[A fictional or hypothetical person whose physical abilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by mechanical elements built into the body.]
The cyborg is not a new concept in western literature at all. Hari Kunzru takes the premise all the way back to Frankenstein’s Monster in the year 1818. The novel was famously a projection of Mary Shelley’s emotional distancing of the new life form grafted organically to her body i.e. her illegitimate pregnancy.
In my mind, the moment a cyborg was born into the mainstream social consciousness was in the 1987 film Robocop. Paul Verhoeven’s postmodern tale of a murdered Police officer called Murphy, brought back to life and enhanced with cutting edge technology. Murphy uses his newfound conscious awareness to slowly solve the mystery of his murder and piece his former life back together. The story could be considered a modern retelling of Frankenstein but with a new moral twist. The film is also a tale of the human spirit triumphantly breaking social confines of systematic repression and corruption, the victory of freewill and even the seeds of a moral debate around civic gentrification. The battle for Murphy’s organic identity (or ‘soul’) over the new corporate owned cybernetic Robocop persona, also contains a running parallel with the ‘soul’ of the city of Detroit. A city once driven by communities and local industry but now gentrified and beautified to avoid bankruptcy and commodified as an asset for the OCP corporation.
A great film on many levels. It also re-establishes Isaac Aminov’s Law of Robotics, adapted for cyborgs in the modern era. The 1984 film Terminator technically predates Robocop by featuring an onscreen cyborg but as a villain without complex morality. This issue wasn’t really addressed until the second film of the franchise ( T2:Judgement Day) arrived in 1991.
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner dealt with the morality of androids imitating humans but only on the surface as a clear cut negation of humanity. Below the cliché’d pantomime of good vs evil narrative veneer, there were moments of great reflection of the true fleeting nature of human mortality . 29 years later the sequel Blade Runner 2049 took the movement further with a cyborg featuring as the main character and fed into a cybernetic uprising against a human led repression with technology as a yoke of social control, in a future dominated and monopolised by a private business entrepreneur. Even with an entirely cybernetic protagonist, the freewill of the ‘human’ spirit plays a part in Cyborg morality, at odds with a corporate regime that reduces life to a price. It would be nice to think that even cybernetic life-forms cannot be commodified.
In 2017 we finally saw a live action Hollywood production of the cult classic Japanese anime film; Ghost in the Shell [1995]. A film which came with a much more ready-made debate on the relationship between the intentions of progressive cybernetic technology and defining the true shape of humanity’s ‘essence’.
This territory of the idea of human-plus cybernetic evolution has also made its appearance in the serious academic world to. Donna Harraway’s Cyborg manifesto arrived in 1988. It subsequently opened up a debate on tackling the established toxic perception of humanity in a patriarchal society. The master-servant social paradigm is open for debate from many angles.
Follow the link for your own research but needless to say, their observations do not stray that far from the debates held in the aforementioned films: As this synopsis of Haraway’s book explains:
“Haraway’s cyborg is a set of ideals of a genderless, race-less, more collective and peaceful civilization with the caveat of being utterly connected to the machine. Her new versions of beings reject Western humanist conceptions of personhood and promote a disembodied world of information and the withering of subjectivity. The collective consciousness of the beings and their limitless access to information provide the tools with which to create a world of immense socio-political change through altruism and affinity, not biological unity. In her essay Haraway challenges the liberal human subject and its lack of concern for collective desires which leaves the possibility for wide corruption and inequality in the world. Furthermore, the cyborg’s importance lays in its coalition of consciousness not in the physical body that carries the information/consciousness. A world of beings with a type of shared knowledge could create a powerful political force towards positive change. Cyborgs can see “from both perspectives at once.” In addition, Haraway writes that the cyborg has an imbued nature towards the collective good.”
Many of the most popular classic Cyborg movies deal with this conscious uncoupling of pre- established moral and social norms with characters ranging from Robocop’s family orientated Police Officer; Murphy, to the psychotic replicant assassin; Batty, in the film Blade Runner. For anyone who has ever conducted decent quality social research, that external perspective is vital for reaching objective and critical observations, whilst being immersed into a culture that sometimes relies on coded cultural nuances. I guess Haraway is saying the Cybernetic elements represent both aspects of research. Analysing mortality from both a distanced, emotionless robotic perspective and also a mortal, human one. Verhoeven’s Robocop tackling the capitalists aspects like gentrification and toxic corporate sponsorship of moral institutions.
Humanity’s dependency on technology is at a very immersive and sometimes psychological and physical manifestation of this bond. Much like the activity put forward in the Wachowski Bros’ Matrix trilogy and in a far earlier film starring Keanu Reeves called Johnny Mnemonic [1995] by director Robert Longo. Trying to make sense of things from a human perspectives often requires ‘rewiring’ the way our minds think.
Ghost in the Shell has perhaps seen more public discussion since the recent ‘whitewashing controversy‘ around the casting of Scarlett Johansson for the lead role: Major Motoko Kusanagi, who is considered an Asian (anime) role. However, creator Mamoru Oshii defends the decision stating that the character is a Cyborg and her ethnicity is irrelevant. This enforces Haraway’s thesis on an ethnographic level.
The synopsis is basically a evaluation of how human memory and spirit can be contained and preserved in a cybernetically-enchanced individual made for robotic purpose, regardless of the manufacturer’s intentions. (The same way that Peter Weller’s human memories was retained in the original Robocop film). Stepping off from this future ‘golden age’ of cybernetic civil rights is a recent film currently circulating on Netflix called Elita: Battle Angel: A former 25th century cybernetic soldier is reconstructed as a second generation cyborg not only retaining memories but also physical traits and learned behaviour in the form of martial arts reflexes etc. This film contributes to Cyborg legend by bringing with it a practical take on a ‘deity’ presence, in the form of a ‘ancient’ being with higher technology and resources living in a floating city. The ‘everyday’ society is a fallen one of scarce resources and competitive scavenging of ‘lost’ but ( to us) futuristic cyborg tech. Bringing with it the realism of diminished capacity for consumerism to provide for and maintain a society. Once again, in this tale, the morality of the human spirit once again outweighs the harsh socio-economic conditions. What Alita: Battle Angel offers best is a rational perspective the logistics of human nature and ontology in general.
The Netflix series ‘Altered Carbon’ is in its 2nd series and continues to push the boundaries of the human- cyborg relationship with human bodies being representative of reusable ‘sleeves’ and the only established form of solid human consciousness/ former life memories are retained in a residual form of a hard drive computer file. Thus flipping the cybernetic paradigm that balances human and machine: The ‘organic’ body is the replaceable sleeve and the ) is the ‘true’ record of the human essence. The show continues to find ways to push the boundaries of this myriad, in ways not seen since Blade Runner in its day.
On these often dystopian futuristic scenarios, the ( often western) social values remain typically unchanged and unchallenged but the centre of the moral compass is brought back to this notional cliché that is the undefeatable human spirit. Cybernetic lifeforms are still capable of making observational moral judgements though, as in the dark subjects of prostitution and murder brought up in the series one finale of Altered Carbon. It seems even in a society with cybernetic technology that can bring unlimited lives, barbaric primal urges are still present and the good old human spirit is still corruptible from a primitive but universally understood form of ‘evil’, especially by the rich and privileged.
I highly recommend the following films as ‘Further viewing’:
- Robocop [1987]
- Blade Runner [1982]
- Ghost in the Shell [2017] ( the anime was in 1995).
- Alita: Battle Angel [2018]
- Altered Carbon [2018] ( Both series are on Netflix.)
Rant &Rave 