User:Francg/expub/media-writing/cybernetic-nature
Cybernetic Nature
Franc González
Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy
Master Media Design: Experimental Publishing
Reading, Writing & Research Methodologies, Steve Rushton
30-11-2016
The way we humans understand or perceive things has been morphing along with the introduction of technological devices in our daily routines. Simultaneously, the organic vulnerabilities of our bodies have made cybernetics to be not only a very practical tool for rare physical conditions, but also a revealing instrument that allows us to not only improve our given functionalities but also to extend the capacity of our senses. For instance, the article “The Art of Cybernetic Union” explores colour-blindness condition from artist Neil Harbisson, by analysing the advantages of connecting technology to a human being as a way to improve and broaden its natural characteristics, when a particular disorder appears to be affecting the functions of the body (Barbato 2014). Although the unique possibilities to improving human physical or cognitive limitations by plugging a body to an electronic or mechanical device are yet very hypothetical and might extend beyond our imagination, technology is nevertheless continuously transforming the classic and fictional conception of cybernetics to a more realistic evidence. The communication between both automated and living systems are continuously evolving, upgrading and rising up advanced engineered tools that might be able to increase our knowledge by consequently inducing a wider, deeper and unique experience.
Neil Harbisson developed the ‘eyeborg’, a device that attaches to his head that uses a software and a sensor to transfer the natural wavelength of a colour’s tone into audible frequencies to the brain, allowing to conduct sound through the skull and enabling him to perceive colours in a complete different way as humans do (Barbato 2014). As a result of this transformation, he has not only adapted to an alternative new domain of codified information but simultaneously become significantly precise with detecting colours, proving that knowledge can reach superior states by implanting enginery. However, this is not the first time that a similar and revolutionary output has been tested; for instance; Norbert Wiener (also known as the father of cybernetics) created a glove that could channel the sound of the human voice into the wearer’s fingertips. Although this invention was specially aimed for deaf-blind people, it helped transforming the way we experience the world (Nasser 2014). Similarly, Harbisson has also increased awareness by upgrading his ‘eyeborg’ to a more sophisticated audio input that detects ultrasound, infrasound, ultraviolet waves and wifi signals with a 360-degree perception (Barbato 2014). To a certain extent, changing one’s senses for new better mechanical ones, can mislead to ethical interpretations manifesting on specific behavioural principles that might presume of the given nature as granted or unchangeable. However, whether or not technology might be detaching us from each other, the fact of being able to experience things we normally lack of beyond our senses by interacting with cybernetics, it can nevertheless be a more efficient way to predict, understand and have control over specific situations around us. In fact, Weiner stablished that random and diverse information can also be measured by interpreting the diversity of its phenomena (Weiner 1949). Ironically and contrarily to what human qualities really applies for, Harbisson believes that technology could actually connect us all closer to better comprehend nature, while removing our fears from imaginary dangers (Barbato 2014).
It is interesting to make a union between technology and human perception and how this can assist people with rare conditions or disabilities to carry on even more inspiringly with their lives. Furthermore, it is a way to actively become part of society, but in this case of a distinctive, exceptional and special part of it in which inspiration, imagination or other faculties are enticed by extrasensory computerized gadgets. In a world where emotional power and skills triggers visual expressions of art, it is broadening nowadays to a wider field where science, its engineers and neuroscientists have been particularly responsible for the fascinating and (in many cases as with Harbisson’s “eyeborg”) unpredictable powerfully compelling effects of connecting electronic devices to our bodies or brains (Gibson 2016). This could be the way to a more ingenious and intuitive thinking through which we might probably be able to turn ourselves into remote controls, being able to operate multiple software at a distance, which in a pedagogic and psychic way it could enhance learning, reading, working or transmitting/communicating thoughts almost telepathically to people while dematerializing information or other tangible strains. In the age of information technology, artificial intelligence is moulding data into disembodied and accessible sources that carries and emerges a specific cultural dimension of man and machine; the “posthuman” (Hayles 1999). A new range of future cybernetic systems has to be further explored in order to compromise and implicate technology for our living needs, but also to question reality and its boundaries in society by freeing individuals to independently merge their qualities to any tool that could facilitate a lively feedback/transmission experience. We need to see beyond this flat and preconceived existence and hope to see and experience greater, promoting social ascension without having strictly controlled hierarchies, so humanity can intellectually evolve to a higher state and lead the world to a big revelation (Abbott 1838-1926).
Whether or not the use of electronic mechanisms functioning algorithmically on our bodies are seemingly against nature’s constitution fundamental principles, it is really interesting to observe how we can perceive information and evolve along with its new forms, because in any given case “we have always been prosthetic bodies” (Stelarc 2005). Due to our adaptability, we can acquire new knowledge and generate new thinking or reasoning based on cognitive experiences that gradually nurtures our understanding of the social life-frame we live in and its diverse environment. Harbisson’s colour-blindness is a particular example of many others prosthetic-like devices that needs to be functional through yet complicated procedures, in which a series of electrodes requires to be implanted onto certain areas of the brain’s surface (right inside the skull) in order to effectively transmit or stimulate electronic signals to the body (Gibson 2016). The question is whether this communication is productive and useful enough to cope with physical and moral adversities, taking a risk against possible contemplations of dehumanization and subordination of our species (Wiener 1988). On one hand we may feel we are losing part of our senses, however the results of automation are quite beneficial for people to rise and amplify their conditions, making their contribution to life more productive. This is how cybernetics extends our knowledge beyond human capacity. However, we shall bear in mind that having total dependency on machines also requires to have a permanent supervision on them, as we humans should not fully rely on technology that continuously changes and evolves, even though being practical and functional automated devices could also become independent from our control (Abbott 1838-1926).
In conclusion, in order to raise practical solutions and promote development, it is important to debate how the introduction of cybernetics can be used as an input for processing greater observation in a contemporary context of mass information, databases, networked interventions, feedback-response and adaptation to new mediums. That is to say, an artist that makes use of cybernetic practices can instigate social changes and behaviours (Gomes, 2011). For instance, since the merging of the digital technology in our daily practices, our needs for understanding human sensoria have arisen significantly. Through a combination of signals and frequencies, psychedelic art has revealed a character of code that points to a level of abstraction that is profoundly non-human (Davis 2011). To do this, we may need to radically change the stablished boundaries of nature that divides us from other species and leave behind given preconceptions by facing an alternative way for evolution (Charles 2016).
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