Cyborg

toc Arnold Schwarzenegger as an indestructible cyborg in __[|Terminator]__

A term originally proposed by [|Manfred Clynes] and Nathan Kline. Originally, "[|cyborg]" denoted a "life form created from the fusion of organic and machine systems" for the purpose of space travel. Clynes and Kline used the term to describe "self-regulating man-machine systems". The first cyborg was created by Australian [|NASA] research scientist and American clinical psychologist Nathan Kline in the 1960s. They implanted a pump under the skin of a mouse where the pump continuously and independently injected the mouse with chemicals.

=Critics and Theorists=

[|Donna Haraway]

Haraway has theorized about the topic of cyborg as a means to consider the relationship of human subjects to technology, the subjectivity of late capitalism, biomedicine, and compuer technology. She argues that cyborgs are the result of a process she calls abstract individuation, whre the "ultimate self [is] untied at last from all dependency" including physical limitations and gender. In her writings Donna Harraway identifies the internet as liberalizing for women in that it provides a space that women can be freeded of their biology. The establishes this being as a cyborg.

Some have argued that those who have implants or pacemakers for example, are actual cyborgs. It is claimed that cyborgs have populated contemporary science fiction literature and film.

=Cyborg Today=

Nowadays, cyborg is defined as a postmodern subject characterized by shifting, multiple, and ironic [|ontologies]. There are still many cyborg projects undertaken by scientists and researches of different academic institutions all over the world, such as the [|Project Cyborg 2002] conducted by the [|University of Reading]in Britain. Many feel that the development of the cyborg has laid the groundwork for many virtual pet projects and will continue to influence the development of virtual pets now and in the future.

=Works Cited= http://www.cirg.reading.ac.uk/home.htm http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html

Cartwright, Lisa and Marita Sturken. __Practices of Looking: An introduction to Visual Culture__. New York: Oxford, 2001 Image Courtesy of: [|http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/sociosite/images/sociologists/haraway.]