Sorry it took me so long to get his up, I thought I had lucked out because our blogs started week 4 and my presentation was in week 3.
Anyway, my article was Future Sex: Cyborg Bodies and the Politics of Meaning written by Norah Campbell article "...investigates the visual representations of futuristic, technologised bodies in advertisements." (p. 1). She does this to highlight what these advertising images say about society and how they are a projection of humanity's ideologies, fears and fantasies" of and about technology and the future. She focuses on works of feminist writers such as Haraway and Springer who have previously commented on this topic, adding her own research discussing the emerging identity of women being told through technological imagery. (Thankfully, Campbell has a delicious infatuation with sub-headings and examples throughout this article which aid greatly in its comprehension due to the abundance of topics raised and consequent length of the article.)
Campbell starts out first explaining the term cyborg and telling the stories of its origin in the 1960s. It was birthed through the perceived necessity of supplementing the human being warranted by a hypothesis that stated the physiological and psychological inabilities of humans to cope with leaving planet Earth. She also discussed the importance of understanding the representations of 'future' and technology and what that says about us as the creators of such images.
She then goes onto discussing Donna Haraway's essay, "A Manifesto for Cyborgs". She summarises the essay, commenting on the profound effect it had on feminism and technologically integrated human identity. Though Haraway's essay is a very successful feminist text, it was also met with skepticism by other feminist writers who contested the poststrucuralist possibilities of technologies.
Haraway believed that technology is limitless, giving the ability to push past boundaries that hold the reality social structure. However many also see technology simply as a new medium for feminine repression and restructuring. Traditionally, technology is created to be sub-servant to humans. The word robot springs from a Czech word "robota" meaning "forced labour". This is coupled with the idea of women also being servant to the masculine and images such as The Stepford Wives, and Maria from Metropolis are born as mans attempt to create the perfect woman.
Campbell explores how the femaleness is allied to technology in its language. She uses the example of The Matrix, a word which springs from the latin mater meaning womb. Technology is obsessed with nurture and reproduction, presenting itself as a source of anxiety and desire. Technology is predominantly designed as a means of communication and reproduction for the "superior" species, thus likening them further to women.
The essay then goes onto deconstruct six images and texts and discusses them in four headings: i) Having Cyborg Sex,
ii)The Empowered/Enslaved
iii) The Future Anterior and,
iv) The Posthuman in the Human.
Some of the material studied is Bjork's All is Full of Love video, The SVEDKA girl and Johnie Walker 'Human' advertisement. Through these (and other) texts, Campbell researches ideas such as skin, whereby it creates a notion of humanness. Each of her examples lack skin and have replaced it with a mimetic synthetic material which is contradictory to itself as it highlights further the division between skin and 'other'. The research also depicts the 'perfect being' as being bias towards race and age, taut white lean bodies are the preferred in technological human representations.
The idea of 'sheath' or clothing is also explored. Futuristic clothing is built as a second skin but of high-tech synthetics. This idea is ironic as previously discussed, the cyborg is covering mechanism with the closest thing to flesh, and human; flesh with the closest thing to mechanism. Futuristic female forms are coated in tight fitting clothes which emphasise the female form. The best example of this is the Nike Les Jumelles and the line above the breast which it both accentuates and fetishizes.
Black and white technology is also explored, revealing that the human weakness for race-bias in advertising is also present in advertising and technology. Piertse argues that the role of black people in advertising seems permanently tied to chocolate, cocoa and coffee. Backed up by Dyer who points out the predominance of white people in ads for cosmetics, soap etc.
The next section of the essay explores the sexualisation of technology in the contemporary west and the consequent questions pertaining to sexuality and fantasy desire of the human being. There is a mention of the movie 'Crash' where car crashes are used as sexual stimulants. Campbell again addresses the objectification of women giving a feeling that women had to fight for their natural body rights, and are now having to fight for their virtual ones. However there are examples of empowerment of female technologised bodies (see Bjork previously mentioned) but they are still imbued with feminine qualities, highlighting sensuality, nuturing and careful. Bjork's video is controversial yet fascinating rather than insulting, antagonistic and degrading.
One of the last points raised is the lack of personality and humanness many of female cyborgs present in advertising media. They are seen as sexual objects only. The Heineken girl is one of the examples used as it highlights her integration with technology and the fantasied creation of the female android.
Linda Scott is mentioned and runs through the contradictory practices of many feminist writers and how many are elitist telling women how they should 'correctly' act. Which she vehemently argues.
In the last paragraph there is mention of the hymen which I think is silly and far-fetched.
To conclude, advertisements that depict the future are a representation of current human desires, fears, hopes and social development. Technology can be both liberatory and repressive especially for women as they are subjected to the most re-invention and scrutiny though technology.
I know this 'summary' is really long but so is the damn article with many great points raised. If you haven't read it, seriously you should. God I hope someone is reading this.
PEACE OUT.
Em.
thanks Emma that was awesome!
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