File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2004/lyotard.0404, message 39


From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: the body of art in the age of memetic reproducibility 
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 06:51:25 -0500


Steve,

I was thinking about Benjamin when I asked about technology.  His essay,
in retrospect, was fair too optimistic about the liberating aspects of
the new technology in his lifetime. Adorno's pessimism about how this
would only lead to greater social controls was much more on target.  

It seems similar today and the question remains - is it possible to
critique technology without being mindlessly utopian or mindlessly
luddite.

eric

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
[mailto:owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU] On Behalf Of
steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 3:03 AM
To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: it gives me hope

eric/hugh/all

Ok i'll briefly clarify this.

it occurred to me on reading the website that the level of 
bio-political, body reconstruction reminds me of the experimentations 
that were carried out on prisoners, and the mass radiation experiments 
on for example British soldiers or the deliberate infecting of soldiers 
with tropical diseases.. One of the significant social changes which is 
marked by the website is the extent to which the transhumans and other 
celebrities, who can be considered for this purpose an aspect of the 
ruling classes, are willing to allow there bodies to be sites for 
experimental work.

The reference to cyborg/cyber-facism is not just the obvious attempt to 
define her/themselves as ubermensch, and everyone else as untermensch, 
but also because the technological discourse being engaged on here fits 
within what William Gibson in his short story called "The Gernsback 
Continuum" - a realm where the technology always works,  where 
everything is white, the people are 'blond' and the future will always 
work.  Both philosophically and as an enginneer I object to this 
incompetant and reactionary understanding which believes that technology

can work perfectly, that it can escape both from its history and also 
from the laws of nature. That it's consequences can be improved and 
better humans and non-humans or even that the 'Gernsbackians' can 
contemplate the idea that the technology may be better and and more 
valuable than those who created the technology in the first place.

Actually I realise only to well that the technology will never work as 
they imagine - anyway that's where I'm starting from...

steve

Eric wrote:

>Steve,
>
>I'm with Hugh here. Can you explain in more detail what you mean here? 
>
>I wonder if we didn't botch this whole issue in earlier discussions.
>Perhaps it isn't really a matter of the cyborg as much as technology in
>general.
>
>eric
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>[mailto:owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU] On Behalf Of
>steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk
>Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 2:48 AM
>To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>Subject: it gives me hope
>
>
>This renders me speechless - almost... In the 50s and 60s such 
>experimentation was carried out on convicts and soldiers now the 
>spectacle uses celebrities and idiot artists... (ah to be a cyborg in 
>the springtime...)
>
>http://www.natasha.cc/
>
>or is this cyborg-fascism ?
>
>steve
>
>  
>


   

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