Cyborg Metamorphosis
Cyborg Metamorphosis
The participants in the various MOOs and MUDs reconstruct their identity to metamorphasize into anything they imagine. The power and possibilities of imagination in cyberspace are endless. Lynn Cherney in "Objectifying the Body in the Discourse of an Object Oriented MUD" captures how individual's imagination transformed her online persona from a female to a washing machine:
"In a
rather extreme example of cyborg metamorphosis, the character Tari turned
herself into a human appliance while she was programming a washing machine
object for EM. In line 3, Berke activates her, and she continues to converse
normally while meanwhile her code generates output messages appropriate to a
washer working. (At least one character complained about her being able to
function simultaneously as a talking character and as a washing machine,
however.)
1 Berke says, ``Hey, are you a washing machine?''
7 Tari giggles.
8 Tari makes a clunking sound.
10 Berke lol
12 Tari stops and you hear water draining.
13 You notice that Tari is beginning the rinse cycle.
14 Berke [to Tari]: So add an `unplug tari' verb which will shut the washing machine off.
15 Tari goes silent for a moment, then suddenly begins to spin round and round, water spraying everywhere.
16 Tari [to Berke]: yeah...i'm just waiting to have someone jump me about turning myself into a toy.
18 Tari drops a pile of clean, wet clothes. You have a feeling she's kept at least one sock, though."
This is a prime example of
how an individual can utilize the power of language and imagination
to morph(transform) into an appliance such as a washing machine.
According to Cherney “The mix of characteristics (human
and appliance) was disturbing on aesthetic grounds”. Individuals use
cyberspace to extend themselves (RL identity/persona) on the screen to fuse into
the virtual self like an appliance. Cyberpower
by Tim Jordan asserts that the use of the computer...."central to the
vision of heaven that inhabits cyberspaces' imaginary is the cyborg, the fusion
of human and machine...all who enter cyberspace become cyborgs because they
depend on machines for their online life"(187). A dependency is
formed to the computer to escape into a Virtual World or cyberspace.
In “Pathos@play.prothetic.emotion”,
Cynthia Haynes
"Players in a MOO mix their own discourse with discourse coded into the MOO, and the mixture forms a unique mode of "prosthetic pathos" - half human, half code. When players frown, pout, or sigh loudly, they use a prosthesis to evoke emotion. The combination of distance, prosthetic code, and speed produces a truly "uncanny" pathos, an "unheimliche" or sublime affect".
The immersion of human and technology generates individuals to became one with the technology. It is when individuals take this fusion to the extreme that needs to be examined. In the essay "Fleeting Images: Women Visually writing the Web by Gail E. Hawisher and Patricia Sullivan" quote Susan Leigh Star to show how the concept of the cyborg is both "a mixture of hope and despair-both productive and troubling at once"(272). The concept of the cyborg captures how cyberspace enables individuals to exercise their imagination and creativity but are humans lose touch with RL? The essay “The Question Concerning Technology” by Martin Heidegger asserts “But this remains correct: modern technology to is a means to an end...The will to mastery becomes all urgent the more technology threatens to slip from human control"(5). Is technology controlling us or are we controlling technology? The concept of the cyborg allows individuals to morph into any construction of the imagination. Cyberspace illustrates how human constantly fuse into technology through the imagination and power of language.
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