Posthuman Figures - Movie Review Example

POSTHUMAN FIGURES: RETHINKING NOTIONS OF IVITY Introduction This paper aims to explore how posthuman figures of difference help us rethink our subjectivity through a TV programme as a reference. It shall look at how cultural identity is organised around points of difference, the idea of the body as Other, and long history of fascination with bodies that don't conform, which challenge the idea of the Enlightenment subject and exposes our cultural anxieties. It is also important to critically analyse the notion of the posthuman and the notion of the "other" in addressing these points. "The posthuman view privileges informational pattern over material instantiation, so that embodiment in a biological substrate is seen as an accident of history rather than an inevitability of life" (Hayles, 1999, p. 2). Posthumanism views the human body as a prosthesis that humans learn to manipulate and replaces it with other prostheses, which is a continuation of a process. Likewise, the posthuman view looks at the human body as something that can be seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines through configuration (Hayles, 1999, p. 3). In the posthuman, absolute demarcation or even essential differences do not exist between bodily existence and computer simulation. The analysis of possessive individualism by C. B. Macpherson is significant of underlying assumption about subjectivity signaled by the posthuman. This analysis posits that the posthuman possessive quality is found in how it conceives the individual as the essential proprietor of his own person or capacities, in which he owes nothing to society. There are convenient points of departure for measuring the distance between the human and the posthuman, exemplified by this notion of "owing nothing to society" (Hayles, 1999). Hobbes and Locke have initially claimed that humans in a 'state of nature' owe nothing to society before the emergence of market relations. It is argued that a foundation upon which those market relations can be built, such as selling one's labour for wages, since ownership of oneself is viewed to predate market relations (Hayles, 1999). Posthumanism and Cultural Identity One of the most frequent criticisms made of cybernetics is that apart from being a new science it is merely an extended analogy between men and machines. It was argued by Michael Foucault that man is a historical construction whose era is about to end (Hollinger and Gordon, 2002). Posthuman has then become a subject in cultural studies and the discourse about the body signals the emergence of the posthuman subject. There is the recognition of masculinist cyberpunk narratives of the possibilities of the elimination of the boundaries between human and machine. However, dualistic gender identity in the interactions between material bodies and technological devices has failed to dislodge (Hollinger and Gordon, 2002, p. 77). It may be furthered that a denaturalisation of the relationship between the body and cultural identity is facilitated by the multiple entanglements of the body with technology. This in turn is said to destabilise the structure and modes of reproduction of Western identity, alongside nature of culture (ibid). It is however noteworthy to mention that pertaining to cultural identity, the posthuman view supports the perspective that the wired body is perfect because the technoid life enables the human being to crack out from the dead shell of human culture (Hollinger and Gordon, 2002). The formulation of the technoid life form through the cyborg undermines the knowledge that the human body has a productive and inscriptive capacity of its own, functioning through historical, social, and cultural practices. Culturally constituted bodies do not only experience and live, but are also gendered bodies that define their environments as much as they are defined by them. Information is the defining environment for the contemporary technological body. Thus, the posthuman context must inevitably address the complex and shifting relationship between the body and information technology (Hollinger and Gordon, 2002, p. 78). Hayles (1999) presents a trace of how information lost its body, that is, how an entity separated from the material form is conceptualised. She furthers that the problematic definitions of the posthuman in cyberculture has produced disembodiments in information technology. Humans and machines are nonetheless linked through the notion that processing information is the essential function for both intelligent machines and humans (Hayles, 1999, p. 239). The body functions within structures characterised as social, cultural, and political in which cultural and political power is pursued and maintained. Abstraction is however a problem that draws great attention in that information has meaning - though in a socially and cultural context only - just as bodies have meanings only in the particular social and cultural context which they continuously help to produce (Hollinger and Gordon, 2002). In line with this, both bodies and information are contingent and unpredictable, resulting to a notion that posthuman embodiment may be expected to take some forms as well. The posthuman subject appears to be marked by instability in the fact that it is no longer sustained by the idea of a fixed and unified self. A greater flexibility in tackling about gender allows for the contested nature of such subject, in the context of the relationship between human and machine, the natural and unnatural. Another set of relations that must be considered when tackling the posthuman subject is the matrix of gender relations. This matrix provides the framework of a gendered subject (Hollinger and Gordon, 2002). Posthumanism and Spiderman Posthumanism is present in the film Spiderman. Spiderman's posthumanism centered on the notion that there is a need to understand the human form may be changing radically, including human desires and all its external representations, and thus needs revision (Hayles, 1999, p. 1). Spiderman gave way for people to accept anthropods and insects to have intimacy with. The accidental transfiguration of Peter Parker through the spider bite was scientifically done, exemplified by the scientific relatedness of the spider. The transfigured being thus produced was a dear and genuine inmate of man's household, desired by his strength, courage, and skills. Spiderman, despite the transfiguration, was only a reinforcement of the human virtues since had the inner desires and humanely traits reverted to their opposites, Spiderman might not have been a film hero and might not have captured the hearts of children and adults alike. Thus, we see in Spiderman scientific and cultural production that maintains the human bond, in that transfiguration cannot really promote exclusion and separation of what is human from the posthuman. There is this desire to always link the transfigured form to the human form and function within the culture of the human form. Posthumanities emerge out of an anti-aesthetic and anti-scientific disenchantment that challenges the medical/aesthetic disciplinary monopoly on the body (Halberstam and Livingston, 1995, p. 1). Apparently, looking at Spiderman with face and body covered will not tell us that he is a good-looking man since mainstream definition of aesthetics includes the appearance of the face, eyes, mouth, nose, ears, and so on. Posthuman monstrosity and its bodily forms are recognized in their occupation of the overlap between the now and then, the here and the always, and the premature and old news annunciation of posthumanity (Halberstam and Livingston, 1995). Posthuman bodies are said to be the causes and effects of existing postmodern relations such as virtuality and reality, power and pleasure, and sex and its consequences. The posthuman body like that of Spiderman's is a technology, a screen, a projected image, a techno-body, a queer body. Spiderman performed task of becoming posthuman on screen and on camera, depicting power and captivity. It was a remarkable performance of identity in mass media culture with cameras and video equipment fundamentally settling the posthuman perspective. Spiderman shows that the relationship between the human and the posthuman is based on a new technological order with the body at its helm. Halberstam and Livingston (1995) assert that posthuman bodies belong to the past and future, lived as present crisis, which erupts non-locally across a partially temporary realm of meaning. Thus, posthuman bodies, such as Spiderman, are representations of attempts to keep up with the present and to process the identities that rub up against the body (Halberstam and Livingston, 1995). It is also important to stress that posthuman bodies thrive in subcultures in the absence of culture, since dominant culture is only held as a culmination of appropriated forms and plagiarized lyrics (Halberstam and Livingston, 1995). In posthumanist films like Spiderman, science is always situated amongst competing meanings and not in the domains free from economic, political, and cultural processes. Posthumanism enables man to understand science as culture and in culture, even the notion that science is embedded in the construction of dynamics of social power (Terry, 1995, p. 136). The presence of science and scientific inquiry in the transfiguration of a human being into a posthuman being in Spiderman is significant of science being heralded as a primary method for solving social problems like crimes. The posthumanist view coincides with the justification of research projects like the Human Genome Projects, Strategic Computing Initiative, and so on - in terms of their necessity to the vitality and security of humanity (Terry, 1995, p. 137). The Notion of the Other The role of image in posthumanism in a transmitted body becomes operational, with corporeal effect on Spiderman's remotely located body. This is significant of change in the nature of bodies and images, whereby images cease to be mere illusory when they become interactive. The realm of the image is a posthuman one, autonomous to the Other. This Other asserts the notion that we mostly operate as absent bodies, the genetically programmed body that functions effectively when functioning automatically (Sawyer and Seed, 2000, p. 117). There is this notion of death-transcendence in posthuman extrapolation and a desire for it is one of the most common aspects of becoming Other (Sawyer and Seed, 2000). Thus, technology replaces birth and eliminates death. The Posthuman Figure of Difference The posthuman figure of difference involves reassessing and reconceptualising the significance of the designation "human." The difference is signaled by the break or transcendence from the humanist framework. Posthumanism is indicative of the shift in orientation towards human relations with non-humans, just like the love affair between Spiderman and Mary Jane. It is also indicative of interaction with other animate beings and machines. Posthumanism is associated with power, autonomy, distinctiveness, and identity of the human and the desire to absolutise the difference between the human and the non-human (Bennett, et al., 2005, p. 167). The difference between humans and non-humans is so slim that humans are not afraid to associate with animals and machines in the posthumanist context. Rethinking Our Subjectivity The hybridity ensuing from transfigured forms of the posthuman body challenges the perception of technology as instigating a loss of subjectivity, and even of identity and corporeality (Toffoletti, 2007, p. 122). In posthuman experience, symbols and meanings are eliminated to replace the technologically reformulated body and a new kind of subjectivity is created in the fields of biological and information networks (ibid). This subjectivity does not exist outside technology but immerses in information networks. Posthuman figures such as Spiderman depict a bodily modality suited to both material and information systems, challenging conventional interpretations of how the world is experienced and perceived. Conclusion The formulation of the posthuman transfigured body undermines the knowledge that the human body has a productive capacity of its own, experiencing historical, social, and cultural experiences. Information is the defining environment for the contemporary technological body and the posthuman context must inevitably address the complex and shifting relationship between the body and this concept. Spiderman's posthumanism centered on the notion that there is a need to understand the desires of the human form, as well as all its external representations, needs to be re-visioned. The presence of science in the transfiguration of the posthuman being is reflective of its being heralded as a primary method for solving social problems like criminalities, as the primary problem busted by Spiderman. In understanding the notion of the Other, the desire for death-transcendence in posthuman extrapolation is a common aspect, implying that birth is replaced by technology and death is eliminated by it. The transfiguration that causes hybridity in the posthuman body creates the loss of subjectivity, identity, and corporeality. References Bennett, T., Grossberg, L., and Morris M. (2005) New keywords: A revised vocabulary of culture and society, Blackwell Publishing, Inc. Halberstam, J. and Livingston, I. (1995) Posthuman bodies, Indiana University Press. Hayles, K. (1999) How we became posthuman, University of Chicago Press. Hollinger, V. and Gordon, J. (2002) Edging into the future, University of Pennsylvania Press. Sawyer, A. and Seed, D. (2000) Speaking science fiction: Dialogues and interpretations, Liverpool University Press. Terry, J. (1995) The seductive power of science in the making of deviant subjectivity, in Halberstam, J. and Livingston, I. (eds.) Posthuman bodies (p. 135- 142), Indiana University Press. Toffoletti, K. (2007) Cyborgs and Barbie dolls: Feminism, popular culture, and the posthuman body, I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd. Read More