Annotated webliography by Li Ho Yin(10380140)

‘Why should our bodies end at the skin?’ asks Donna Haraway. Discuss the idea of skin in relation to how we might imagine our future embodiment.

REFERENCE 1 REMOTE BODY

Voyd.com. My viewing body does not end at the skin [online] ;available from http://www.voyd.com/ttlg/textual/ballardessay.htm; accessed 5 March, 2011

Susan Ballard, who is Lecturer in Otago Polytechnic in New Zealand, wrote an article to response to the question of ‘Why should our bodies end at the skin?’ by Donna Haraway. His view is that body cannot end at the skin. The discussion included the idea of Avital Ronell suggested in 1989 was applied that the invention of the telephone as a hearing device actually break the boundaries of body. Human voice can transmitted from one place to and other geographically distant spaces.

Although voice is not a physical organ from body, however it as a physical wave forms present human personal characteristics and identity. The voice was encoded into data and re-decoded as a virtual form of human voice. This is an interesting topic that response to the concept of cyborg. The human voice from the telephone is actually the outcome of the collaboration between human and machine. The process not only need human voice as a source, but also electricity supplies and signal transmitter as a communication channel. These forms of virtualized communication were widely applied in nowadays communication pattern.

With the sophistication of wireless transmission, virtualization of im­ages is a popular practice. People can see each other’s facial expressions and direct responses with a webcam or 3G internet devices, when they are not in same physical spaces. The advancement of technology breaks the traditional way of definition and boundaries of concept of body.

REFERENCE 2: FIRST CYBORG

BBC News. ROBOT MAN[online] ;available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/westmidlands/series2/robot_man_cyborg_machines.shtml; accessed 5 March, 2011

"I have one goal in my life. I want to be a cyborg ... I want to be the world’s first half man half machine." Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at Reading University.

I was attracted by this single quote from the article from BBC website. It is about the story of a professor who has already taken the first step to make him in form of cyborg. Microchips and other electronics component were installed in his body so he can control robot arm when he makes electrical impulses from his brain. With the help of internet infrastructure he can even control other robot arms in distant places.

The professor also claim that he is doing researches on transmitting messages from one brain to another so people can communicate without actually speaks. But this idea has been criticized as inhuman. Some scientists worried these kinds of silent communication forms will destabilize the relationship within some intimate groups like family.

The effect of these experiments should never be underestimated. This is a pure case of original concept of how a cyborg should look like. Although microchips are tiny pieces of metal but it is the representative of the machine side. The interesting part will be the application of the chips.

Cyborg can be dangerous when it were misused or incorporate into illegal practices and war. When human can remotely initiate mechanical changes to remote machines, lot of explosions and spread of terrorism is predictable.

REFERENCE 3 KILLING MICROCHIPS

Global research. The Human Tracking Microchip [online] ;available from http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13900 ; accessed 5 March, 2011

People implanted with tracking microchips in their body and he got killed when somebody press a button remotely. It seems like a scenario from James Bond movie. But German scientists actually make it workable, theoretically.

The “Killer Chip” is able to locate the targets, who with the chips implanted, anywhere around the world by the Satellite GPS systems. Scientists clams that the chips can be implanted into the body of fugitives, terrorists, illegal immigrants and criminals. When they were classified as harm to the security risk, the chips could release poison into the carrier in order to stop their dangerous action.

However these killer chips are not yet pass the German law. It does violate the paragraph two of the German Patent Law, which does not allow inventions that transgress public order or good morals.

Implantation of chips is always a debatable issue. Sometimes it’s not about the nature of the technology that mixing human and machine, but about the application and morality issues.

Is it a good practice of tracking of geographic location of a person? It does touch the issues of human right. In addition to the “remote killing” function, the case becomes even more complicated. Who is responsible to define a person as the national security risk?

The idea of cyborg is always interesting when our body does not end at the skin. In this case our life is even controlled remotely from our skin by some unknown body.

REFERENCE 4 SURVEILLANCE COUNTRY

BBC News. Britain is 'surveillance society [online] ;available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6108496.stm; accessed 7 March, 2011

“The UK was "the most surveillance country comparing to other industrialized Western states”, Dr David Murakami-Wood commented the situation of Britain as a highly surveillance society after the 28th International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners' Conference in London.

Researchers suggested that the modern surveillance system not only capture peoples motions by CCTV cameras but also by collecting data about the use of credit card, consumption pattern, mobile phone usage as the "dataveillance". Statistics shows that there are up to 4.2 million of CCTV cameras in Britain, one of the greatest modern cities.

Some scientists predicted that by 2016 parents can bring in cards in schools to monitor what their children ate. Employers may even say no to job applicants who have health problems.

Surveillance camera gave us the concept of extending human vision by remote camera. One can observe distant object by CCTV camera with zoom in function. The extension of human vision shows body does not end at the skin in our daily life. In addition to the concept of dataveillance, our daily habit like consumption pattern even was under surveillance. I think the legislator have to do something on it regards to the privacy issues.

REFERENCE 5 NINJA CITIZEN

Dailyonigiri. HAL robot suit helps disabled move [online] ;available from http://www.dailyonigiri.com/2010/06/hal-robot-suit-helps-disabled-move/ ; accessed 5 March, 2011

This is not the robot appear in Japanese Cartoon or the poster of the terminator 5. The Japanese called it cybernetic HAL robot suit. It was created to enhance physical abilities of disabled people with simple daily life action of walking and lifting heavy objects.

The inventor said the users of HAL doesn’t feel heavy when they wear the suit because it is kind of exoskeleton supporting its own weight. In the future, it will be widely used in rehabilitation support and other medical fields, heavy labor support in factories and rescue support at disaster.

The improvement of technology always surprises us with bringing human one step closer to what we seen on sci-fi movies. This HAL suit must be one typical example of our body does not end at the skin. The exoskeleton give users extra energy and body strength. One day no one could underestimate the strength of disabled people with the external support of the suit.