“The Rise of Cultural Bodies” (2008), written by Ollivier Dyens examines the concept of plastic bodies. A plastic body is a being that has been separated from its biological origins or natural state (p. 58). The plastic body relies little on biological parts and can easily be reproduced (p. 58). Dyens provides the example of a clone to represent the concept, which is grown and literally "a being made of plastic" (p. 58). As stated many times throughout my blog, we are constantly surround by technology as we use it to live our lives, work and engage with others. We have discussed multiple examples of humans incorporating machines into their body, but what about a cyborg transforming into a human? If a machine became more human like, would this then make it a legitimate human? What defines a human then?
This week’s reading reminded me of the 1999 film, Bicentennial Man (Christopher Columbus) because it illustrates ideas from the reading, but from the perspective of the machine as it follows one robot’s journey to become a human man. The film represents a machine's evolvement to a plastic body. Andrew an android used as an appliance in the family home tries to become part of the biological realm throughout the film. He inhabits “a world that is exclusive, personal, and without ties to our organic world” (p. 60). However, Andrew attempts throughout the film to create emotional ties to humans, and become part of the exclusive human world. As a robot he is far from humanity, but as the film progresses he develops emotions and creativity, typically traits allocated to humans. At the end of the film, Andrew's plastic body wins over a court ruling to be labelled a human, however I wonder if one day we will be comfortable with interchanging labels like in the film, calling humans cyborgs or machines humans. The end alludes to the idea we all are machines, as Portia, Andrew’s wife, has to be unplugged at the end of the film to die just like Andrew. The film represents the idea that we will go beyond what the body is, and look at humans as defined as thinking entities with emotions and creativity, be it in mechanical or biological bodies.
We seem to be increasingly comfortable with acknowledging the notion that we are all somewhat cyborgs, however the idea of machines becoming humans is an uncomfortable idea that has not been at the forefront of discussion. Bicentennial Man represents the imitation of the human and as Dyens asks, “is one a human being if one is a perfect imitation of it? Is one a human being if one is, or becomes, a living and breathing simulacrum?” (p. 60). So, I conclude that Andrew is a simulacrum, an imitation of a human being, who has created his own body and system to look like a human (p. 63). The film raises interesting questions about the definition of what a human is. As in the clip below, Andrew asks a man what makes them different if a human uses prosthetic organs as he does? The answer is they both have plastic bodies, bodies that exist outside the biological world (p. 58). As more and more people develop plastic bodies, bodies that no one else has experience before, they will open up the definitions of what a human being can be.
Check out the following links
Bicentennial Man Clip- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnKFEOCO4T8&feature=related
Ending of Bicentennial Man- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDcDxteH_oY&feature=related
No comments:
Post a Comment