Cong-Huyen, A Gonzalez, E, “Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora and Others”,Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, 2010, retrieved 14 July 2010, http://www.hastac.org/forums/hastac-scholars-discussions/race-ethnicity-and-diaspora-digital-age>
This interactive site states that although the Internet was initially intended to be a purely democratic forum, where people could participate regardless of age, race, gender and other socio-economic barriers, this has been found not to be true. The hosts of the site, Anne Cong-Huyen and Edward Gonzalez, believe that society is far from being post-racial; even in the digital realm we are not “colour blind”. This site has been useful as it has links and contributions from a range of individuals, all with unique and at times conflicting views on the idea of race and its representation in cyberspace. Also, each of these contributions identified different facets of race in different realms of digital space, and the culmination of these different avenues of thought was highly beneficial for my research.
This is run by HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory), and is identifies “researchers, academics or simply interested individuals” to participate in its blog-style forum. The academic nature, the organisation it is run through and the naming of the hosts at the bottom of the webpage make it a reputable forum for the intense consideration of the ideas and views posted on its walls.
SOURCE TWO
Therian, Erika. “The Skin You’re In”, New World Notes: Wagner James Au Reports First-Hand from Second Life, >span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"2006, retrieved 20 August 2010, <http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/02/the_skin_youre_.html>
This blog, “The Skin You’re In” was posted by Erika Therian, a user of Second Life (an interactive virtual reality), and describes the way in which she was treated when her avatar wore the ‘skin’ of an African-American woman while playing Second Life from a period of 3 months. It gives first hand account of the reactions of other avatars to her new virtual identity. Although these reactions were in response to her virtual skin, the reactions afforded to her mimic racist sentiments expressed in the real world.
This source has been beneficial to my research as it gives a first hand account of the nature of explicit online racism, and the translation of racism and racial assumptions from more traditional real life situations onto the medium of cyber interface. For me, this is an example of the dismantling of the utopian ideals of the cyber realm as a race free zone.
SOURCE THREE
Wilkerson, A, “Ending at the Skin” Hypatia, vol. 12, iss. 3, 1997, pp. 164-173, retrieved 24 August 2010, Wiley, < http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1997.tb00010.x/full>
Bisexual feminist Abby Wilkerson writes this article “Ending at the Skin”. Wilkerson believes that Donna Haraway’s description of the cyborg “evades the very issues of race and sexuality which it seems to be addressing” and discusses the representations and ideas of the cyborg from the perspective of a bisexual individual. This article has been helpful in my research as it has cast doubts on what I had believed to be a concrete definition of the racial nature of the cyborg afforded by Harway. By challenging the racial nature of the cyborg this article has taught me to be far more critical when reading other texts that draw upon an assumed nature of a cyborg’s ‘race’.
SOURCE FOUR
Bostic, A. I, ‘Seeing Cyborg Through the Eyes of Popular Culture, Computer-Generated Imagery, and Contempory Theory’, Leonardo, vol. 31, no. 5, 1998, pp. 357-361, retrieved 4 August 2010, jstore, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576595?seq=1>
This article explores the ideas of the many different manifestations of cyborgs that exist within popular culture, and the impact of capitalism upon the development, limitations and representations of the cyborg. The idea of the cyborg ‘hero’ or individual narrative, as opposed the cyborg ‘collective’ narrative that is open expressed in mainstream pop culture, such as popular movies and television, is explored thoroughly. It has been highly useful during the course of my research as it examines a plethora of forms of popular culture, from artwork to film and television. The reason for this is as Bostic states “If we consider that one of the primary functions we ascribe to visual form is to represent the culture that gave meaning to it, then it is altogether fitting that we survey a vast array of visual expressions that our culture produces.”. Finally, I have found this article particularly useful in my research as it examines the reasons why we have represented the cyborg in many facets of pop culture as seeking perfection and improvement, which concludes in Bostic promoting the need to “interrogate the self and our understanding of the human condition”.
SOURCE FIVE
Armstrong, R, “Cyborg Film Making”, Cybersociology Magazine, 1999, retrieved 24 August 2010, <http://www.cybersociology.com/files/5_cyborgfilmmaking.html>
The article “Cyborg Film Making”, contributed to Cybersociology Magazine by Dr. Rachel Armstrong, discusses the role and depiction of the cyborg self in cyborg art and cyborg filmmaking. The article is highly focused on the advances in representation of the cyborg “in a time where the perception of the relationship between the natural body and the ‘artificial’ one has been accelerated by developments is medicine and technology”. The idea of gender is highly focused upon throughout the article, and highly rejects the idea of a hetro-normative cyborg self-identification. This rejection is displayed through her description of the queer cyborg, primarily expressed through the medium of modern art. While this article was not explicit upon the ideas of cyborg representations of race, it was highly detailed in the pop culture of modern art and the representation of the cyborg within this culture. The article was useful in my research in terms of exploring representations of cyborgs in different mediums of pop culture. In addition, it aided exploration of the idea of the ‘artificial’ cyborg as a race separate from the ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ human race, and the idea that a new form of racism could emerge, no longer based on skin colour or ethnic origin but in the degree to which an individual is ‘natural’ or ‘mechanic’.
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