CyberFeminism

Cyborg Manifesto – Donna Haraway Cyborgs are human and machine at the same time. Cyborgs are creatures living on the edge of nature and technology and therefore they do not show interest in such boundaries. "There is nothing about being female that naturally binds women. There is not even such a state as 'being' female, itself a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual scientific discourses and other social practices"-Haraway, "Cyborg Manifesto" (155). Gender and sex as language, codes and signs.

Haraway argues that a cyborgfeminist will neither fight against technology, nor try to ignore it. A cyborgfeminist is fully aware of her dependence on technology. She'll actively take part in using and producing technology if it can improve her live and that of others

hyper-reality: sign is “something which stands to somebody for something in some respects or capacity” (Umberto Eco, Theory of Semiotics 15) semiotics studies the ways in which objects, words, images create meaning and convey meaning in various ways…

Jean Baudrillard cultural theorist associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism His basic definition of hyperreality is the simulation of something that never really existed. Pure simulacra – a world in which all we have access to is simulated stimuli and sign exchange value

Social Surveillance The rules and signs of our hyper-real world are enforced most familiar model for our society as being constructed of citizens who have been indoctrinated to censor themselves in accord with the wishes of a greater power was invented by Jeremy Bentham in 1791.

Bentham invented a new type of prison that would teach criminals to monitor themselves

Panopticon [Pan (all) – Optic (seeing)] a prison building that left all the prisoners with a sense of being permanently watched

Michel Foucault (20th-c. French philosopher) 1975, argued that Bentham’s model of panopticism is not limited to institutional structures reflects the hierarchical ordering of institutions more importantly, the combination of daily regiment and a sense of being constantly observed has become standard in all day-to-day life

What is to be done? It is a “contemporary relocation of culture, and the struggle over representation. I would define their position in terms of the politics of the parody”

Politics of Parody: The play of image and language constitute a political practice because the practice of representation determines our relationship to the world

Laurie Anderson: “The Crash” from Homeland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-1fDGCKdyk

Barbara Kruger

VNS Matrix - 1991

Old Boys Network – Yvonne Volkart – http://www.obn.org/ "Cyberfeminism is a myth. A myth is a story of unidentifiable origin, or of different origins. A myth is based on one central story which is retold over and over in different variations. A myth denies ONE history as well as ONE truth, and implies a search for truth in the SPACES, in the DIFFERENCES BETWEEN the different stories. Speaking about Cyberfeminism as a myth, is not intended to mystify it, it simply indicates that Cyberfeminism only exists in plural.”

100 Anti-theses http://www.obn.org/reading_room/manifestos/html/anti.html cyberfeminism is not caffeine-free cyberfeminism is not a wound cyberfeminism is not a trauma

Hacktivism Digital culture jamming and electronic civil disobedience Creative misuse of technology Old Boys Network - http://www.obn.org/ (go to “links” section for resources)