Thursday, July 23, 2009

[Yasmin_discussions] R: Re: Ethnic and ethic cyborgs

Dear Veroniki and Murat,
I think this is exactly the point, and I am happy
that your posts resurfaced the ethic and political implications of the cyborg
condition. If cyborgs are conceived as embodied (although hybrid), contingent
(not futuristic) and partial (anti-individualistic) formations, then we must
give account of all the possible connections that they can both create and
destroy. This means being able to account for the different cyborgian praxes
through the networks, and their strategic as well as tactical employments.


The feminist artist and theorist Faith Wilding affirms that "the personal
computer is a political computer" (echoing the feminist slogan "the personal is
political"). That is: when talking about the ways in which technobiopowers have
transnationally altered the domains of production and reproduction, it is our
responsibility to give account of the ways in which the same technology
differently relates to different indentity formations. But this also means
being resposible for tracing the connections and asymmetries between the
possible uses of the same technology. The same laptop signifies differently -
on a material and symbolic level - when it is assembled by a woman working in
the assembly line of a maquiladora than when it is used by a woman working in
the academy as a professor, for example (see for instance the works of Ursula
Biemann, Prema Murthy, subRosa and Critical Art Ensemble...).

Monika also
quoted Rosi Braidotti for her critique of Giorgio Agamben, and I believe that
reading "Transpositions" as well as many other essays of her can help us
rediscover the deeply political implications of (harawaian) cyborg theory.


Federica


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