:
Implications for Reproduction and Abortion, Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot,
2004, p. 2.
6
Image 1, H. R. Giger, Birth Machine Baby, 1998, Bronze Sculpture. H. R.
Giger Sculptures. Bronze: 8.5 in. x 21.5 in., viewed 15 December 2006,
<http://www.hrgiger.com/gegauf/sculptures.htm>.
7
L. Barany, Birth Machine Baby, 2007, viewed 1 April 2008,
<http://www.hrgiger.com/frame.htm>; H. A. Glaser, ‘Intrauterine
Technology for the Year 2000’, in H. R. Giger’s Necronomicon II, C. Miles
and J. R. Cowan (eds), Morpheus International, Beverly Hills, CA, 1985, p.
40.
8
C. Rosen, ‘Why Not Artificial Wombs?’ The New Atlantis. A Journal of
Technology & Society, Vol. 3, 2003, p. 67.
9
F. Simonstein, ‘Artificial Reproduction Technologies (RTs) - All the Way
To the Artificial Womb?’ Medicine, Health, Care and Philosophy, Vol. 9,
No. 3, 2006, pp. 360-361.
10
A. Kroker and M. Kroker, Hacking the Future: Stories for the Flesh-Eating
90s, in Cultural Texts, St Martin’s Press, New York, 1996, p. 17.
11
D. J. Haraway, Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.Femaleman©_
Meets_Oncomouse™. Feminism and Technoscience, Routledge, New York,
1997, p. 174.
12
A. Kimbrell, The Human Body Shop: The Cloning, Engineering, and
Marketing of Life, Gateway, Washington, DC, 1997; G. Stock, Redesigning
Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future, Houghton Mifflin Company, New
York, 2002.
13
J. Dumit and R. Davis-Floyd, ‘Cyborg Babies: Children of the Third
Millennium’, in Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-tots, J. Dumit
and R. Davis-Floyd (eds), Routledge, New York, 1998, p. 1.
14
E. Gelber, ‘A Rare U.S. Showing of H.R. Giger’s Work’, Churn Magazine,
Vol. 6, 2002, p. 15, viewed 2 April 2008,
<http://www.littlegiger.com/articles/files/Churn_6.pdf>.
 Elizabeth Borst 299
______________________________________________________________

15
M. J. Klein, ‘Modern Myths: Science Fiction in the Age of Technology’, in
this volume.
16
G. von Hagens, ‘Anatomy and Plastination’, in Gunther von Hagens’
BODY WORLDS: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies, F.
Kelley (trans), G. von Hagens and A. Whalley (eds), Institut for Plastination,
Heidelberg, 2005, p. 9.
17
Image 2, J. Luetke, Kreator: Enemy of God, 2005, Digital Cover Art.
Group/Single Shots by Harald Hoffmann. Compiled by J. Luetke, viewed 15
March, 2008, <http://www.luetke.com/intro/luetke_com.html>.
18
C. H. Gray, S. Mentor, H. Figueroa-Sarriera, ‘Cyborgology: Constructing
the Knowledge of Cybernetic Organisms’, in The Cyborg Handbook, C. H.
Gray (ed), with S. Mentor and H. Figueroa-Sarriera, Routledge, New York,
1995, p. 5.
19
Haraway, Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.Femaleman©_ Meets_
Oncomouse™, p. 174.
20
J. Luetke, Email Questionnaire, 2007.
21
D. Devoss, ‘Rereading Cyborg(?) Women: The Visual Rhetoric of Images
of Cyborg (and Cyber) Bodies on the World Wide Web*’, Cyberpsychology
& Behaviour, Vol. 3, No. 5, 2000, pp. 840-841; C. Springer, Electronic Eros:
Bodies and Desire in the Postindustrial Age, University of Texas Press,
Austin, 1996, p. 10.
22
Image 3, J. Fox, Bionic, 2001, Graphic Art Illustration. Magazine Cover
Concept. Australian INfront. Justin Fox, viewed 14 April 2006,
<http://www.justinfox.com.au/>.
23
D. J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature,
Routledge, New York, 1991, p. 150.
24
J. Fox, Email Questionnaire, 2007, q. 7.
25
Ibid., q. 6.
26
A. Balsamo, ‘Reading Cyborgs Writing Feminism’, in The Gendered
Cyborg: A Reader, G. Kirkup, L. Janes, K. Woodward, F. Hovenden (eds),
Routledge, London, 2000, p. 156.
27
S. Dixon, ‘Metal Gender’, Ctheory.net, 2003, p. 2, viewed 5 October 2006,
<http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=384>.
28
D. J. Hester, ‘Intersexes and the End of Gender: Corporeal Ethics and
Postgender Bodies’, Journal of Gender Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3, 2004, p. 221.
29
Y. Volkart, Monstrous Bodies: The Disarranged Gender Body as an Arena
for Monstrous Subject Relations, 2004, viewed 12 December 2006,
<http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/cyborg_bodies/monstrous_bodies//
print/>.
30
Hester, p. 218.
300 ‘Cyborg Art’
______________________________________________________________

31
V. Pitts, In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification,
Palgrave, New York, 2003, p. 188.
32
T. Foster, Souls of Cyberfolk: Posthumanism as Vernacular Theory,
University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2005, p. xxvi.
33
B. E. Kolko, L. Nakamura, G. B. Rodman, ‘Race in Cyberspace: An
Introduction’, in Race in Cyberspace, B. E. Kolko, L. Nakamura, G. B.
Rodman (eds), Routledge, London, 2000; C. Sandoval, ‘New Sciences:
Cyborg Feminism and the Methodology of the Oppressed’, in The Cyborg
Handbook, C. H. Gray (ed), with S. Mentor and H. Figueroa-Sarriera,
Routledge, New York, 1995.
34
G. Gómez-Peña, Dangerous Border Crossers: The Artist Talks Back,
Routledge, London, 2000.
35
Image 4, P. Hitchcock, The Black Knight, 2007, Wall-mounted Mixed-
media Sculpture. Philip Hitchcock designs: Fantasy, viewed 7 December
2007, <http://www.hitchcockdesigns.com/fantasy36.html>.
36
Devoss, p. 841.
37
J. A. Brown, ‘Comic Book Masculinity and the New Black Superhero’,
African American Review, Vol. 33, No. 1, 1999, p. 30.
38
P. Hitchcock, Artist Bio, n.d., para. 3, viewed 1 April 2008,
<http://philiphitchcock.com/philip_hitchcock.html>.
39
P. Hitchcock, Email Questionnaire, 2007.
40
Image 5, V. Koen, Nutrition Man, 2005, Digital Art Illustration. Men’s
Journal, 2005, viewed 28 November, 2007,
<http://www.viktorkoen.com/F_portfolio.html>.
41
Stelarc, ‘From Psycho-Body to Cyber-Systems: Images as Posthuman
Entities’, in Virtual Futures: Cyberotics, Technology and Post-human
Pragmatism, J. Broadhurst Dixon and E. J. Cassidy (eds), Routledge,
London, 1998, p. 117.
42
Aristarkhova, p. 56; V. Kuni, Cyborg Configurations as Formations of
(Self-)Creation in the Fantasy Space of Technological Creation (I): Old and
New Mythologies of Artificial Humans, 2004, p. 3, viewed 12 December
2006,
<http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/cyborg_bodies/mythical_bodies_I/p
rint/>.
43
R. Wilson, ‘Cyber(Body)Parts: Prosthetic Consciousness’, in
Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological
Embodiment, M. Featherstone and R. Burrows (eds), Sage, London, 1995, p.
243.
44
J. Zylinska, ‘“The Future…is Monstrous”: Prosthetics as Ethics’, in The
Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age, J.
Zylinska (ed), Continuum, New York, 2002, p. 216.
 Elizabeth Borst 301
______________________________________________________________

45
E. Graham, Representations of the Post/Human: Monsters, Aliens and
Others in Popular Culture, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 2002,
p. 33.
46
P. Atzori and K. Woolford, ‘Extended-Body: Interview with Stelarc’,
CTheory.net, 1995, para. 10, viewed 18 June 2007,
<http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=71>.
47
A. Clark, Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of
Human Intelligence, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003.
48
Simonstein, p. 363.
49
Atzori and Woolford, p. 6.
50
Image 6, C. Magganas, Hermes, 1997, Digital Art Illustration. Private
View, viewed 28 April 2006,
<http://www.pvuk.com/artists/enlarge36_29_2.html>.
51
L. L. Stookey, Thematic Guide to World Mythology, Greenwood Press,
Westport, Conn., 2004, p. 4.
52
R. Ascott, Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and
Consciousness, E. A. Shanken (ed), University of California Press, Berkeley,
2003, p. 212.
53
Best and Kellner, p. 150.
54
R. Packer and K. Jordan, ‘Overture’, in Multimedia: From Wagner to
Virtual Reality, R. Packer and K. Jordan (eds), Norton, New York, 2001, p.
xxvi.
55
C. Magganas, Email Questionnaire, 2007.
56
C. Magganas, Christos Magganas, n.d., para. 3, viewed 16 April 2007,
<http://www.digitalren.com/master/christos/christoswrit.html>.
57
Ascott, Telematic Embrace, p. 216.
58
P. Lévy, ‘The Art and Architecture of Cyberspace: Collective Intelligence’,
in Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, R. Bononno (trans), R.
Packer and K. Jordan (eds), Norton, New York, 2001, p. 339.
59
Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, p. 212.
60
Image 7, D. McKean, Feeding the Machine, 1999, Surrealist Artwork.
Mupinc Surrealism, viewed 20 April 2006,
<http://www.mupinc.net/surrealism/mckeandave/images/am_dave_mckean_f
eeding_the_machine.jpg>.
61
Best and Kellner, p. 161.
62
N. Wiener, Cybernetics; Or, Control and Communication in the Animal
and the Machine, 2nd Edition, MIT Press, New York, 1961.
63
L. Mumford, Art and Technics, Columbia University Press, New York,
1960, p. 9.
64
M. Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays,
W. Lovitt (trans), Harper & Row, New York, 1977, p. 19.
302 ‘Cyborg Art’
______________________________________________________________

65
R. Polt, Heidegger: An Introduction, Cornell University Press, New York,
1999, p. 171.
66
L. Evans, ‘A Phenomenological Analysis of Social Networking’, in this
volume.
67
P. Standish, ‘Only Connect: Computer Literacy from Heidegger to
Cyberfeminism’, Educational Theory, Vol. 49, No. 4, 1999, p. 422.
68
M. E. Zimmerman, Heidegger’s Confrontation with Modernity:
Technology, Politics and Art, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1990,
p. xiv.
69
Mumford, p. 5.
70
Image 8, H. Taillefer, Venus Envy, 1999, Painting. Oil on Canvas. 44 in. x
60 in. Artworks, viewed 15 December 2008, <http://beinart.org/artists/heidi-
taillefer/>.
71
E. Kac, Telepresence and Bio Art: Networking Humans, Rabbits, and
Robots, University of Michigan Press, Michigan, 2005, p. 243.
72
Best and Kellner, p. 137.
73
R. Ascott, ‘Beyond Boundaries. Edge-life: Technoetic Structures and
Moist Media’, in Art, Technology, Consciousness: Mind@large, R. Ascott
(ed), Intellect, Portland, Oregon, 2000, p. 2.
74
Springer, p. 77.
75
A. Murphie and J. Potts, Culture and Technology, Palgrave, New York,
2003, p. 115.
76
S. Short, Cyborg Cinema and Contemporary Subjectivity, Palgrave
Macmillan, New York, 2005, p. 163.
77
K. Benesch, Romantic Cyborgs: Authorship and Technology in the
American Renaissance, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 2002, p.
31; Graham, p. 202; K. N. Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual
Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics, The University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, 1999, p. 24.
78
S. Wilson, Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology,
MIT Press, London, 2002, p. 50.
79
Zimmerman, p. xxi.
80
Murphie and Potts, p. 39.
81
C. H. Gray, ‘In Defence of Prefigurative Art: The Aesthetics and Ethics of
Orlan and Stelarc’, in The Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body
in the Media Age, J. Zylinska (eds), Continuum, New York, 2002, p. 182.
82
W. J. T. Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want?: The Lives and Loves of
Images, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2005, p. 335.
 Elizabeth Borst 303
______________________________________________________________

Bibliography
Aristarkhova, I., ‘Ectogenesis and Mother as Machine’. Body & Society, Vol.
11, No. 3, 2005, pp. 43-59.

Ascott, R., ‘Beyond Boundaries. Edge-life: Technoetic Structures and Moist

Media’, in Art, Technology, Consciousness: Mind@large. R. Ascott (ed),
Intellect, Portland, Oregon, 2000, pp. 2-6.

—––, Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and

Consciousness. E. A. Shanken (ed), University of California Press, London,
2003.

Atzori, P. and Woolford, K., ‘Extended-Body: Interview with Stelarc’.

CTheory.net, 1995, viewed 18 June 2007,
<http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=71>.

Balsamo, A., ‘Reading Cyborgs Writing Feminism’, in The Gendered

Cyborg: A Reader. G. Kirkup, L. Janes, K. Woodward, F. Hovenden (eds),
Routledge, London, 2000, pp. 148-158.

Barany, L., Birth Machine Baby. 2007, viewed 1 April 2008,

<http://www.hrgiger.com/frame.htm>.

Benesch, K., Romantic Cyborgs: Authorship and Technology in the American

Renaissance. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 2002.

Best, S. and Kellner, D., The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology,

and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium. The Guilford Press, New York,
2001.

Brown, J. A., ‘Comic Book Masculinity and the New Black Superhero’.
African American Review, Vol. 33, No. 1, 1999, pp. 25-42.

Clark, A., Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of

Human Intelligence. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003.

Coleman, S., The Ethics of Artificial Uteruses: Implications for Reproduction

and Abortion. Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, 2004.

Devoss, D., ‘Rereading Cyborg(?) Women: The Visual Rhetoric of Images of

Cyborg (and Cyber) Bodies on the World Wide Web*’. Cyberpsychology &
Behaviour, Vol. 3, No. 5, 2000, pp. 835-845.
304 ‘Cyborg Art’
______________________________________________________________

Dixon, S., ‘Metal Gender’. Ctheory.net, 2003, viewed 5 October 2006,

<http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=384>.

Dumit, J. and Davis-Floyd, R., ‘Cyborg Babies: Children of the Third

Millennium’, in Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-tots. J. Dumit
and R. Davis-Floyd (eds), Routledge, New York, 1998, pp. 1-20.

Evans, L., ‘A Phenomenological Analysis of Social Networking’, in

Frontiers of Cyberspace. D. Riha (ed), Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York,
2012, pp. 55-77.

Foster, T., Souls of Cyberfolk: Posthumanism as Vernacular Theory.

University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2005.

Gelber, E., ‘A Rare U.S. Showing of H.R. Giger’s Work’. Churn Magazine,
Vol. 6, 2002, pp. 10-15, viewed 2 April 2008,
<http://www.littlegiger.com/articles/files/Churn_6.pdf>.

Glaser, H. A., ‘Intrauterine Technology for the Year 2000’, in H. R. Giger’s

Necronomicon II. C. Miles and J. R. Cowan (eds), Morpheus International,
Beverly Hills, CA, 1985, p. 40.

Gómez-Peña, G., Dangerous Border Crossers: The Artist Talks Back.

Routledge, London, 2000.

Graham, E., Representations of the Post/Human: Monsters, Aliens and

Others in Popular Culture. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 2002.

Gray, C. H., Cyborgs, Attention, & Aesthetics. 1998, viewed 27 February

2005, <http://www.routledge-ny.com/ref/cyborgcitizen/cycitpgs/kunst.html>.

—––, Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age. Routledge, New York,
2001.

—––, ‘In Defence of Prefigurative Art: The Aesthetics and Ethics of Orlan
and Stelarc’, in The Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the
Media Age. J. Zylinska (eds), Continuum, New York, 2002, pp. 181-192.

Gray, C. H., Mentor, S., Figueroa-Sarriera, H., ‘Cyborgology: Constructing

the Knowledge of Cybernetic Organisms’, in The Cyborg Handbook. C. H.
 Elizabeth Borst 305
______________________________________________________________

Gray (ed), with S. Mentor and H. Figueroa-Sarriera, Routledge, New York,

1995, pp. 1-14.

Haraway, D. J., Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.

Routledge, New York, 1991.

—––, Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.Femaleman©_Meets_
Oncomouse™. Feminism and Technoscience. Routledge, New York, 1997.

Hayles, N. K., How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics,

Literature, and Informatics. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1999.

Heidegger, M., The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. W.

Lovitt (trans), Harper & Row, New York, 1977.

Hester, D. J., ‘Intersexes and the End of Gender: Corporeal Ethics and
Postgender Bodies’. Journal of Gender Studies, Vol.13, No. 3, 2004, pp. 215-
225.

Hitchcock, P., Artist Bio. n.d., viewed 1 April 2008,

<http://philiphitchcock.com/philip_hitchcock.html>.

Kac, E., Telepresence and Bio Art: Networking Humans, Rabbits, and
Robots. University of Michigan Press, Michigan, 2005.

Kimbrell, A., The Human Body Shop: The Cloning, Engineering, and
Marketing of Life. Gateway, Washington, DC, 1997.

Klein, M. J., ‘Modern Myths: Science Fiction in the Age of Technology’ in

Frontiers of Cyberscape. D. Riha (ed), Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York,
2012, pp. 255-279.

Kolko, B. E., Nakamura, L., Rodman, G. B., ‘Race in Cyberspace: An

Introduction’, in Race in Cyberspace. B. E. Kolko, L. Nakamura, G. B.
Rodman (eds), Routledge, London, 2000, pp. 1-14.

Kroker, A. and Kroker, M., Hacking the Future: Stories for the Flesh-Eating
90s, in Cultural Texts. St Martin’s Press, New York, 1996.

Kuni, V., Cyborg Configurations as Formations of (Self-)Creation in the

Fantasy Space of Technological Creation (I): Old and New Mythologies of
Artificial Humans. 2004, viewed 12 December 2006,
306 ‘Cyborg Art’
______________________________________________________________

<http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/cyborg_bodies/mythical_bodies_I/p
rint/>.

Lévy, P., ‘The Art and Architecture of Cyberspace: Collective Intelligence’,

in Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. R. Bononno (trans), R.
Packer and K. Jordan (eds), Norton, New York, 2001, pp. 335-344.

Magganas, C., Christos Magganas. n.d., viewed 16 April 2007,

<http://www.digitalren.com/master/christos/christoswrit.html>.

Mitchell, W. J. T., What Do Pictures Want?: The Lives and Loves of Images.
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2005.

Mumford, L., Art and Technics. Columbia University Press, New York,
1960.

Murphie, A. and Potts, J., Culture and Technology. Palgrave, New York,
2003.

Packer, R. and Jordan, K., ‘Overture’, in Multimedia: From Wagner to

Virtual Reality. R. Packer and K. Jordan (eds), Norton, New York, 2001, pp.
xiii-xxxi.

Pitts, V., In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification. Palgrave,
New York, 2003.

Polt, R., Heidegger: An Introduction. Cornell University Press, New York,

1999.

Rosen, C., ‘Why Not Artificial Wombs?’ The New Atlantis. A Journal of
Technology & Society, Vol. 3, 2003, pp. 67-76.

Sandoval, C., ‘New Sciences: Cyborg Feminism and the Methodology of the
Oppressed’, in The Cyborg Handbook. C. H. Gray (ed), with S. Mentor and
H. Figueroa-Sarriera, Routledge, New York, 1995, pp. 407-422.

Short, S., Cyborg Cinema and Contemporary Subjectivity. Palgrave

Macmillan, New York, 2005.
 Elizabeth Borst 307
______________________________________________________________

Simonstein, F., ‘Artificial Reproduction Technologies (RTs) - All the Way

To the Artificial Womb?’ Medicine, Health, Care and Philosophy, Vol. 9,
No. 3, 2006, pp. 359-365.

Springer, C., Electronic Eros: Bodies and Desire in the Postindustrial Age.
University of Texas Press, Austin, 1996.

Standish, P., ‘Only Connect: Computer Literacy from Heidegger to

Cyberfeminism’. Educational Theory, Vol. 49, No. 4, 1999, pp. 417-435.

Stelarc., ‘From Psycho-Body to Cyber-systems: Images as Posthuman

Entities’, in Virtual Futures: Cyberotics, Technology and Post-human
Pragmatism. J. Broadhurst Dixon and E. J. Cassidy (eds), Routledge,
London, 1998, pp. 116-123.

Stock, G., Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future. Houghton

Mifflin Company, New York, 2002.

Stookey, L. L., Thematic Guide to World Mythology. Greenwood Press,

Westport, Conn., 2004.

Volkart, Y., Monstrous Bodies: The Disarranged Gender Body as an Arena

for Monstrous Subject Relations. 2004, viewed 12 December 2006,
<http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/cyborg_bodies/monstrous_bodies//
print/>.

Von Hagens, G., ‘Anatomy and Plastination’, in Gunther von Hagens’ BODY
WORLDS: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies. F. Kelly
(trans), G. von Hagens and A. Whalley (eds), Institut for Plastination,
Heidelberg, 2005, pp. 9-37.

Wiener, N., Cybernetics; Or, Control and Communication in the Animal and
the Machine. 2nd Edition, MIT Press, New York, 1961.

Wilson, R., ‘Cyber(Body)Parts: Prosthetic Consciousness’, in

Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological
Embodiment. M. Featherstone and R. Burrows (eds), Sage, London, 1995, pp.
239-260.

Wilson, S., Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology.

MIT Press, London, 2002.
308 ‘Cyborg Art’
______________________________________________________________

Zimmerman, M. E., Heidegger’s Confrontation with Modernity: Technology,

Politics and Art. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1990.

Zylinska, J., ‘“The Future…is Monstrous”: Prosthetics as Ethics’, in The

Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age. J.
Zylinska (ed), Continuum, New York, 2002, pp. 214-235.

Elizabeth Borst is a PhD candidate at The University of Waikato, Hamilton,

New Zealand. Her interests centre on visual culture, including representations
of the cyborg and posthuman body in art, postmodern theory relating to
fashion and subculture, and the aesthetics and impact of mega-malls.
Copyright of At the Interface / Probing the Boundaries is the property of Editions Rodopi BV and its content
may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express
written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.