Saturday, July 4, 2009

Re: [Yasmin_discussions] ethnic cyborg

I do not remember if there was any touch to ethnicity or any
opposition -between human and others- in Transpermia. It is called an
utopia and may be there is no place for ethnicity in utopias because
utopias are uniform.

Requem is an installation by Marcelli; "Requiem draws the idea of the
prosthesis to its logical extreme by maintaining the appearance of
life and its mechanical movements even after death." (from Marcell's
site). It is a mechanical skeleton which can move. You can get in -
wear it- and move which can learn -records- your movements, your walk,
your dance, etc. After you die it still moves as / like you. It is
actually like voice recording or even video of a person which can be
watched after his/her death. But this looks me different because it is
physical, it is an object, it is a moving thing. As an object it
refers itself rather than the recorded person.

"Bodies are both zombies and cyborgs. We have never had a mind of our
own and we often perform involuntarily conditioned and externally
prompted. Ever since we evolved as humanoids and developed bipedal
locomotion, two limbs became manipulators and we constructed
artifacts, instruments and machines. In other words we have always
been coupled with technology. we have always been prosthetic bodies.
(...) But we fear what we have always been and what we have already
become - Zombies and Cyborgs." (from the opening page of stelarc's site)

The situation is already more difficult then how Asimov sets up the
rules. Because when we talk about cyborg we can not take it as a
machine or a tool which is more appropriate to a robot. Therefore
robots may not be defined as an ethnicity but cyborgs may be. Robots
that think -when they do- can be taken also as Cyborg since thinking
is an organic process.

Lanfranco,
our proposition with "ethnic cyborg" is a position against ethnic
discrimination. We are proposing cyborg as another ethnicity to
shuffle the hierarchies based on ethnicity, nationality etc. Bringing
the artificial - unnatural- in... But the point is that the borders
between natural and artificial is already problematic as stelarc says.
If we take Stelarc's assumption, we are all cyborgs. Considering the
digital divide, some are more cyborg then the others. By this digital
divide and globalism can't we really talk about a Cyborg ethnicity?


ekmel ertan
eertan@a-m-b-e-r.org
+90.532.4738971
www.a-m-b-e-r.org
skype id: ekmelertan


On Jul 3, 2009, at 11:08 PM, roger malina wrote:

yasminers

re examples of cyborg related art work here is the work of marce li
antunez roca in zero gravity
wearing his exoskeleton

in the zero gravity project he interacted with a virtual creature in
cyberspace
while he was floating in zero gravity

re the "ethnic" nature of his work; it is interesting how his work in
zero gravity
grows out of his work in spanish radical street theater= it is very
politically
situated and grows out of a long tradition of spanish agit prop

roger

http://www.marceliantunez.com/tikiwiki/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=33

Using the Space Station as a metaphor, Marcel.lÌ Ant·nez Roca has
developed a hybrid show alternating performance, concert and lecture.
It is structured in different modules. During the show Ant·nez wears
his Dreskeleton (an exoskeletal body interface) and with it he
samples, activates and modulates sounds as well as controlling the
films projected on two screens.
In the first module he presents some of the mechanical aspects
characteristic of his work such as the Fleshbots, the Dreskeletons,
the Biometries and the Systematurgy.
The second module takes us through recurrent images in his work.
The third module reveals the end result of the process of preparation
for the Dedalus project in Star City in the Russian Federation as well
as the micro performances that were carried out during periods of
microgravity provided by the parabolas. In these micro performances we
witness the Requiem bodybot experiment and the interaction between the
dreskeleton, the softbot and the interactive films.
The last module presents the Transpermia theory and at this point the
performance becomes more like a conference. Ant·nez proposes a new
landscape for a Utopia called Transpermia. He describes some of his
prototypes organized in 4 sections:
1 Interface: new devices with which to perceive the world and take
part in it
2 Robots: machines as metaphors for life
3 Fleeting Identities: transitory states of personality as a setting
for new experiences and knowledge
4 New Creations: models of activity in the Transpermia Utopia

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