Private: Cyborg Post-Humanism: Who Controls The Cyborg?

It has been suggested that the fourth discontinuity to be overcome is the distinction between humans and machines. We consider posthumanism to include the range of debates that examine the potential changes in the human body and its relationship with technology. So, debating what is human, especially with regards to our relationships with technology, in which humans can be seen as mixtures of machine and organism. These cyborg constructions are the conversion of the material into the informational in two ways; as the flesh into data (extropanism) and the conversion of data into flesh (technology embodiment). Therefore, the realisation of the posthuman will be defined by the nature of the relationship between the human and technology in cyborg constructions. We integrate technology when it is enabling rather than disabling, but unintended consequences can result in disabling effects. Including, when the balance of control becomes lost and the integration becomes degenerative. At which point the critical question who controls the cyborg.

I am a Research Fellow in Digital Cultures at the Glasgow School of Art, and I specialise in interdisciplinary research at the fringe of the computing sciences with design practices. I am interested in Designing Digital Cultures to create preferable futures; putting the soul back into technology. As a practitioner with digital practices, such as software development, I create software artefacts as phenomena, prototypes, and responses to emerging Digital Cultures.