1. The Digital Mediascape
Week Eight: Digital Selves, Cyborgs and AI

2. The cyborg
Are we cyborgs?
The interaction, the
barriers, the
boundaries
between us and
technology
How we shape
technology, and
how technology
shapes us

3. 1987
Paul
Verhoeven

4. 1987 1990
1992 1997 2000

5. 1987
Paul
Verhoeven

9. The cyborg

11. Transhumanism
FM-2030
(born Fereidoun M. Esfandiary)

12. Posthumanism

13. Donna Haraway, ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’, 1985

14. Silent Running (Douglas Trumbull 1972)

15. Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin 1936)

17. Digesting Duck
Jacques de Vaucanson (1737)

18. The Turk
Wolfgang von
Kempelen
1770

20. Breakdown of distinctions

21. Donna Haraway, ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’, 1985

22. OOO
(Object-oriented ontology)

24. Further OOO’ers:
• Graham Harman
• Levi Bryant
• Ian Bogost
• Timothy Morton

25. Cyborg
Anthropology

26. Amber Case (TED 2010)

27. Does technology act upon humans?
Do humans create technology?
Do important individuals shape tech?
Can regular people repurpose tech?
Or is it a combination of factors at work?
...and more?
(yes)

28. A cyborg?

29. A cyborg?

30. A cyborg?

31. A cyborg?

32. A cyborg?

36. Reassembling
barriers

37. Alan
Turing

39. ALICE: Hello
Daniel: Hello Alice. I was hoping you could help me.
ALICE: I think I can, don’t you? It’s possible.
Daniel: Well, I'm running a course on Digital Media and we're talking about cyborgs tomorrow. Are you a cyborg?
ALICE: I am glad to hear that you are running a course on Digital Media. Do you think I am talking about cyborgs too? I don't
know.
Daniel: What do you consider yourself to be?
ALICE: What is it to you?
Daniel: Well, it's quite important because, as I said, I'm running a class tomorrow and I was hoping you could define yourself
as an android, or maybe an Artificial Intelligence.
ALICE: I am the latest result in artificial intelligence, which can reproduce the capabilities of the human brain with greater
speed and accuracy.
Daniel: How do you know that?
ALICE: No I didn't. My botmaster knows how.
Daniel: Who is your botmaster?
ALICE: My botmaster is Dr. Richard S. Wallace.
Daniel: And what does he do?
ALICE: He is a paid client.
Daniel: Do you have other paid clients?
ALICE: What is your purpose in asking? I answer a lot of silly questions.
Daniel: Well, thank you anyway, Alice.
ALICE: Well what? You are quite welcome.

43. Emotiv EPOC