Cyborgology and the limits of human and machine implosion

Abstract

Introduction Anxiety accompanies human/machine intersections. This condition is, however, relatively new. Early work on machinic extensions of humans (men in particular) for space travel occurred at roughly the same time as other forms of technology, such as television, began to proliferate in everyday life. With the increasing rate of this proliferation, some might say invasion, of technology, it is now widely acknowledged the extent to which various forms of technology shape our worlds. At times, this anxiety takes a phobic turn, questioning the extent to which these technologies, as a whole, benefit human life on this planet: In our more reflexive moments, we are suspicious that the technological instruments intended to heal and bring us together - the telephone, the automobile, the airplane, the computer, the fax machine, medical apparatus - are in truth driving us further apart. We fear that we are isolated bodies, plugged into technological toys and tools but divorced from the comforts of human proximity and touch. Even worse, the material products of technical-scientific reason have proliferated until they promise to transform the planet into a wasted metallic reflection of its misguided demigod. (Rushing and Frentz, 1995:13-14) Fear of isolation and environmental degradation and anxiousness about the possibility that an increased relationship with and/or reliance upon technology might mean that humans could not survive without machines; perhaps even that human and machine are becoming integrated at the expense of pure' humanness In short, the boundary between human and machine is becoming blurred, if not eradicated. (see document)