The Seduction Of Cyberspace by N. Katherine Hayles offer an interesting insight into the appeals of cyberspace that make it so alluring. The limitless nature of technology is one of the main bases of its appeal, and the ultimate power in control and remaking a person new don't hurt either. Her article had a few key areas that had me thinking and considering my technologically based society around me.
As technology all around the world leaps forward with new advancements we as humans find ourselves remotely in the same place we were when the onset of technology began. Perhaps over all we are taller than several decades ago, we have a better understanding of the human body, nutrition, sciences, but overall we are still the same carbon based life form we were when the industrial revolution was launch, dramatically changing life as we know it. All technology has done is facilitate our lives, and make the world come together, as well as unveil many of its mysteries. Yes, through technology we have found cures or aids to to diseases like leprosy or diabetes, but a new one always emerges from our triumph. Take H1N1 for example. Our world is plagued by suffering, disease and famine, and many would claim that is the human condition and fate. Perhaps that is so, but cybernetics offers a new opportunity to rise above these issues.
The film Surrogates (2009) sheds light into this idea of discarding the human body for a technologically enhanced shell that can encompass our intelligence, and offer liberties that our current corporeal forms inhibit. A body that can not be affected by death, disease, serious pain, or famine. What a notion! Of course the movie must have some drama in its perfect world it depicts and people start dying, but the idea is still one that many people would jump at. After all, even Hayles writes in her article that many people "would rather be a cyborg than a goddess". I think a lot of it has to do with the separated control we have over a surrogate. Unlike an actual human body we inhabit a surrogate is still ultimately detached from us, and although it as real as it can get, we are still aware that we can simply jump hundreds of miles away to safety if we feel like it, discarding our host body to suffer whatever ill fate we had just moments before encountered. In today's society it is all about control. Who has the phone with the most amount of applications? The one that responds the fastest? Has the best reception? Each element building up a tower of control, for he who possess the best phone, can do more than those who don't and therefore has the upper hand. We don't like to admit it, but we are a technically/screen based society. Like Hayles says in her article, maybe the screen is the next barrier to break and virtual reality will be the future.
This would be wonderful considering all of the liberties and opportunities it would offer humans on a whole, but one has to wonder if it may be equally detrimental. Few people can survive without their technology and those who can and do are usually out of the loop with contemporary social standards. Having moved out of my parents house when I was fifteen, and being a poor starving student, I was unable to afford Internet at my new apartment, so I simply went without. For my last year of high school this was not a life altering factor, but as I pursued my studies, it soon became impossible to do without. I had no idea how many teachers expected you to only communicate via e-mail, or only posted assignments online, or required weekly online submissions, as well as posting quizes and class information online. I found myself hurled into a world that was screen based.
Hayles quotes in her article that already 10 percent of the U.S. population are cyborgs, being dependent in some form or another on a technological device, and in the time since her article was written I'm sure that percentage has increased. Technology is there to facilitate life, extend life and open new realms for humans to explore. I absolutely agree that VR can be used to train and educate; simulating situations that enable a trainee to obtain detached knowledge of procedures or conditions. That said, it will never be the same. Hayles mentions this in her article the difference between a computer generated human image screaming in pain while his innards lay open and exposed to you, in contrast with the real deal. Man in a sense has become dependent on technology, and although it has thrust us forward in leaps in bounds, it has also stifled us significantly.
Today's society in general lacks the mental alertness and ability that the generations before us did. Today we have technology to do it all for us. Smart calculators, spell checks, computers that can read questions and reword them for a struggling student. Although I concede many of these technological advancements are used to help educate students, or those who are unable, how many of them can recite their multiplication tables up to fifteen? Twenty? My grandfather can do long division in his head because calculators were not available when he was a student. My younger cousin who is still in highschool has a computer to read all of his test questions for him. AND then it offers him three alternate readings of each one, in case he doesn't understand the question. As fantastic as it is that a computer is capable of such feats, I wonder if it isn't all for the best. The problem is Cyberspace is too seductive. It has an allure of facilitating life, yet dampening man's capability. Even though the actual skin tight, condom fitting VR suit doesn't exist yet, all of our technological gadgets are an abstract representation of this suit, that we don on every day. Our cell phones, the internet, GPS, all serve as the prequel to the VR suit. Each item detaches us further from the actual physical action that these gadgets replace, and VR will only further that. Surrogates represents the attractiveness of becoming whoever you want to be, donning on a body that is nothing like yours and living a wild life in a host, while your "actual" physical self remains at home safe. Man kind is increasingly moving towards a separation from the body, from the physicality. For all of its practical uses, VR is the exact medium to accomplish this ultimate fantasy. We all remember the classic scene from the film Demolition Man when Sandra Bullock and Sylvester Stallone experience that sexually intimate moment "without even touching".
Perhaps it is a God complex where man strives to shed his corporeal form and ascend into whatever form he chooses, or simply our fear of death, or our desire to enhance human life, but whatever it is technology is slowly taking over. Film is a medium that is capable of depicting all of the possibilities of technology, and projecting possibilities for the outcome of man. It is unique because it had the ability to accurately represent life in a more technologically advanced setting, and project certain problems, or expansions. Cinema shows us all that technology can be and more. Is technology making life easier? yes. Is it inhibiting man? In my opinion, yes, though in a certain respect. Will it create a better future? Who knows.
Curious though how most science fiction, cybernetic films depict an apocalyptic future. Not very optimistic.
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