Electro-nomadic cyborgs

Reviewing the trajectory of contemporary technology, I think the trends are obvious: technology gets closer and closer to us, eventually crossing our epidermal boundary to become part of the body. Wires disappear. Eventually interfaces will even disappear. The distance between our will and the world erodes to the extent that we can control objects [be they cupboard doors or systems of communication] with our minds directly. We gain an increasingly telepathic connection with a vast network of similar minds and bodies of knowledge. The virtual and the real become indistinguishable. The distinction between bits and atoms dissolves. To use the term of William J. Mitchell of the MIT Medialab, we become electro-nomadic cyborgs.[1]

Mitchell, in such books as City of Bits [1995] and Me++ [2003], has been instrumental in popularizing the story of our progressive cyborg-becoming amongst architects. Our technology, he argues, has fundamentally changed certain things about us. As it changes, so do we. Which has always been true. So what’s the difference? As technology has become more and more available, and become more and more powerful, it has become more and more integrated with our selves. The increasing co-dependency is really making us into ‘cybernetic organisms’.

Mitchell’s primary contribution to the discussion has been to highlight the effects of wirelessness and networks on the new cyborg condition that Donna Haraway had foreseen. We are transformed by our new level of connectedness, through our cellular phones, our electronic organizers, our pagers, and our laptops. As Haraway had predicted, we have been translated into codal representations of ourselves for the purposes of interfacing with larger networks[2]. Biology has been working hard at breaking the code of our genetics as well as finding various other ways to categorize our individuality – such as fingerprints, retinal scans, etc. Radio frequency identification [RFID] as well as IP addresses allow us to consciously don a codal representation of ourselves for engagement in the networks that surround us. Because of the influence and pervasiveness of these networks the cyborg image sketched by Haraway is not quite complete. No image of us that ignores our vast expanded networks can be accurate. As Mitchell ruminates: “I am inscribed not by a single Vitruvian Circle, but within radiating electro-magnetic wavefronts … I am inseparable from my ever-expanding, ever changing networks, but they do not tie me down. Not only are these networks essential to my physical survival, they also constitute and structure my channels of perception and agency – my means of knowing and acting upon the world.”[3] In this new electronic era, our networks are becoming more immediate and constantly engaged with our cognition. Our image of ourselves must begin to include these networks.

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[1] Mitchell, ME++, p. 62

[2] Haraway, 163

[3] Mitchell, ME++, p58-61