Cyborg 1 Of Mind, Body and Machine: Cyborg cultural politics in the age of hypertext. Julie M. Albright University of Southern California Dept. of Sociology University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA email: albright@scf.usc.edu Cyborg 2 Abstract This paper attempts to examine hypertext/hypermedia as powerful tools to advance cyborg cultural politics, and in doing so attempts to delineate the feminist potential of this new means of communication. Hypertext allows a confusion of boundaries between organism and machine, granting feminists the ability to create and signify their bodies and themselves, and in doing so allows new dimensions of social relations in postmodernity. Hypertext/hypermedia also further the cyborg project by enabling non-hie rarchical, non-linear, "fractal" knowledge from which patterns of ideas and identities can emerge. Hypertext shifts knowledge production from monologue or dialogue to what Gergen has called "hyperlogue", allowing a polyvocal, more inclusive discourse to unfold. Lastly, just as self has been redefined relationally, hypertext enables mind to be envisioned relationally, creating the possibility of a "social mind" or "collective consciousness", thereby expanding the capacity of the body and mind beyond t heir previous limitations into the realm of cyborg consciousness. Of Mind, Body and Machine: Cyborg cultural politics in the age of hypertext. The mass media and new technologies have played an integral role in the production and reproduction of a multiplicity of signs and texts, characteristic of what Lyotard and others have termed "the postmodern condition" (Lyotard, 1993). Featherstone n otes that despite theories of the rise of postmodernity by Lyotard, Baudrillard and others, little social theory has been written to address the concomitant changes in society brought about by this condition (Featherstone, 1988). Landow notes that even l ess attention has been paid to the shaping of society by technology, saying that technology has been "marginalized" from the canon due to a "widespread humanist technophobia" (Landow, 1992). Due to the paucity of theory in both the postmodern and technological areas, a thorough examination of technology and postmodernity and the social and political implications of both certainly seems in order. Feminists in particular may benefit from such an undertaking for two key reasons: First of all, women and others whose voices have been traditionally marginalized from academic canons (Stacey, J. & Thorne, B., 1985; Deegan, 1981) may have a particular interest in gaining a stake in the discursive territory opened up by new technologies. The importance of doing so is spelled out in a prem onition from Lyotard: He predicts that "anything in the constituted body of knowledge that is not translatable into (quantities of information) will be abandoned" (Lyotard, 1993). Historically, Lyotard's warning is analogous to certain languages becoming dialects or dying out which were not translated or translatable to the printed form during the Gutenberg revolution (Landow, 1992). For this reason, feminists need to consider the role that "being digital" (Negroponte, 1995) will play in the future of the feminist project, in order that feminism not become a "dead language" in the post-industrial information age. Secondly, just as women have been marginalized from the realm of academic discourse, so too have they been marginalized from the realm of technology, creating a doubly crossed out position for women attempting to forward a theory of gender and technol ogy. Up to this point, cultural narratives have associated man with culture and woman with nature, serving to encapsulate technology within the realm of hegemonic masculinity, thereby limiting women's access to technology's power. Connell says that the t echnological community has served as "(a) mileux where the power of men and the authority of masculinity are relatively concentrated" (Connell, R., 1995). A feminist critique of technology is therefore necessary in order to form the basis for a resistan ce to this techno-hegemony. This resistance is not only important, but imperative, so that women not be left out of an era where technology is increasingly central. Such a resistance would include the rewriting of cultural narratives framing technology a s masculine, in part by diffusing the boundaries of nature/culture, body/mind and organism/machine. By doing so, feminists can indeed begin to subvert the hegemony which has served to maintain technology as a tool for masculine power, reclaiming it for themselves. This paper will address hypertext in relation to postmodern feminism by utilizing the cyborg metaphor as a metaphor for that coupling, in order to assess how hypertext may be used to further and expand the feminist project. Noting that the te rm "woman" has been problematized in the feminist literature, I will nevertheless continue to use the term throughout as a political tool to address the areas of marginalization and "Otherness" resulting from this classification. The cyborg Technology has historically often been connected with power: Landow has said that: "Technology always empowers someone. It empowers those who possess it, those who make use of it, and those who have access to it" (Landow, 1992). Donna Haraway has be en one of the few feminists theorizing technology, and one of the few who seem to understand technology's empowering qualities. Haraway has introduced the cyborg metaphor as a way to unleash this power. She says that: "One important route for reconstructi ng socialist-feminist politics is through theory and practice addressed to the social relations of science and technology, including crucially the systems of myth and meanings structuring our imaginations. The cyborg is a kind of disassembled and reassemb led postmodern collective and personal self. This is the self feminists must code." (Haraway, 1990). Haraway (1990) defines the cyborg as "a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fic tion". The cyborg, being hybrid to the core, an amalgamation of human and machine, raises the "argument for pleasure in the confusion of boundaries and for responsibility in their construction" (Haraway, 1992). Haraway uses the notion of the cyborg a s a playful metaphor for feminist resistance to hegemonic patriarchy, and calls for a praxis of what she terms "cyborg cultural politics" saying that "Feminists (and others) need continuous cultural reinvention, postmodernist critique, and historical mate rialism; only a cyborg would have a chance" (Haraway, 1992). This last point, that of the cultural reinvention of feminists, will be the aim and focus of this paper. Flax says that in order to undertake such a cultural reinvention, feminists in the postmo dern era face a four fold task: "(1) (To) articulate feminist viewpoints of/within the social worlds in which we live. (2) To think about how we are affected by these worlds (3) consider the ways in which how we think about them may be implicated in exi sting power/knowledge relationships and (4) imagine ways in which these worlds ought to/can be transformed" (Flax, 1987). By taking on this four fold task, I hope to begin to code the postmodern feminist self through considering a particularly intriguin g "world in which we live" - the world of hypertextual cyberspace. My desire is to carve out a space for women's voices in the discursive space surrounding this world by writing feminist theory at the nexus of technology, power and the postmodern. To do this, I will couple Donna Haraway's cyborg with emergent hypertext/hypermedia technologies, in order to explore the possibilities inherent in this potentially fruitful combination, and to consider the empowerment of the feminist project by such a coupl ing. Feminism and cyberspace. Flax's first task, that of articulating feminist thought "of/within the social worlds we live" is a bit difficult in the genre of cyberspace, as little published work exists on the topic. To date, feminists have not considered directly the implicatio ns of hypertext for the feminist project, so instead I will examine the more general area of gender relations in cyberspace. At least two studies directly address this topic, both drawing rather bleak conclusions about the current state of affairs. In h er study, Susan Herring examined the participation of women and men on two academically oriented electronic lists. Her conclusion was that on the electronic lists she examined, traditional gender inequalities were not alleviated but instead were reprodu ced. She says: "Male and female academic professionals do not participate equally in academic CMC. Rather, a small male minority dominates the discourse both in terms of amount of talk, and rhetorically, through self- promotional and adversarial strategi es. Moreover, when women do attempt to participate on a more equal basis, they risk being actively censored by the reactions of men who either ignore them or attempt to delegitimize their contributions. Because of social conditioning that makes women un comfortable with direct conflict, women tend to be more intimidated by these practices and to avoid participating as a result....rather than being democratic, academic CMC is power-based and hierarchical. This state of affairs cannot however be attribute d to the influence of computer communication technology; rather, it continues pre-existing patterns of hierarchy and male dominance in academia" (Shade, 1993). Shade, draws a similar conclusion, saying: "The new 'electronic frontier' is unfortunately sti ll a very masculine dominated space, one in which many women may feel uncomfortable at the best of times. Ensuring equitable gender access to the Internet should be a prerogative of this information age. This means that we must pay close attention to the metaphors that people will use and see in this new world, so that they won't exclude women, or include them in undesirable ways. It means making the Internet easily accessible to all people; making networking an attractive communications tool for women, by creating tangible and viable information and resources; and by encouraging young girls and women to become involved in the development and deployment of the technology. It also means creating a friendly online environment, one that allows women to sp eak their thoughts without having to hide their gender. The world of cyberspace is one which is being shaped daily by the millions of interactions on it, and women can contribute much to these exchanges" (Shade, 1993). Both Herring and Shade paint a blea k picture of current gender relations in cyberspace. Yet Shade (1993) notes that despite this, "Networking has been increasingly recognized by female scholars as being a tool for feminist empowerment, and many women have taken to the net to create, as Eb ben and Kramarae call it, 'a cyberspace of our own' ". Finally, Heath uses Haraway's cyborg in her analysis of advertisements for the computer industry, separating cyborg into categories of "destructive monsters and promising monsters" in order to perfor m a critical read of these ads from a feminist perspective to, as she says, "intensify the possibilities both for transcending our ordinary physical limits and for developing new forms of domination and exploitation" (Heath, 1992). Heath (1992) concludes her study by recommending that the power of the cyborg metaphor not be overlooked. She says that, "Particular uses of computer technology, undergirded by institutionalized militarism, have certainly played a key role in the reconfiguration of love, work and play through what Haraway (1990 [1985]) calls "informatics of domination". And yet, to replace modernist master narratives of technoscientific progress with their mirror image, an anti-modernist technological determinism, is to risk the loss of tools that extend both our bodily limits and the limits of our imagination. To insist that the boundaries between the mechanical and the organic, or between simulation and reality, demand our vigilant protection, is to overlook, first, that boundaries are ong oing constructions, and second, that boundaries that have been called into question are contestable terrain, inviting conscious transformation" (Heath, 1992). I would now like to imagine specific ways in which hypertext may inform and transform these on going constructions, and discuss these transformations in terms of the implications for the feminist project. Hypertext as Tool for Cyborg Cultural Politics Flax's second task, that of considering the ways in which how we think about (particular issues) may be implicated in existing power/knowledge relationships can be answered by saying that up to now, feminists have not thought enough about the relati onship between technology, gender and power, in order to develop a feminist praxis in the information age. Thinking about hypertext and its implications for feminism is an important step for feminists to take, given the exponential growth of this new tech nology: Current estimates say that the World Wide Web is doubling in size every 50 days (Negroponte, 1995). I will attempt here to take that step, by putting forth some ways of thinking about hypertext which may change the nature of the relationship betwe en gender, power, and technology. Hypertext/hypermedia can be seen as powerful tools to advance cyborg cultural politics, through several means: First of all, destabilizing the subject has been an important move for feminists in order to "expose male po wer" and to enable the "emancipation of the suppressed feminine sphere"(Butler, 1990). Hypertext grants feminists the ability to dislocate the subject through the transcendence of the body, enabling them to create and signify their bodies and themselves b y confusing the boundaries of organism and machine, thereby creating new dimensions of social relations in cyberspace. Judith Halberstam in her essay "Automating Gender" talks about computer technology as enabling such dislocation and destabilization. Sh e quotes Jameson as saying that "Postmodern hyperspace has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the body to locate itself, to organize its immediate surroundings perceptually, and cognitively to map its position in a mappable external worl d" (Halberstam, 1991). Halberstam (1991) says this is especially important for women and people of color, since "the world has been mapped and legitimized for only a small group of people". Poster too sees this potential for the transcendence of bodies an d the blurring of traditional boundaries through computer technology. He says: "[T]he subject is no longer located in a point in absolute time/space, enjoying a physical, fixed vantage point from which to rationally calculate its options. Instead it is m ultiplied by databases, dispersed by computer messaging and conferencing, decontextualized and reidentified by TV ads, dissolved and materialized continuously in the electronic transmission of symbols" (Poster, 1990). Wilson also addresses this, saying th at, "Cyberspace...involves a curious form of disembodiement, in which each participant becomes a perceptual monad, a concept rather than a physical presence. Cyberspace parodies the gnostic demand for transcendence of the body, which is literally "left be hind" like a prison of meat as one enters the plemora of conceptual space" (Wilson, 1995). This ability, then, to decenter the subject by transcending the body via hypertextual cyberspace is an important postmodern move for feminists to make in order to e scape the traditional gender categorizations tied to the body which have served to categorize, separate and control women. By gaining the ability to both transcend and resignify their own bodies, in effect growing a cyborg body, feminists can move or remo ve the boundary markers which have signified them as "Other" to the masculine body, creating a space for the digital emancipation of the feminine sphere in hypertextual cyberspace. Hypertext and Fractal Knowledge Hypertext/hypermedia also further the cyborg project by enabling the creation of non-hierarchical, non-linear "fractal" knowledge (Glick, 1987) - knowledge which may at first appear disjointed, unconnected, but from which patterns of new ideas and ne w identities can emerge from extensive networks. The interconnectivity factor of hypertext enables the emergence of a cybernetic feminist network of endlessly linked feedback loops of information. This fractal knowledge allows feminists to make the postmo dern move of serious play, to, as Gergen says, "avoid saying it straight, using linear logic, and forming smooth, progressive narratives" (Gergen, 1991). Barrett says such non-linearity "should be taken in its most complete sense", granting feminists the ability to question "the social justifications for holding this or that text or way of thinking and understanding as central" (Barrett, 1992). This questioning of traditional "ways of knowing" is central to the feminist project. Hypertext encourages coll aboration and is by definition non-hierarchical - qualities which have been forwarded by the feminist movement as resistant to grand metanarratives of hierarchy and domination typical of hegemonic masculinity. By fracturing the very ability to form such h ierarchical knowledge, hypertext may be the embodiment of feminist political ideology by its very nature. By allowing the pastiche quality of the postmodern to be imposed upon knowledge production in the digital age, hypertext can be viewed as furthering feminist values by enabling the drawing in from the margins to the center "Others" who would be excluded from traditional knowledge production processes . Hyperlogue as Cyborg Discourse Hypertext shifts knowledge production from monologue or dialogue to what Ken and Mary Gergen have termed "hyperlogue" (Gergen, K. & Gergen, M., 1995), allowing a polyvocal discourse to unfold without the apparent constrictions of time and space. The hyperlogue is cyborg discourse at at least three junctures: One, within the technological determinism of hypertext itself lies the possibility for reaction and resistance to dominant metanarratives by enabling feminists a direct response via the creation of hyperlinks to alternative discourses connected to the very heart of the argument. It is theoretically possible to comment directly on a text with hypertext technology, allowing marginalized voices to come to the center, taking part as active participa nts in the hyperlogue. Secondly, more than perhaps ever before in the academic literature, the body can be brought back to the center via electronic representation. Feminists can re-code the cyborg body in digital form via film, video, sound byte - coded as the body electr onic. In this way, hypertext heralds the reconnecting of the mind/body, reintroducing the body (traditionally constructed as the feminine) as a way of knowing, thus bringing the Cartesian split in academia full circle. The cyborg body is body extended b eyond the skin, beyond its usual bounds. Wachspress acknowledges the genesis of cyborg body in hypertext when he says that: "Hyper-reality is the employment of technology other than the biological machinery, when used to affect the performance of the bi ological machinery beyond its own limitations. This is almost like making adjustments on a television set, except you are what's plugged in, and the controls are outside your body, being part of whatever technology is interfaced to the body itself. As pa rt of such a man-machine interface you could extend your own mental processes, or if you so choose, you could just diddle with the dials. Hyper-reality is an opportunity to enhance the various qualities of the human experience." (Nelson, 1980). Baudrillar d also talks about the cyborg body which he calls the "cyber-body". He says: "In virtual economy, we have already lived through a specious present of nano-subjectivity: the disappearing body doing fast dissolves into relational networks...The much-hyped culture of new wetware at the body/machine interface, then, as but object-displacements of a massive (telematic) reconfiguration that is always already post-history to the post-human body...What is actually happening is that we are (finally) growing a cyb er-body." (Baudrillard, 1994). The feminist potential of the cyber-body or cyborg body has only begun to be considered; certainly the implications for the "fast dissolve" of bodies into relational networks fulfills the feminist goal of connectivity versu s autonomy. Lastly, just as Gergen has redefined the concept of "self" relationally, transforming self from individual self to self-in-relationship (Gergen, 1991), now it becomes possible to transform the concept of mind from individual entity to relational con struct, creating the possibility for a "social mind" or "collective consciousness" as it were, constructed within relational networks online, expanding the capacity of the body and mind beyond their previous limitations into the realm of cyborg conscious ness. The notion of a cyborg consciousness would no doubt resonate with Gregory Bateson's cybernetic notion of mind: Bateson has said that "Mind is not immanent in the body. It is immanent also in the pathways and messages outside the body" (Bateson, 1972 ). Certainly the digital pathways which connect the Internet and other networked computer systems, and the messages which travel across them, would serve as such "pathways and messages". Bateson would certainly also approve of a reversal of this: ie., tha t Mind is not immanent in the mind. It is also immanent in the pathways and messages traversing the mind and body. The cyborg maintains this mind/body connection as an organism/machine hybrid, thereby avoiding committing what Bateson would view as the e pistemological error of creating a partial arc of Mind disconnected from body. The super brain model of hypertext commits this epistemological error: Even though a user figures in to this model, the user is viewed merely as a dis-embodied brain. The body encasing this brain is apparently the modernist body of the anonymous knower, a non-gendered "every-body", which pretends to be inclusive but which has historically taken the shape of the masculine body. This view of hypertext as brain without body has fi nally gotten rid once and for all of the problematic (feminine) body with its messy connections to emotion, sensation, desire. Through omitting the body and therefore committing Bateson's epistemological error, the super brain and other similar metaphors maintain the primacy of mind over body without reconnecting the two, serving to reproduce rather than transform hegemonic gender relations in cyberspace Restrictions to the Cyborg Project There are several possible restrictions to the expansive possibilities of hypertext for the feminist project. First of all, the future of hypertext may bring greater instances of the use of "editors", editors who will serve to limit which bodies ca n speak, thereby delimiting the discourse to maintain hegemony even in the face of such a transformative medium. Hegemony then becomes fractal, expanding upon itself and, through its spacial dominance, again relegates certain discourses to the margins. Li nks created to resist dominant metanarratives can simply be alt-control-deleted, reducing the true richness of the hyperlogue from tableau vivant to tabula rasa. A second restriction to the use of hypertext technology for the feminist project is limited, of course, by one's own ability to access and utilize the technology, which will serve to delimit the pool of potential cyborgs substantially. Women in parti cular, girls even, need to become savvy to the power of hypertext technology by embracing their own cyborg potential for connectivity. Conclusion I have attempted to examine hypertext/hypermedia as powerful tools to advance cyborg cultural politics, and in doing so have attempted to delineate the feminist potential of this new means of communication. Hypertext allows a confusion of boundaries betw een organism and machine, granting feminists the ability to create and signify their bodies and themselves, and in doing so allowing new dimensions of social relations in cyberspace. The hyperlogue shifts knowledge production from exclusionary "grand narratives" which are typically androcentric, white, and heterosexual (Stacey, J. & Thorne, B.), to a polyvocal, more inclusive discourse. Feminists are just beginning to consider the potential for the empowerment of women inherent in this new informatio n technology. With an embrace of hypertext technology and the power of the cyborg, feminists can expand the reach of the feminist project exponentially, thereby enacting a truly postmodern feminist praxis. References [Barrett, 1989] Edward Barrett, editor. The Society of Text. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [Bateson, 1972] Gregory Bateson. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine. [Baudrillard, 1994] Jean Baudrillard. Illusions of the end or the strike of events.Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, 1994.. [Connell, 1987]. Robert Connell. Gender and Power., Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. [Deegan, 1981). M.J. Deegan. 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