Cyborg

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Maria - machine man from Fritz Lang's film Metropolis (1927, replica)
José Clemente Orozco - Hernán Cortés as a Machine Man (1938)

The term cyborg (also called Kyborg ) describes a hybrid of a living organism and a machine . It is mostly used to describe people whose bodies are permanently supplemented by artificial components. The name is an acronym derived from the English cyb ernetic org anism (" cybernetic organism"). Since cyborgs are engineered biological life forms, they should not be confused with androids or other robots .

Origin of the term

The term comes from the context of space travel . The Austro-Australian scientist Manfred Clynes and the American physician Nathan S. Kline used the term for the first time in a joint article in the 1960s. They proposed the technical adaptation of humans to the environmental conditions of space , as an alternative to creating an artificial earth-like atmosphere within spaceships . The starting point of these considerations is natural evolution , which is understood here as the progressive adaptation of living beings to new environmental conditions. With the help of biochemical, physiological and electronic modifications, humans should be able to survive as "self-regulating human-machine systems" in space.

The basic idea of ​​inserting technological or artificially produced functional components into organic systems is much older than the term cyborg. So z. For example, there is a connection between the Age of Enlightenment and the "prostheticization of the world" (Bernd Flessner). Cyborg fantasies can also be found in science fiction even before the term was coined.

Cyborgs in society

In modern biotechnology there are efforts to combine biological "elements" (in this case people) with technical elements. This technical area is called bioelectronics . In the medical context, the use of complex intra-body technology is nothing new. People with technical implants such as pacemakers , artificial limbs, complex prostheses or implants in the eye and ear ( cochlea or retina implants ) are already cyborgs by definition. "About 10 percent of the current US population are believed to be technically" cyborgs, "" writes N. Katherine Hayles in the Cyborg Handbook.

Problems of the term

There are different ideas about the exact use of the term. In the opinion of the philosopher Walther Christoph Zimmerli , President of the BTU Cottbus , modern humans generally represent a being who lives in a symbiotic connection with the technology surrounding them. He is therefore “part of such a man-machine complex”. Accordingly, a cyborg would already be a person who surrounds himself with technology, for example sitting in a car or even just wearing glasses . However, it is precisely here how the term “cyborg” should be used is disputed. Is it a synonym for “man” as an anthropologically inevitable being referred to technology in the sense of Arnold Gehlen or Helmuth Plessner ? Or should the term be reserved for those connections between body and technology in which, as Dierk Spreen thinks, “technology gets under your skin”? To make this clear, Spreen proposed the so-called “controller model”, according to which “the mechanization of the body can be shifted like a controller on a scale between the low-tech body and the high-tech body .” Accordingly, the “high-tech body” is a cyborg with an organic- technological body. In contrast, the “low-tech body” is simply surrounded by technology and media . With the model, however, the author also points to the relationships between the technical and media penetration of the sociosphere , which can also be very close to the body ( MP3 players , smartphones , notebooks , etc.), and the technical penetration of the human body in modern times Media culture.

If one does not obtain a criterion for difference, the word “cyborg” would mean nothing that is not already in the anthropological term “man” as a constitutive technical being. Due to his specific, cosmopolitan nature , emphasized by the Philosophical Anthropology , the human being as such “cannot avoid the possibility of reconstructing his own physique, his positionality, from eugenics to individual euplastics .” Against this background, it makes sense to use the term To reserve “cyborg” for certain forms of the relationship between body and technology, namely those in which the organic and the technical combine to form a hybrid form of life. “Human cyborgs” (Chris Hables Gray, Dierk Spreen) would then be hybrid people in this sense.

In such a perspective, the concept of the cyborg is not automatically associated with ideas of a post- or even transhuman society. Transhumanists deal with prognoses and ideas about the “after man” time. As the transhumanist Max More writes : “We can climb higher peaks if we only use our intelligence, our determination and our optimism to pierce the human doll. Despite our efforts, evolution has directed our behavior in certain directions that are built into our brain. Our bodies and brains limit our capacities. ”For More, cyborgs are the expression of a new evolution that leads from“ biological humans to posthuman beings ”. Hence, the implications of talking about “human cyborgs” are not undisputed.

But if the term “cyborg” is used in a restricted sense, i. H. according to the "under-the-skin criterion", it can no longer be easily applied to any technology that is close to the body. It makes more sense to understand it as a problematic discourse that reveals the increasing relevance of internal technology and the associated mixing of the artificial and the natural. The American feminist Donna Haraway, for example, points out that cyborg technology also confuses the patriarchal and lordly codes of the symbolic order and thereby opens up opportunities for emancipation. The now increasingly conceivable “upgrading the body to improve or overcome its natural properties” (Christoph Keller) opens up problematizations. In addition, the cyborgized individual "sees himself constantly confronted with his internal technological consequences, since interface problems cannot be avoided and the connection to out-of-body knowledge and control institutions is characteristic of these technologies."

Such questions fall into the field of "cyborg anthropology". This is the name of a research project by the American Anthropological Association (AAA) that was launched in December 1992 in San Francisco. The main goal of cyborg anthropology is to "study ethnographically the boundaries between human and machines that are specific to late twentieth century societies." This project sees itself as “a serious challenge to the human-centered foundations of anthropological discourse” and seeks connections to Science and Technology Studies (STS) and feminist studies. In Germany, body sociology and philosophical anthropology are the framework in which the social and cultural problem horizon “cyborg” is primarily discussed.

Cyborg genders in the gender discourse

According to Donna Haraway , cyborgization opens up opportunities for emancipation because cyborgs fall out of the usual category thinking. A cyborg is "by nature" neither male nor female, and yet both again. Cyborgs cannot simply be assigned to a category, a way of life and a way of life. Because of these characteristics, cyborgs are often used as an illustration in the problematization discourse to show that there is no strictly female or male behavior or even beings. They showed that, for example, gender roles are consistently constructed, and characteristics of the supposedly opposite sex also apply to one's own and can be lived without becoming a taboo.

Examples of this can be found in feminist science fiction literature, among others. Representing this is , He She and It by Marge Piercy mentioned. Two cyborgs appear in the novel. An artificially created, outwardly male cyborg (strictly speaking an android ), as well as a woman operated on as a cyborg. The interesting thing about these two characters is that the male cyborg also has a male constructor, but human characteristics are primarily programmed or taught by two women, and as a result many traits attributed to female characters such as, B. Has sensitivity and patience. The female counterpart, on the other hand, behaves very masculine due to the living conditions. She is taciturn, a loner, as well as purposeful and shows few emotions. Gender-specific behavior can no longer be clearly assigned and the boundaries between men and women are blurred. The two key messages of the novel, as well as with regard to cyborgs and feminist theory, are that people are taught to behave according to their external gender, and that the apparent gender does not necessarily determine behavior and say something about the gender that is lived and felt.

Against the background of the opportunities for emancipation, Haraway critically thematizes the possibility of integrating cyborgs into the "computer science of domination". The reformulation of body and self in terms of information also opens up new opportunities for control and utilization: “Any object and any person can be viewed in an appropriate way from the perspective of decomposition and recombination, no 'natural' architectures restrict the possible design of the Systems. ”In other words: cyborgs can also be “ coded ” in terms of the military-industrial complex ; they can also be “written” in such a way that they reinforce existing governance structures and gender roles. Anne Balsamo emphasizes precisely this aspect in her analyzes of pop-cultural cyborg images and practices.

Cyborgs in Popular Culture

Novels and comics

  • Appleseed ( Manga , also made into a cartoon ): Briareos, the hero of the story, is so badly injured in a battle that the last option is to transplant his brain into a mechanical body.
  • Battle Angel Alita : Manga in which cybernetic bodies are made for soldiers and martial artists.
  • Berserker (SF novel series) by Fred Saberhagen : Spaceships with a human brain appear here.
  • Cyborg 009 : Manga that is about nine cyborgs fighting for their freedom.
  • The last of its kind : A novel by Andreas Eschbach , which revolves around the life of a cyborg.
  • Eden - It's an Endless World! : The manga series is set in the near future after a pandemic kills 15% of the world's population. Numerous hybrids appear here.
  • Ghost in the Shell : Manga and anime in which the main characters, but also many other characters, are cyborgs, which in part also extends to their brains (cyberbrain) .
  • Gunslinger Girl : A manga series that portrays the experiences of a group of young girls who are transformed into cyborgs and trained to be killers.
  • Neuromancer trilogy and Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson : science fiction novels in which some of the main characters are cyborgs. The novels shaped the idea of cyberspace .
  • Perry Rhodan series : Cyborgs are for example the Posbis, i. H. Pos itronisch- bi ologische robots with organic content, thus a reversal of the concept.
  • Superman : Killer cyborg , an adversary of the superhero.
  • Teen Titans (comic series by DC Comics ): The member Victor Stone is a cyborg and is also known as a superhero Cyborg .
  • Warhammer 40,000 (tabletop strategy game and paperback series): Bionic implants and so-called servitors (criminals who have been re-operated as biotechnical servants as punishment), the Adeptus Mechanicus or the Order of the Iron Hands, in whose ranks the body is increasingly mixed with bionics Implants is sought.

This list is far from complete - especially when it comes to the multitude of science fiction novels that feature cyborgs or the mechanization of the body.

Movie and TV

RoboCop actor
Borg drone in an alcove (charging station) ( Star Trek )
  • Ghost in the Shell (Movie, 1995)
  • Babylon 5 (TV series, 1993–1998): The spaceships of the shadows with a human control brain.
  • Captain Future (anime series, 1978–1979): Prof. Simon Wright
  • Cyborg (feature film, 1989)
  • Treasure Planet (cartoon, 2002)
  • Six Million Dollar Man (TV series, 1974-1978): Steve Austin .
  • Doctor Who (TV series, from 1963): Cybermen or the Daleks , octopus-like mutants from the planet Skaro, who created battle armor to replace their lost form.
  • Dragon Ball Z (Anime series, 1984–1995): C17 & C18 u. a.
  • Gargoyles (animated series, 1994-1997): Coldstone .
  • Godzilla series: Monster Gigan u. a.
  • I, Robot (feature film, 2004): Del Spooner .
  • I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK (Feature film, 2006)
  • Inspector Gadget (animated series, 1983–1986): Inspector Gadget .
  • King Kong series : the alien upgraded King Kong
  • Mark Brandis' Space Partisan franchise; Mobile Operations Base (MOB) and Flying Mobile Operations Base: Machines with a human control brain
  • One Piece (anime series, from 1998): Franky , Bartholomeus Bär .
  • RoboCop (feature film, 1987): RoboCop , a police officer killed on duty, whose body is partially used for a cyborg project.
  • Star Trek series: The Borg , an extraterrestrial force of various cybernetic assimilated (forcibly altered and self-incorporated) species.
  • Star Wars series: Darth Vader , Luke Skywalker (artificial hand), General Grievous and others. a.
  • Universal Soldier (feature film, 1992): GR13 , GR44 a . a.
  • Virus - Ship of No Return (horror thriller 1999)
  • Stargate Atlantis (TV series, 2004–2008): “ The Daedalus Variations ” (hostile race in another universe - alternating reality)

Terminator special case

The T-800 terminators and Terminator 3 TX embodied in the films Terminator (1984), Terminator 2 - Day of Reckoning (1991) and Terminator 3 - Rebellion of the Machines (2003) by Arnold Schwarzenegger are referred to as cyborgs in the films because they are also made of organic material to better be able to fool people. Since the terminators are purely artificial intelligences that were never humans or organic living beings, the term androids is actually appropriate. In Terminator: Redemption there is a Terminator who is a cyborg, and in Terminator: Genisys , John Connor is a cyborg himself.

Computer games

  • In Bioforge (1995) the hero wakes up involuntarily as a cyborg and tries to clarify his condition as the game progresses.
  • In Crysis 2 , the protagonist Alcatraz grows together with his combat suit, the so-called "nanosuit".
  • In Deus Ex: Human Revolution , ethical issues arising from human augmentation are treated as a central issue.
  • In Deus Ex and Project Snowblind , players can upgrade their already cybernated body with various implants (e.g. vision improvement, reflex boost, shields, EMP shock) .
  • In EVE Online , like in Deus Ex , implants are an important game element to improve your character through attribute improvements, percentage ship and weapon bonuses.
  • In the game series Fallout, there have been enemy robots controlled by a human brain since the first part with the Robobrains .
  • In Halo - Fight for the Future , the player takes on the role of "Master Chief", one of the last surviving cyborg super soldiers in a research project to defend humanity against alien enemies.
  • In the Homeworld series, the young neuroscientist Karan Sjet (or her brain) is used as the core of the mother ship and the fleet, in the second part she is also the core of Hiigara's pride.
  • In Metal Gear Solid , Gray Fox and later Raiden is sometimes referred to as the Cyborg Ninja . Although he wears an exoskeleton , he can still be called a cyborg as he is not viable without it.
  • In Mortal Kombat , the fighters Sector, Cyrax, and Smoke are the hitmen of the Lin Kuei clan who have been transformed into cyborgs.
  • In the Quake series, the Strogg, an aggressive race of cyborgs, appear as opponents.
  • In Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2001), the SS experiments with cyborg technology to create the "oversoldier".
  • In several strategy games , cyborgs appear as special combat units, for example in Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun and in the Empire Earth series in the futuristic eras.
  • In Syndicate (1993) people are kidnapped by corporations and converted into cyborgs in order to obtain new agents. These can be equipped with new body upgrades and weapons as the game progresses.
  • In System Shock and its successor, the player's alter ego can be upgraded with cybernetic modules , and some of the opponents are cyborgs.

In some games, in order to comply with license releases and age restrictions, people are depicted as cyborgs or androids.

music

Human-machine hybrids in art

Human-machine hybrid beings can often be found as motifs in the works of the Berlin Dada artists of the 1920s. The art historian Matthew Biro therefore speaks of the "Dada cyborg" and points out that the cyborg as an image and concept was already thematized at that time, regardless of the fact that the term itself was only invented later. The newly developed technique of photomontage , in which existing image materials are cut up and the individual parts are put together to form new images, was ideal for creating hybrid creatures. Under the impressions of high industrialization in Germany and the increasing mechanization of society, the Dadaists combined human and machine parts in the assemblies. Examples are Raoul Hausmann's photo montage “Tatlin lives at home” (1920), the “Self-portrait of the Dadasoph” (1920) or “The beautiful girl” (1919/20) by Hannah Höch . The invalids with their prostheses, mutilated in the material battle of World War I, were another topic that played a role in this context, for example in the collage “A Victim of Society” (1919) by George Grosz .

In the 1970s, the Swiss artist Hansruedi Giger developed his own style by fusing biological-organic and technical forms. He calls the figures he creates "biomechanoids".

The media and performance artist Stelarc goes one step further by combining his own body with modern technology in his actions and thus temporarily becoming a real cyborg.

literature

  • Anne Balsamo: Technologies of the gendered body. Reading Cyborg Women. Duke University Press, Durham et al. a. 1996, ISBN 0-8223-1686-2 .
  • Andy Clark: Natural-Born Cyborgs. Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence. Oxford University Press, Oxford u. a. 2003, ISBN 0-19-517751-7 .
  • Manfred E. Clynes, Nathan S. Kline: The Cyborg and Space. In: Karin Bruns , Ramon Reichert (eds.): Reader New Media. Texts on digital culture and communication. Transcript, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-89942-339-6 , pp. 467-475 ( Cultural studies 18)
  • Critical Art Ensemble : Cyborgs & Designer Babies. Flesh Machine: The Biotechnological Revolution. Passagen-Verlag, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-85165-315-7 ( Passagen-XMedia )
  • Chris Hables Gray (Ed.): The Cyborg Handbook. Routledge, New York 1995, ISBN 0-415-90848-5 .
    • Cyborg Citizen. Politics in Posthuman Societies. Turia and Kant, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-85132-322-X .
  • David Hakken: Cyborgs @ Cyberspace? An ethnographer looks to the future. Routledge, New York et al. a. 1999, ISBN 0-415-91558-9 .
  • Donna Haraway : A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. In: Donna J. Haraway: Simians, Cyborgs and Women. The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge, New York 1991, ISBN 0-415-90387-4 , pp. 149-181, uiuc.edu (PDF)
    • Reinventing nature. Primates, cyborgs and women. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-593-35241-9 .
  • Jan-Christoph Heilinger, Oliver Müller: The cyborg and the question of humans. Critical considerations on "homo arte emendatus et correctus". In: Ludger Honnefelder, Dieter Sturma (Hrsg.): Yearbook for Science and Ethics. Volume 12, ISBN 3-11-019246-2 , ISSN  1430-9017 , Berlin 2007, pp. 21-44
  • Gill Kirkup (Ed.): The gendered Cyborg. A reader. Routledge in association with the Open University, London u. a. 2000, ISBN 0-415-22090-4 .
  • Roland K. Kobald: From Homo S @ piens Cyborgensis. The (genetically) technical body design in the 21st century. Ed. Nove, Neckenmarkt 2007, ISBN 978-3-85251-067-5
  • Hans-Arthur Marsiske: On the way to cyborg civilization . In: Die Welt , June 30, 2007, p. 9
  • Simon Ruf: Uber-people. Elements of a genealogy of the cyborg. In: Anette Keck, Nicolas Pethes (Hrsg.): Mediale Anatomien. Images of people as media projections. Transcript, Bielefeld 2001, ISBN 3-933127-76-9 , pp. 267-286
  • Stefanie Wenner: The intact body in the “realm of purposes”: On the genealogy of the cyborg. In: Annette Barkhaus, Anne Fleig (eds.): Grenzverlätze. The body as an intersection. Fink, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-7705-3652-5 , pp. 83-100 online
  • Joanna Zylinska (Ed.): The Cyborg Experiments. The extensions of the body in the media age. Continuum, London a. a. 2002, ISBN 0-8264-5902-1 ( Technologies. Studies in culture & theory )

Web links

Commons : Cyborgs  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Cyborg  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manfred E. Clynes, Nathan S. Kline: The Cyborg and Space. In: Karin Bruns, Ramon Reichert (eds.): Reader New Media. Texts on digital culture and communication. Bielefeld 2007, pp. 467-475. Original English text.
  2. ↑ Bernd Flessner: The rule of prostheses. In: Kursbuch 128. (1997), pp. 35-44.
  3. ^ N. Katherine Hayles: The Life Cycle of Cyborgs: Writing the Posthuman. In: Chris Hables Gray (Ed.): The Cyborg Handbook. New York / London 1995, pp. 321-335.
  4. ^ Quote from: Research & Teaching 9 (2000).
  5. ↑ Dierk Spreen: Cyborgs and other techno bodies. An essay on the borderline between bios and techne . 2nd Edition. Passau 2000, p. 28.
  6. ↑ Dierk Spreen: The Cyborg. Discourses between body and technology. In: Eva Eßlinger et al. (Ed.): The figure of the third. A paradigm of cultural studies. Berlin 2010, pp. 166–179, here p. 170.
  7. ↑ Joachim Fischer: Androids - humans - primates. Philosophical anthropology as a placeholder for humanism. In: Richard Faber, Enno Rudolph (Hrsg.): Humanism in past and present. Tübingen 2002, p. 237.
  8. ↑ Max More: From biological humans to posthuman beings. In: Telepolis of July 17, 1996, online version
  9. ↑ Christoph Keller: We cyborgs. In: Claudia Pantellini, Peter Stohler (Ed.): Body Extensions. Stuttgart 2004, pp. 24-39.
  10. ↑ Dierk Spreen: Cyborgs Human Cyborgs and reflexive modernity. From Jupiter to Mars to Earth - to the inside of the body. In: Ulrich Bröckling et al. (Ed.): Reason - Development - Life. Key terms of modernity. Munich 2004, p. 343.
  11. ^ Arturo Escobar: Welcome to Cyberia. Notes on the Anthropology of Cyberculture. In: Ziauddin Sardar , Jerome R. Ravetz, (Ed.): Cyberfutures. Culture and Politics on the Information Superhighway. New York 1996, pp. 111-137, here p. 117.
  12. ^ Gary Lee Downey, Joseph Dumit, Sarah Williams: Cyborg Anthropology. In: Chris Hables Gray (Ed.): The Cyborg Handbook. New York / London 1995, pp. 341–346, here p. 343.
  13. ↑ Donna Haraway: The Reinvention of Nature. Primates, cyborgs and women. Frankfurt am Main 1995, p. 50.
  14. ↑ "... these technological body transgressions rearticulate the power relations of a dominant social order." Anne Balsamo: Technologies of the gendered body. Reading Cyborg Women. Durham / London 1996, p. 54.
  15. ^ "I Would Hope That Saner Minds Would Prevail" Deus Ex: Human Revolution Lead Writer Mary DeMarle on the Ethics of Transhumanism . In: Discover Magazine ; accessed on June 10, 2016.
  16. ↑ fallout.wikia.com
  17. ↑ Matthew Biro: The Dada Cyborg. Visions of the New Human in Weimar Berlin. Minneapolis 2009, p. 2