I made a couple of false starts with this in Wix and in Glogster: neither offered what I wanted really. I got closer to what I was attempting to achieve with Prezi. For some reason, I can’t get the embed code to work here, so here’s a link to my visual artefact.
I’ve spent a lot of this week revising and reviewing my lifestream: adding more metadata and reflections based on the readings, our Hangout tutorial and the second Film Festival discussions. As I’ve already mentioned, this process is an interesting one, with the blog allowing for a spiralling* return to ideas and concepts. I did, however, wonder about *your* experience as readers. Will you be willing to return to ‘old’ ground, will you see the additions? Are you a new reader anyway? Or am I simply throwing ideas out into the ether which will never be read…?
This week, I’ve read Haraway and Sterne. Haraway was challenging and I found this YouTube PechaKucha presentation to offer a useful (if not entirely unproblematic) synopsis of her paper. The notion of the cyborg as a metaphor for unity, as a manifestation of a rejection of the dualism of human vs. technology is a rich seam to explore. The cyborg is a ‘complex entanglement’ of the human and the technical; technology is not subservient to the human, nor is it instrumental. The cyborg is a metaphorical rejection of a determinist stance and functions as a conceptual manifestion of the sociomaterial integration of the human and the technical.
I tried to reflect some of these ideas in my visual artefact. I made two false starts on this, trying out a website and a Glogster poster before determining upon Prezi. This in itself was an interesting process: the chosen medium determined how I could present/express my ideas and thus had an impact upon those ideas themselves.
*I’ve been thinking about the connections between this process and Bruner’s spiral curriculum.
Haraway, Donna (2007) A cyborg manifesto from Bell, David; Kennedy, Barbara M (eds), The cybercultures reader pp.34-65, London: Routledge. (e-reserve, pdf)
Are We All Cyborgs?
THE FUTURE IS NOW
Whether it’s using animals to farm, the printing press or the modern computer, there’s no doubt technology has played a hugely important part in our lives for as long as we can remember. But today, there are more and more people mixing technology and biology in what is quickly emerging as a cyborg identity. But what counts as cyborgian? Pacemakers and bionic limbs, sure, but what about glasses? Fitness trackers? Yoga? Or even… birth control? Today Mike sits down with Rose Eveleth, host of the podcast Flash Forward to discuss what our modern day perception of a cyborg is, and why it might not be totally accurate.
Notes:
To read: Katherine Hailes – How we became Posthuman
Donna Haraway’s ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’: A Brief Overview
A Pecha Kucha presentation on the article ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’, written by the renowned scholar Donna Haraway.
via YouTube https://youtu.be/lqglzX_y5wM
Notes: