Representations of the Grotesque and Cyborg Bodies in Art and Popular Cultural Genres

"Man has made his match...now it's his problem", read the tagline from Ridley Scott's iconoclastic film, Blade Runner¹. A nightmarish vision of the future where man created machines are a marauding super race, more powerful than man and uncontrolled by the rights and the wrongs of their modern society. This subjective anxiety over man's future counterparts - or indeed mans prosthetics - has captured the imagination of many. The 1980's saw an explosion of films relating to human existence and either its harmony with machine or utter contempt for it. Films like Terminator² saw machine assisting man its survival whilst films like Robocop³ considered the fragility of the human body and its ultimate reawakening as part man, part machine. The word 'cyborg' as Balsamo notes⁴, is an amalgamation of 'cybernetic organism'. A mixture of both flesh and non-organic material which, as Balsamo states:

"Serves not only as the focal figure of the mass mediated popular culture of American techno-science, but also as the figuration of posthuman identity"⁵.

The movie Blade Runner has been closely linked to the writings regarding man and machine and is often cited as a 'cyberpunk' film. Cyberpunk refers to a sub-genre of science-fiction taking place in a dystopian society where conditions are deprived and people are oppressed. Central to cyberpunk is the notion of the modified body and the enhanced body. The 'modified' bodies have often undergone some technological changes or enhancements such as cosmetic surgery or implants whereas the enhanced body refers to the extension of human capabilities. An example of this can be seen in the 1987 film, Robocop. The main character Murphy, a policeman, is brutally attacked and after his death is regenerated as the ultimate law enforcing cyborg. With enhancements to his body including greater strength and vision, Murphy soon realises there was once a life outside of his cold metal exterior.

In the Japanese Manga movie, 'Ghost in the shell⁶' the main character, Major Motoko Kusanagi - has been a cyborg since a child. The films main themes deal with the human coming to terms with the cybernetic sections of her body and the idea of whether the increasing use of cybernetics in a person compromises the humanity of the barer. The Major battles throughout the film with these issues against the backdrop of her combat team, some members of which refuse to have any cybernetic implants, such as their recent draft from the police force who shies away from such ideas.

As the film unfolds, the major is drawn more and more towards the separation of these two facets, the 'ghost and the shell', by the elusive criminal and antagonist 'The Laughing Man'. The Laughing Man is under investigation by the Major's team for suspected hacking into the shells of other people and manipulating them for his own gain. Eventually the Major is convinced that 'The Laughing Man' is no longer a criminal, but a ghost without a shell, bred in a lab as a government project, and denied full human status as a result. The empathy between these characters which increases throughout the film plays a significant part in the empathy of the audience towards the meme of cybernetic implants, culminating in the finale, where the major sacrifices her shell in favour of a life free from boundaries

Many themes from these films can be analysed so as to create a picture of how society views the body, the human condition and the body's boundaries.

Perhaps it would be beneficial to first highlight some classic views on how the body is socially constructed and viewed from the perspective of social science. The main body of work regarding society and the body stems from French Social Theorist, Michel Foucault (1926-84), who believed the body was the focus of power. Foucault, like many others believed the body was socially constructed and thus could be analysed in a discursive manner. This claim indicates that if the body can be read in such a manner then it is possible to strip the body of its 'natural posture'⁷. However, many other theorists disputed Foucault's standpoint for being too patriarchal in its form, a point which Balsamo addresses in her book, Technologies of the Gendered Body⁸.

Elizabeth Grosz (1994), developed the Cartesian notion of Mind/Body dualism, the idea that the mind is separate from the body and subsequently, the mind is software and the body is hardware. As Grosz states:

"With rare exceptions in the history of [Western] philosophy, the mind and body have long been conceived in isolation from each other, functioning as binary or mutually exclusive terms. The attributes of one are seen as incompatible with those or the other"⁹.

This notion of separation between mind and body is particularly relevant to the paper's question. It is this philosophy that gave way for the possibility of transplanting the mind of an individual into a computer. Though unlikely to happen in any near future, it inspired many writers and film makers to imagine a world where man and machine are a singular unit. An example of this can be seen in the 1958 film, The Colossus of New York¹⁰. Jeremy Spencer is killed in a tragic accident and his brain surgeon father is so distraught, he removes his son's brain and places it in a life support unit. The father later transplants his son's brain into a giant robot with dyer consequences. It can be argued that the mind/body dualism theory assisted in the idea for this movie.

Hayles (1999) discusses the concept of the posthuman standpoint in her book, How We Become Posthuman¹¹. She begins by discussing Hans Moravec's piece, MindChildren: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence¹². In this, Moravec discusses a 'fantasy scenario' where a robot surgeon removes a brain from a human and as he does so, strips away the information contained in the brain and codes it onto a computer. The result is that the patient's consciousness is stored on the computer completely intact. Hayles discusses her shock that someone of Moravec's intelligence could believe that the mind can be removed from the body and remain intact. After a great deal of intensive research, Hayles could separate her findings into three "stories". First, 'How information lost its body', second, 'How the cyborg was created as a technological artefact and cultural icon' and finally, how the human is 'giving way to the post human'¹³.

Posthumanists see a tangible link between the human body and computer simulation and believe that humans can articulate with intelligent machines. Instead of the nightmarish world envisioned by science fiction writers, Posthumanists see a world of possibility where machines can be utilised to our advantage. Hayles opposes the idea that posthumanism would implicate the destruction of the human being, or as she refers to it, 'the erasure of embodiment'¹⁴. Instead, Hayles embraces the posthuman standpoint seeing the human as a distributed cognitive system where intelligence is located in the brain, intelligent machines and the interface between them. As Hayles states, she does not enjoy the notion of individuals who treat their bodies as fashion accessories, instead she believes posthumanism means welcoming the possibilities of future technology. However, she is quick to state this is outside the science fiction driven notion of immortality or superhuman abilities.

Anne Balsamo also discusses the cyborg and its significance to our society in her 1999 book, Technologies of the Gendered Body¹⁵. In the chapter entitled, Reading Cyborgs, Writing Feminism, Balsamo begins in much the same vain as Hayles by discussing the works that have caught the public's imagination, citing Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and Metropolis as a influence. Balsamo discusses the 80's as the decade that stood out as the most relative to the idea of cyborgs in cinema. As was previously mentioned, Balsamo believes that the creation of cyborgs in film and literature comes from a deep seated anxiety about bodily difference. The creation of cyborgs acts as a exemplification of how the human body can be adapted and improved and if films are to be believed, there can be no limits to the bodies boundaries, however, it should be noted that in most cases, the results of a creation of a cyborg normally ends in tragedy or has terrible consequences. This could say something about the feelings of hostility man has for the 'intelligent machine'. A scene in Robocop can be related to this notion. The law enforcing robot built before Robocop was a completely autonomous machine with huge firepower and the ability to control violence without injury to the police force. However, on the initial unveiling of the ED 209, the robot experienced a malfunction and shot an innocent member of the team. Some might argue this puts human beings and machines in complete opposition.

By utilising the writings of Foucault, Douglas and Haraway - who interpret the body as a cultural text - Balsamo discusses the reading of the body as a cultural text from the feminist point of view. As the title of the chapter suggests, the author uses this 'reading' as a framework for 'reading cyborgs'¹⁶ and highlights how the body comes to possess signs and cultural meanings. In relation to the afore-mentioned theories of Foucault, Balsamo discusses how she and other authors believe Foucault's writings are written in a far too generalised form. Balsamo argues that Foucault's suggestion that the body is a 'discursive construction'¹⁷ is instantly stripping the human body of its 'natural posture'¹⁸.

Feminists argue against Foucault's gendered view of docile bodies suggesting that gender is an 'effect' produced at the level of the body. As Balsamo states:

"Although he [Foucault] identifies the "hysterization of the female body" as one of the apparatuses of control of the body, his grid of analysis fails to consider gender itself as an organised, institutionalised, system of differences that constitutes the individual body and renders it meaningful.¹⁹"

His apparently male centred discourse often assumes gender is a natural prerequisite. During her study relating to emerging technology and its relation to the human body, Balsamo indicates that while technology offers hope, the body has to develop new norms and disciplines because of the meeting of body and machine. It can be seen that during this chapter, Balsamo studies how discourse affects the construction of the female body and discusses how deviant bodies are reconstructed, restaged, disciplined and redeployed.

In relation to a question regarding cyborgs, the body and augmentation between man and machine, it would be unwise to omit a reference from one of the most influential texts regarding cyberpunk. William Gibson's seminal book, Neuromancer²⁰, was the precursor to many stories in the cyberpunk and cyborg vain. This excerpt is an example of the characters in this classic piece:

"Julius Deane was one hundred and thirty five years old, his metabolism assiduously warped by a weekly fortune in serums and hormones. His primary hedge against aging was a yearly pilgrimage to Tokyo, where genetic surgeons reset the code of his D.N.A...²¹"

Although his seems like a distant possibility and unlikely to happen in our generation, modern science has already began to stretch the boundaries of the body. Professor Kevin Warwick of Reading University has taken one of the first recognised steps to being a cyborg. Professor Warwick implanted a microchip in his arm which would activate his computer when he walked into a room, switch lights on and off when he entered and exited and could track wherever he was on the University Campus.

In April, 2005, the BBC²² reported a bionic eye that would apparently, "let the blind see". By utilising a computer chip that sits at the back of the individual's eye and a small video camera attached to a pair of glasses, images are transferred to the chip which translates them into impulses that the brain can interpret. This advance, though still in developing stages contributes to the argument that man and machine can exist within one body.

Sciencenewsdaily.org recently reported²³ (in footnote say date) on the development of artificial muscles based on conducting polymer and carbon nanotubes. The researchers based in Dallas Texas had been awarded a $750,000 grant to develop artificial muscles that convert chemical energy into mechanical energy. The researchers state they believe this development could prove to be more powerful than human muscles as initial tests suggest the artificial muscles will have greater force generation, contraction and speed.

Another relevant example of machine intervention with the human body comes from Icelandic researchers Ossur²⁴. Ossur have been developing what they refer to as 'bionic technology' (see video in appendix CD). One of the creations is an intelligent prosthetic leg that combines an electromechanical power source with a 'Sound-Side Sensory Control' or SSSC for short. This bionic leg learns how the individual walks and adjusts its controls so that the leg looks almost totally natural.

Another example of the boundaries of the body being stretched can be seen in modern cosmetic surgery. Various implants can now be added to the body and as time has progressed, it is no longer just the rich who can afford cosmetic surgery. The increase of these operations says something interesting about the state of our current society. It is clear that fashion, culture and society has a clear picture of what beauty is and the media contributes by constantly portraying images of this supposed beauty. The individual then feels this pressure and deems themselves not as pretty or handsome as society wants and attempts to augment this by having surgery. This raises the question, if cyborg technology was available in the scale represented in movies, would as many people take advantage of it as say, a facelift?

If we are to study the representations of man and machine in movies and pose the question; what are the boundaries of the body in cinema? It would be clear there are no boundaries. In fact, the body as part man, part machine in films is always an improved entity, at least initially. However, how often is a film released where a person has been rendered a cyborg and is less effective than the average human being? This indicates man is clearly concerned with the fragility of the human condition and the body.

Whilst 'Ghost in the Shell' on the surface is a fantastically designed piece of science fiction, on a deeper level it examines what it means to be human. The "Ghost" referred to in the title is the human soul that inhabits both humans and cyborgs alike. The story touches upon the idea of technology as a means of potential dehumanization. I say potential in that it also promotes the idea that the evolution of technology can lead to new forms of consciousness, and a new understanding of life. One classic philosophical question in artificial intelligence is whether an advanced enough artificial intelligence could be considered conscious or alive. In the terms of the movie, is an artificial ghost truly alive, and should it be preserved? Is it a threat to our conception of humans as unique beings?

Through the examples highlighted from the films mentioned, it is clear that there will be some resistance between man and machine. However, not everyone fears the arrival of the robot or the cyborg body. As Donna Haraway states:

"Our bodies, ourselves; bodies are maps of power and identity. Cyborgs are no exception. The machine is not an 'it' to be animated, worshipped and dominated. The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment. We can be responsible for machines; they do not dominate or threaten us. We are responsible for boundaries; we are they"²⁵.

Had this paper been written 5 years ago, perhaps the conclusion would be different. Other than the introduction of the pacemaker and some relatively effective mechanical prosthetic limbs, there would be little point in accepting the possibility of a human machine hybrid. However, as current research progresses in leaps and bound day by day, it is not an unconceivable possibility. Therefore, in conclusion, science has provided society with the possibility of stretching the human body's capabilities.

1Blade Runner, Ridley Scott, 1982.

2Terminator, James Cameron, 1984.

3Robocop, Paul Verhoeven, 1987.

4
Balsamo, A. Technologies of the Gendered
Body: Reading Cyborg Women. Duke University Press, 1996.

5
Ibid P.18

6Ghost in the Shell, Mamoru Oshi, 1995.

7
Ibid P.20

8
Ibid

9
Grosz, E. Notes Towards a Corporeal Feminism.
Australian Feminist Study Seminar, 1987.

10The Colossus of New York, Eugene Lourie,
1958.

11
Hayles, K.N. How we became Posthuman: Virtual
Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics. University
of Chicago Press, 1999.

12
Moravec, H. Mind Children: The Future of
Robot and Human Intelligence. Harvard University Press, 1990.

13Hayles
P.2

14Ibid
P.4

15
Balsamo, A. Technologies of the Gendered
Body: Reading Cyborg Women. Duke University Press, 1996.

16
Ibid P. 17

17Ibid
P.20

18
Ibid

19
Ibid P.21

20
Gibson, W. Neuromancer. Ace Books, 1995
(reissue).

21
Ibid P. 20

22
www.bbc.co.uk/news

23
www.sciencenewsdaily.org

24
www.ossur.com

25
Haraway, D. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The
Reinvention of Nature. Routledge, U.K. 1991.