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CYBORGS, VIRTUAL BODIES AND ORGANIC BODIES: THEORETICAL FEMINIST RESPONSES |
Susan Hawthorne |
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Reality is more fantastic than any product of the imagination. Christa Wolf, 1968: 184 Reality is up for grabs. Whose reality? What sort of reality? Does reality exist? And our bodies. Are they simply wet ware? Meat? Are they post-human? Transcendent? Immaterial? The bodies of women are central to any cultural or political discourse, and bodies have been central to feminist activism and theory. Likewise, "reality" is a central word for feminists, because our "reality" as lesbians, poor, black, working, disabled, old, young, marginalised women has been ignored. Whose voice is it you hear when you read the newspaper, academic articles, a high percentage of novels, poetry, even more of film, and 99% of computer games? What we see is constructed by who we are and our experiences in the world. Marilyn Frye, in a marvellous essay called "To See and Be Seen: The Politics of Reality" (1983: 152-174) defines reality in terms of the word's historical connections with royalty. She traces real to the Spanish 'real' which is equivalent to the English 'regal' or 'royal'. And she traces reality to the eye of the king. Real estate - the property of the king; reality - what the king can see. And she finishes with: (Frye, 1983: 155) Indeed. These days the developers of computer hardware and software are king. And they are certainly in their contemporary counting houses (stock exchanges). And what they say is real goes. No longer "real estate" but unreal estate, virtual estate, the estate where: (William Gibson, 1984: 270) And: (Holtzman, 1994: 195) In the real world, Beryl Fletcher, has her character Pixel, a young nethead say of her body: (Fletcher, 1996: 111) Virtual reality keeps bringing us up against such paradoxes, and I am puzzled by the feeling of familiarity. (Frye, 1983: 155) What does the king not see? Does he see poverty? Does he see women? Does he see anyone cast beyond the edges of his sight? Does he deny anyone's reality? Given the difficulty the king had in seeing "real" things and people in the "real world" one wonders how he will go in a world where there's no physical reality, only abstractions. How will he make laws about the new kinds of people. Are cyborgs citizens? What of virtual citizens? And then, what of the old-fashioned organic body? Will it work? Is it worth supporting them in ill-health and old age? |
"The Ideal Dream Girl: Japan's next pop starlet has perfect pitch and looks - and a virtually assured future."
I thought I was reading about a real woman, Kyoko Date. The Ideal Dream Girl turns out to be a "virtual date" and "virtual data" created by: "More than a dozen computer graphic (CG) artists [who] have toiled for 20 months to perfect different aspects of the Date character-the way she moves, speaks and sings. By borrowing cutting-edge CG technology perfected in the U.S. for recent movies like Casper, Date's creators plan to superimpose her on film and in videos used in stage shows" (Kunii, 1996: 75) Date has grown out of an "$11 billion-a-year arcade and software game market." (Kunii, 1996: 75). The games, developed by Gainax, have already had their first-generation run of "virtual relationship games" and have sold over 200,000 copies since 1991. The producers are predicting "no shortage of boyfriends" for Date. "Real ones." (Kunii, 1996: 75). The potential boyfriends: "Know what they are going to get: a babe with short-cropped reddish-black hair who will never grow old, never be caught with drugs and always do as she's told." (Kunii, 1996: 75, my emphasis). And what will this mean for the "real" girlfriends of boys who learn about relationships from a computer screen by relating to someone who will "always do as she's told?" Quotes from Members of the |
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