Kat's Webliography

Question 4: "From Frankenstein to the Visible Human Project, technological 'progress' has always forced society to re-evaluate the meaning of 'life'." Discuss critically.

Although finding the answer to the meaning of life is a philosophical question that will possibly go unanswered forever, the way we, as a society, evaluate the meaning of ‘life’ in terms of what we do know has been greatly affected by technological progress. From looking at Frankenstein to the Visible Human Project the meaning of ‘life’ has been a constantly developing idea, continually abstract and intangible yet strangely omniscient and ‘real’. In order to critically discuss the ways in which society has been forced to re-evaluate the meaning of ‘life’ I will be looking at the population’s evaluation of ‘life’ in the past by looking at views on ‘life’ in the period surrounding Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; what ‘life’ is in terms of religion and ‘life’ as disordered by the Visible Human Project, with discussion on this. I will also look at what ‘life’ is in terms of advancements in cloning and A.I.

An interesting look at the evaluation of life in the eighteenth and nineteenth century is available on the US National Library of Medicine’s “Birth of Frankenstein” web page[1]. This page is particularly useful when looking at the popular view scientists and physicians of the period held, that the bodies of the dead might be brought back to life. Although fairly short in content it is a helpful introduction to possible means of resurrection; electric shocks, smelling salts and vigorous shaking and begins to shed light upon the evaluation of life as renewable from as early as the 1700s.

In terms of religion ‘life’ is of phenomenal importance. An excellent site on the meaning of ‘life’ through the language of religion is ‘The Meaning of Life' [2]. Obviously the site is soaked with religious discourse but it is definitely valuable when looking at the way people have evaluated life for hundreds of years. The purpose of ‘life’ in very general terms is to ‘love and worship your God,’ which is the reason moral debate continues to surround the cloning of human life. I think discussion of life from a religious point of view, being that God is our creator, not the scientist, will help in the examination of cloned ‘life’ and AI.

Discussion surrounding the Visible Human Project (VHP) seems to focus in part on the boundary between the body and what we can loosely term the soul. Stuart J. Murray’s critical look at Catherine Waldby’s writing on the VHP gives insight into what the VHP does to bodies and ‘life' [3]. Murray looks comprehensively at Waldby’s dialogue on the value of life and the destruction of the binary distinctions between the actual and the real. I think this page is useful as it gives a critical overview of Waldby’s research and allows the reader to assess issues raised by Waldby, after they have been written, which we would not otherwise get.

Views on ‘life’ have been greatly disturbed by progress of the phenomena of cloning. Dr Patrick Dixon’s on-line book “The Genetic Revolution”[4] is a fantastic source looking at, among other things, cloning humans, patenting human clones, creating designer people and the “potential [of such experiments] to devastate the planet.”[5] Dixon discusses ‘life’ as a commodity like software on a floppy disk. He suggests that the cloning of humans is a step towards viewing ‘life’ of ‘real’ humans as progressively less important and sees cloning as a loss of individuality. Dixon also notes that, “there is more to life than life” and moreover, “you and I are more than the sum of our constituent parts. There is more to a human consciousness and individuality than just a bunch of chemicals.”[6] I think Dixon’s clear view on cloning and genetic interference opened my eyes a lot with regards to what ‘life’ is becoming and will offer some very helpful links to the discussion of A.I. later in my essay. It is quite a lengthy read but well worth it, especially Chapter 9- A Practical Response.

The view of American society as represented by world leader President Bush, in Melanie Hunter’s Cybercast News Service Article[7], provides some additional insights into what the future of cloning may hold. Bush is uncompromisingly against cloning, and sees life as a creation not a commodity. In Hunter’s article on Bush and cloning we are privy to the views against cloning by a multitude of organizations including Concerned Women for America and The American Centre for Law and Justice. This article notes that society is very much concerned with the protection of human life. I think this article will be extremely helpful when discussing life in terms of religion and views on cloning in general.

Artificial Life has also raised many questions as to what ‘life’ is: can a “machine” have life? Rinku Dewri’s [8] article on artificial life discusses ‘life’ from a scientific standing point, as a merely “pre-defined course of functional activity carried out by organic entities (cells) and a series of changes determined by some bio-chemical reactions. All other complex phenomena that occur originate from these two basic attributes only.”[9] I think Dewri’s perspective is very useful in terms of discussion on the artificial as possessing ‘actual life’ and on ‘life’ as being able to be created. Again it is fairly lengthy but is also very in depth and helpful.

AI Research’s Homepage [10] shows that there is a great deal of interest in creating a ‘new form of life’. From the history of AI, to choosing your own HAL child to speak with, the realisation that AI is closer than we think and the intelligence of a new form of ‘life’ is frighteningly real. This site is quite beneficial when looking at AI as ‘life’ and the implications this has for the future. It is fairly comprehensive and has an understandable section concerned with background information on the development of AI and whether or not it can be considered as ‘life’. You are also able to converse with “Alan” a form of AI thereby giving hands on experience in dealing with intelligence in its non-human form.

The meaning of ‘life’ is being constantly evaluated and re-evaluated; technology and the progress in this field being one of the main reasons for this. The websites that I have discovered would all be extremely helpful with the construction of an essay related to this topic and also gave me some new perspectives as to how I view ‘life’. I think that carrying out a webliography before writing an essay gives you many advantages as a writer and allows you to assess Internet resources critically before using them in an academic environment.

[1] U.S. National Library of Medicine. ‘Frankenstein: Birth of Frankenstein’ (February 2002)(accessed 20 August 2004).

[2]'The Meaning of Life' (updated daily)(accessed 17 August 2004).

[3]Stuart J. Murray. On ‘Catherine Waldby’s The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine’ (15 January 2002)(accessed 20 August 2004).

[4]Dr. Patrick Dixon. ‘The Genetic Revolution’ (c 1995)(accessed 18 August 2004).

[5] Dixon, "The Genetic Revolution."

[6]Dixon, "The Genetic Revolution."

[7]Melanie Hunter. ‘Bush: ‘Life is a Creation Not a Commodity’.’ (4 October 2002) (accessed 20 August 2004).

[8]Rinku Dewri ‘Artificial Life: A Programmers Perspective’ on ‘The AI Depot’ (accessed 21 August 2004).

[9]Dewri, "Artificial Life"

[10]Ai Research. (2001)(accessed 20 August 2004)

Webliography

2. Catherine Waldby argues that contemporary society is gripped by a sense of ‘technogenisis’, ‘the loss of an origin securely located in nature’ wherein the boundary between the natural and technological cannot be easily or concretely positioned. How is this reflected in digital culture?


It is interesting to theorise contemporary society as being gripped by ‘technogenisis’. In Waldby’s article, she cites Frankenstein’s monster as the ‘archetypal techno-monster story’.[1] Are reflections of ‘technogenisis’ in digital culture today similar monster narratives or has this ‘loss of origin securely located in nature’ itself become ‘naturalised’? When considering everyday life, we constantly interact with each other and the world through digital media. Communications are increasingly mediated through digital telephones and the internet, we view culture through the digital camera, television and cinema, sound is digitally mediated through CDs, MP3s and so on. Marx argued that in a capitalist society, interactions are alienated and become relationships between things rather than between people.[2] We could further this argument with relation to the notion of the cyborg in Haraway’s ‘Manifesto for Cyborgs’.[3] In a cyberculture, relationships between things become relationships mediated by digital media. How is digital culture ‘humanised’ whilst at the same time humans are ‘digitalised’? Does the digital self become more ‘real’ than the real self? We can think of this with reference the representations of the self in The Matrix.[4] Another effect of ‘technogenisis’ is the way in which the human body itself becomes theorised. [5] These ideas should be discussed with reference to their representations in digital media.
Mark Poster’s article[6] on the consumption of digital commodities discusses the way that ‘mediated commodities’ are consumed in everyday life. It builds on theories of everyday life written by Baudrillard and de Certeau. Poster makes these theories accessible by summarising the relevant parts in his article. This proves to be useful because I wanted to analyse the ways in which ‘technogenisis’ presented itself through everyday interactions. By juxta positing the highly mediated space of New York with the relatively ‘free’ space of Ljubljana, Poster highlights the ways in which social interaction in a digitally mediated space forces relationship between digital media rather than people. The invasion of both the public and private domain by invasive media is discussed. Poster discusses the social implications of digital media, which although very interesting are not all entirely relevant to this essay
The inclusion of Cohen’s article[7] from New Scientist may seem at first to be less than scholarly. It is true that the article is conversational in style and does not delve particularly deeply into the ‘scientific’ workings of the brain. The reason I find this article useful is to look at the way the brain is re-evaluated in the wake of the advance of digital media. The article quotes John White, a biomedical engineer who analyses the workings of the brain in terms of moving from computers models to mathematical description.[8] Just using one article of this nature is possibly too small a sample to analyse the way digital media has reworked theories on ‘how the body works’ so in my essay I would probably look at a cross section of articles in order to argue my point more strongly.
To complement my argument about the way the brain and body are likened to machines through the advent of digital culture, Klein’s discussion of the mechanical brain[9] explores notions of the brain from Descartes to Hayle’s idea of the posthuman. This article presents the information in sufficient depth, but at time fails to recognise its own biases when theorising about the human body. In spite of this it is still a useful base from which to postulate about how ‘technogenisis’ is reflected in digital culture through dominant ideologies about the human subject while positing these notions firmly in the history of ‘human’ thought.
The nature of media is discussed in Miyagawa’s article from Technosis Quarterly.[10] He discusses how digital media is turning from mass media to personal media where the consumer is not passive but acts as the ‘producer’ also. Specifically he speaks of how personal media must appear to come from the user’s perspective. This comments on the nature of ‘technogenisis’. The consumer of digital media searches for a personal identity within the media since their origins outside it are lost. The article also discusses the ‘humanisation’ of digital media through what Miyagawa refers to as ‘personal media’. This would be a useful part of arguing how loss of origin is attempted to be replaced through the digital media. (Which was the original displacer.)
The concept of the ‘digitalisation’ of the human body is unpacked in [12] It is very useful in exploring the human in its digital representation and what this might say about the status of the ‘real’ human body in digitally mediated culture. It explores the notion of the posthuman body which is an important effect of ‘technogenisis’. Another good point for this reference is its own reference list which leads to more interesting theory on notions of the human body in cyberculture.
Another discussion of the notion of the human body in cyberculture is Herzogenrath’s article in Enculturation.[13] The article discusses the cyborg in a multitude of ways. It discusses the way man is both produced as subject and erased by technology. This article has strong arguments that are well supported by dominant theories and would help create a substantial position for an argument on how the body’s origins can no longer be secured firmly in nature and possible suggestions for what this might mean for the human subject. The exploration of the complex relationship between human and machine emphasises the idea that the distinction between the two cannot easily be made in our highly digitally mediated society.
I believe this selection of online resources will be useful in aiding my discussion on the reflection of ‘technogenisis’ in the digital media. I would also complement this with other texts such as Katherine Hayle’s discourse on the posthuman.[14] I have used articles that explore both historical and contemporary theories. Two other types of theories I have encountered are the ideologies of ‘scientific’ discourse in light of recent technological advances and cultural theories on digital media and its effects on social reality. I realise there realistically would not be enough space to do all of these ideas justice and I would focus on how the human is represented in digital media as well as the ways in which we appropriate the technology itself into ‘human’ forms.


[1] Waldby, Catherine. “The Instruments of Life: Frankenstein and Cyberculture.” Prefiguring Cybercultures: An Intellectual History. Eds. Darren Tofts, Annemarie Jonson and Alessio Cavalaro. Sydney: Power Publications, 2002 28-37.
[2] Haslett, Moyra. Marxist Literary and Cultural Theories. New York: St Martins’s Press, 2000.
[3] Haraway, Donna. ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s.’, The Haraway Reader, New York and London: Routledge, 2003, pp. 7-45 (originally 1984)
[4] Burbank, Calif. The Matrix Warner Home Video [distributor] 1999
[5] Klein, Herbert G. ‘The Dream of the Mechanical Brain: The Rise and Fall of AI’ Enculturation, Vol. 3, No. 1, Fall 2000 http://enculturation.gmu.edu/3_1/klein.html (Accessed 31 August 2004)
[6] Poster, Mark. ‘Consumption and Digital Commodities in the Everyday’, Cultural Studies Vol. 18 No. 2/3 March/May 2004 pp 40 -423 http://80-cmo.library.uwa.edu.au.ezproxy.library.uwa.edu.au/04158.pdf (accessed 31 August 2004)
[7] Cohen, Philip. ‘Small World Networks Key to Memory.’ New Scientist 26 May 2004
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99995012 (Accessed 31 August 2004)
[8] Cohen, Philip. ‘Small World Networks Key to Memory.’ New Scientist 26 May 2004
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99995012 (Accessed 31 August 2004)
[9] Klein, Herbert G. ‘The Dream of the Mechanical Brain: The Rise and Fall of AI’ Enculturation, Vol. 3, No. 1, Fall 2000 http://enculturation.gmu.edu/3_1/klein.html (Accessed 31 August 2004)
[10] Miyagawa, Shigeru. Technos Quarterly Summer 2002 Vol. 11 No. 2 http://www.technos.net/tq_11/2miyagawa.htm (Accessed 31 August 2004)
[11] Thacker, Eugene. ‘.../visible_human.html/digital anatomy and the hyper-texted body’ Ctheory.net 6/2/1998 http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=103 (Accessed 31 August 2004)
[12] Waldby, Catherine. ‘The Visible Human Project: An Initial History’ in The Visible Human Project: Information and Posthuman Medicine. London and New York: Routledge, 2000, pp. 1- 18
[13] Herzogenrath, Bernd. ‘The Question Concerning Humanity: Obsolete Bodies and (Post)Digital Flesh’ Enculturation, Vol. 3, No. 1, Fall 2000
http://enculturation.gmu.edu/3_1/herzogenrath/index.html (Accessed 31 August 2004)
[14] Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Menu-Driven Identity Workshop Response

I think the questions about categories and picking-a-box for Hotmail and Yahoo! have been thoroughly discussed, so I will look at Lavalife and Second Life (questions 1 & 2, I suppose).

The Lavalife site tends to reduce users to objects that you place in boxes according to rigid categories, the same way you might sort books or cars (when you search cars online, you choose age, colour, make, model ...). If you click on a person's name you can see their about-me spiel, which allows a bit more self-expression, but on the whole the site just imposes its own structure on the complexities of identity. This seems a bit patriarchal to me ...

(Incidentally, I just saw an ad for Lavalife while browsing another site; it had a picture of a blonde, blue-eyed chick and the text "Lavalife - Meet sexy singles right now." I think this confirms that they're pandering to what's seen as common heterosexual male desires.)

Meanwhile, it's pretty obvious that Second Life is playing on the "your real gender, race etc. don't matter online" idea to sell their service. This is nicely illustrated if you click the link to the Second Life home page, where there's a big graphic (which freaked me out!) of a person's "real" identity juxtaposed against their Second Life identity, using one of those face-cut-in-half pictures. I thought it was interesting that they chose to show a "real" Second Life user in that picture, rather than a totally virtual construction ... perhaps this is because of people's yearning to know everyone else's "true" identity (like we discussed in the tute)?

Continuing Caz's theme of intent, I think the makers of Second Life earnestly set out to create a world where identity really was fluid and really could be defined by whatever a person wanted to present themselves as. All of their marketing material (if you explore the site) sounds much like the utopian "gender is irrelevant" writing from the early days of the Net.
However what they've produced doesn't really live up to this completely disruptive and radical kind of thinking. To me it seems like a bit of a caricature (also as mentioned in the tute), in that there's a limited range of categories you can use to build your identity. For example, although there's a mix of ethnicities and made-up names in the surname list, much of it is just token diversity (I didn't see any Chinese-sounding names). Also, the pictures on the site of Second Life avatars all look like fairly "normal" people to me, except for unusual clothes or hair colours, so even though people are able to create wild and radically different personas, they actually don't, and just to stick to categories they know (or if they do, it's not highlighted on the site).

Menu-Driven Identity Workshop Response

It is interesting to analyse sites such as Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail since I am so used to using these types of menus in my online experience. I never really considered the assumptions made when constructing these menus prior to reading Nakamura's article. On reflection, the categories available to choose from in these menus are very restrictive. Racism is not overt within these sites, there are no sign postings telling particular ethnicities that they are not welcome in the site, but as Kali Tal suggests, racism is present in the absence race withing the sites and the assumption that users are white, middle class and male. We can see this assumption in a few of the different information categories that the sites request. Firstly both Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail assume the user to be English speaking and living in the United States. If a country is chosen other than the United States, the whole menu has to be reset. Interestingly enough, Lavalife also assumes the user is searching for someone from the United States even though one would assume the site Lavalife.com.au to have an Australian bias due to the .au suffix. If the user is not of the United States, they are required to select one other country which does not give the option for partial residency in more than one country. Although there are many different country options available, the language options do not reflect the multiplicity of languages spoken in these different countries. (Although Yahoo! Mail is more flexible in this example giving options of different types of one language such as Mexican Spanish or Spanish as spoken in Spain etc. , but even this does not allow for different dialects within Mexican Spanish such as Chicano.) Other languages such as 'native' languages like Nyunga or any African language and even Japanese are not offered either. The languages offered are predominantly European colonising languages, although Chinese and Korean are available. So these menus do not allow for fractured or less 'dominant' languages. This would have something to do with the effort and space needed to rewrite the sites in all languages, but does show the assumptions made about the ethnicity of the user as predominantly European.

We can also see what assumptions are placed upon the user through the choice of secret question. "What is your favourite pet's name?" assumes domesticity; "What is your favourite movie?" assumes use of and access to mass culture which is predominantly Western; "What is your anniversary, spouses name, firs't child's middle name" assumes family values such as marriage and children; questions about high school assume a medium/high level of education; "What is your favourite sports team?"; assumes interest in sports. Two of the sites asked "What is your father's middle name?" which is patriarchal. One other site asks about the mother instead, but the question is "What is your mother's maiden name?" which assumes once again that the mother is married and that she has chosen to take her spouse's name. Other questions not on the Hotmail site such as "What is your favourite book?" assumes competent literacy and questions such as "What is our favourite pass-time?" privellage leisure time. These questions support values held by dominant, white, middle class, Western individuals. On the Lavalife website, the default search assumes the user to be a heterosexual male. These assumptions are passively racist because they do not allow for an equal oppurtunity for different identies on these sites.

Another area where there is no room for partiality or transcendental identity is that of gender. Every site has only two options, male or female and no option for transexual, transgender and other gender identifications.

One could suggest these sites are attempting to cater for mass use and as such offer choices that reflect the majority of users, but these categories are created by the makers of the sites and thus more accurately reflect their assumptions on race, class and gender which, if reaffirmed in the distribution of the users, is only so because there are no other options available.

Menu-Driven Identity Workshop Response

Question 1) It has been noted that the categories available for users in Hotmail and Yahoo are quite similar. Both ask for first and last names, birthdate, and gender. It is interesting to see that there is no default gender marked. Both Hotmail and Yahoo have default languages. Hotmail's is "English" and Yahoo's is "English- United States." The use of these defaults presumes that the users will be predominantly English speakers, and Yahoo; that they will be predominantly English speaking Americans. I'm not sure what this really says about assumptions of location and race because if you spoke a language other than English would you be opening a mail account with Yahoo in the first place? Are there other mail services that cater specifically for say, japanese? Hotmail's Terms of Agreement note that "It is the express will of the parties that this agreement and all related documents have been drawn up in English" This is then restated in French. Perhaps it is regarded as too difficult and too expensive(?), not worthwhile(?) to have the site interpreted into different languages. Yahoo also offer Content options added on to language such as French Canadian or Irish English. I think that by adding this option they feel as if they are covering all their bases, with regards to user languages and therfore "race". "Second life" does not allow options such as surname, job category, country or language. Perhaps this allows a degree of anonymity for users because this is of course a second life and to be the same person online as well as offline seems a bit pointless if you're paying money to be someone else. Of course this does not negate the option of being yourself, it just allows users more fluidity of identity.

Question 2) The identities visible in the profiles on lava life are extremely restricted. From what I can gather the only publicly viewable options are, age, gender, location, "race," starsign, religion, height, body type, smoker/nonsmoker, drinker/non drinker, view on children, education level and income per year. Obviously age, gender and location are general and fairly important, the others, although it seems most people choose to fill them in are optional. I assume people fill in the other options with view to finding somone with similar interests however, these interests are limited to smoking, drinking, religion and kids. There is little space for individuality. The identity that is displayed is very rudimentary. The presumptions that this makes about the people reading the profiles is that all these basic menu catergories are essential to finding a partner. Religion matters, "race" matters, income matters. I think as much as we would like to say that these categories don't matter, when looking for someone to settle with, these things ARE important (or maybe it's just me). Lavalife has taken the initiative to give searchers this information in advance, so that if religin is important to you, then you don't go barking up the wrong tree and on the flip side you don't have the wrong dogs barking up your own tree. These presumptions are definitely made on behalf of users by lavalife but are they really just picking out the things that society view as important rather than allowing "love to be blind"? On the other hand, if these categories did not matter to you, you would be hard pressed to fnd anyone with your interests as they are simply not available.

Question 3 [Briefly]) I think that identity in the form of individuality is extremely restricted by the lavalife website design. Changes that could be made might be as simple as having an option for interests, favourite movies, travelling locations or books. Essentially I think that lavalife is being fairly (not wholly) realistic in only giving these categories to choose from as these may be some of the first questions you ask when you meet a prospective partner in any case, lavalife have simply taken the hard work out and leave the finding of interests up to you. This would also be a great way to make money because you can't find out what other members like without being a user and I assume paying money to find out more about them. The less lavalife tell you the more money they make from you trying to find it out.

Changes to this tutorial blog

Hi Everyone,

New Link
A couple of changes to your tutorial blog. Firstly, you will notice I've added a link to the main Self.Net blog; this contains occassional posts from myself or Karen focusing on items which may be of interest for all students. Also, a number of curious people have found my own personal blog. Since some of you have found it, I may as put a link here, so if anyone else wants a read, you're most welcome (but do keep in mind, this is my personal blog, so isn't always 100% academically orientated!).

Blog Navigation Bar
I'm sure you've all noticed this new Navigation Bar at the top of the blog:

This adds some functions which might make using the tutorial blog easier:

• The orange Blogger button will take you directly to Blogger.com.

• Entering a search into the empty form box (the white box) and hitting search will search this blog (or whatever blog you are viewing). This should make finding earlier material much easier (only 15 posts remain on the front page, the rest go into the archive, accessible via the links on the side).

• Finally, the BlogThis! button will automatically open a window to let you write a blog post.

FollowUp Comments for those Introducing Readings
Just a quick note: most of you who have already introduced readings this week in tutorials have gone back and published your reflection upon the tutorial after it finished. Those who haven't (and those presenting in the coming weeks) please remember that part of your tutorial presentation is to go back to the post you made before the tute and reflect on how well your presentation went (how well the ideas were received; what sort of conversation happened; any ways your ideas about the reading might have changed/expaned). Ideally, this should be done as soon as possible after your tutorial presentation (but really should be before the next meeting of your tutorial). Others are reminded, that they are always welcome to comment on any posts in their tutorial blog and are also welcome to post relevant links/ideas whenever you find things! (oh, and for those of you who've never read other people's comments, give it a go; there are some really interesting dialogues taking place in the comments!).

A reminder:
Before clicking the 'Publish Post' button, if you place the cursor inside the window where you have written your post press either Ctrl+A to select all and then Ctrl+C (on a PC) or Apple+A to select all and then Apple+C (on a Mac), this will place the text you have written in the memory of the computer (this is referred to as placing text on the clipboard). If something goes wrong during the attempt to publish, all you need to do to make the post a second time is place the cursor in the post window and press either Ctrl+V (PC) or Apple+V (Mac) to paste the text from the clipboard into that text box. (Occassionally blogger does 'hang' [which means not finishing the posting function], so it is useful to make this quick backup in order to avoid typing out the entry a second time!)

Gender, Reproduction, and Gattaca

In response to the third question, about 'liberating' women from reproduction, I agree that manipulation of genetics doesn't necessarily have to be a negative thing (if only because that sounds like a massive over-generalisation to me). That said I'm not sure the world of Gattaca would really be 'liberating' women from reproduction at all. Other responses have pointed out that when new technologies emerge they tend to just have existing gender (and power) structures imposed on them, like with the Internet in today's tute. In the film the mother was still presented as the parent most responsible for caring and nurturing the children even though she hadn't physically given birth to Anton Jr., and I wouldn't be surprised by this happening if that technology were real.

I suspect that there is potential in genetic technologies, assisted reproduction, etc., for women to be (at least partially) liberated, but only if it really challenges people's perceptions of what is normal. Someone in another tute mentioned contraception, which I think is a good example -- it seems normal to us that effective contraception is readily available but I'm told by older people ;-) that the pill was a Really Big Thing when it was new, and was part of some big social changes (like the 1960s "sexual revolution").

Perhaps if there was some new technology that led to a massive change in everyone's behaviour around reproduction, then there would be a redefinition of everyone's perceptions of gender roles and the "right place" of men and women, but anything short of that probably wouldn't be so revolutionary. Someone (Tama?) mentioned in a workshop that Hollywood films tend not to present worlds that are really radically different from our own (since they wouldn't sell), so in Gattaca's world the new genetic technologies haven't made that big a social impact. I think it's possible, though, that if that technology was real then it would be a major social shift.

'Liberating' Women from Reproduction

At the front of it, the thought of liberating women from reproduction seems to be a positive thing since women will no longer be required to bear the pain of childbirth and there would be a less overt link between women and childrearing as since the offspring has not physically come out of the mother, one would hope, women would no longer be 'naturally' expected to continue nurturing such offspring. Although I am not sure if these attitudes would really change. If we look at other examples of new technologies which could be potentionally challenging in terms of social ideologies, we can see a trend for existing ideologies to be re-presented in these new spaces created by such technology. An example of this, discussed in our tutorial this week is the way that the online BEV community re-presented attitudes already present within the 'real' Blacksburg and also the ways in which the space of the internet is in fact not the utopian classless, genderless, raceless space imagined as discussed in McGerty's article. What I am suggesting is that in reality women, even if they were 'liberated' from pregnancy and giving birth, would still be responsible for the majority of childrearing duties as is the case currently, unless social ideology were to change dramatically, which I am suggesting, it would not.

Another interesting angle of this argument is presented in Germaine Greer's The Whole Woman which is a responsorial text to the path feminism has taken since her first text The Female Eunich In The Whole Woman, Greer suggests that if women were to be liberated from childbirth through the production of 'artifical wombs' that they would no longer be needed by patriarchal society and would thus be disposed of and in effect 'bred out'. What is the need for a woman in such a society, she asks, especially since all embrios can be genetically modified to be male. Of course this is an extreme position, but it is an interesting idea. What would be the use of a woman in such a society now that she is no longer required for the survival of the species? I would suggest that she is needed to take on the dirty work of bringing up the children anyway - although robotic 'nannies' can be produced to this effect. Besides in all honesty society would not be balanced without the female of the species and there is always the pleasure principal, can technology ever be that advanced in that respect?

Issues of race, gender and class in "Gattaca"

In the first ten minutes of Gattaca we are looking at a predominantly white society. One "minority" figure that is presented is the "African American" doctor. He is certainly portrayed as a man who is wise and rational, trying to do the best he can in his line of work by taking it upon himself to eradicate alcoholism, pattern baldness etc. from the genetically modified child. He has the desire for perfection and accordingly desires his work to be perfect. The only other "minority" character that I noticed was the Asian nurse who reads from the life expectancy transcript, though whether this is a nod towards women as important in the medical field or not is questionable. It is also interesting to note that Vincent's parents wish their second child to be born with fair skin, despite the father's obvious Italian heritage. However, I think that in general that world of Gattaca is not interested in race, colour and gender anymore but instead in discrimination through the genetic imperfections identified in your blood.

The clip shows a heterosexual family unit, Vincent's parents choose a son over "two very healthy girls" and choosing the sex of a baby raises a few gender questions in itself. In keeping with the idea that race and gender are redundant, gender is washed over in the film as a whole although heterosexuality is, obviously, shown as the norm.

In relation to class it is evident that the de-generates or "invalids" are relegated to performing menial tasks often associated with the second-class citizen. They are inferior to the "Valids" who are able to perform any task that they would possibly desire. We are told that there is a law against genetic discrimination but for some reason people here are above the law and only those with engineered genes are privy to "important" jobs; ie, science, government, aeronautics, etc. Vincent's own father notes, ["the only time you'd see the inside of a space ship is if you were cleaning it"]. From this quote we could also draw conclusions that there are class rankings within the family unit; Anton Snr will not give his name to his de-generate son and Anton Jnr is essentially the favourite.

More generally, as mentioned before, I think Gattaca is more concerned with what would happen if personality was no longer taken into account. Race, colour and gender have been pushed aside as "class indicators" and class structure is dependent only upon genetics. This, I think, is suggesting that even if we could take away the value of race etc. there will always be discrimination based on some form of difference and as much as society wishes for a utopian world it is invariably impossible.

McGerty: Gendered Subjectivities & Use of the Internet

McGerty, L. " 'Nobody Lives Only in Cyberspace': Gendered Subjectivities and Domestic Use of the Internet" in Turow, J. and Kavanaugh, A. (eds.), The Wired Homestead, 2003. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 337-345.
Page numbers are from the original.

In this article McGerty considers the question of how the gendered realities of domestic life affect use of the Internet in that context, and vice versa. She briefly surveys what is known about gender subjectivity online, and concludes that it is not much. Hence, her main point is that there was (at the time) little documented research into this, and without such work we cannot properly understand the Internet's impacts on domestic life.

"That there are gender dynamics to Internet use seems highly likely", which is rather unsurprising, "although this is currently an area that is grossly undertheorised." (p. 340) McGerty blames this on the lack of research.

The shortage, she says, is caused by the popularity of early utopian ideas about gender being irrelevant online (such as in her one online reference). She refutes this, arguing that if we accept the common feminist claim that gender is largely performative (i.e. that a person's gender is constructed from the performances they give to others), then there is little difference between gender in the real world, and gender online (which is also all about performances).

"... at the level of the individual one could validly maintain that these characteristics [gender, race, and class] are tenuous performances both online and off." (p. 339)

I find this part of her discussion quite persuasive, although I do wonder if she's taking it a bit too far. At times, it seems that McGerty is in favour of looking at online experiences in exactly the same way and through the same theoretical framework as all our other experiences, but I feel there are still differences in the way we present ourselves online and off that shouldn't be discounted (even though the two are very closely connected).

"Recognising that online and offline experiences are materially one and the same ... enables us to improve our understanding." (p. 343)

McGerty's article does, though, cast a great doubt over that distinction, and strongly refutes the claim that the Internet represents a whole new world for gender relations. This kind of thinking, she argues, will only get in the way of trying to understand how network technologies fit in to, and interact with, existing structures of gender (and race, and class, etc.).

Cyberstalking: Gender and Computer Ethics

Alison Adam


In its present condition the cyberworld of the internet is a forum that perpetuates the victimisation of women and the dominance of men. Essentially it has become a new tool for stalking. The current state of computer ethics adheres greatly to the phallocentricities of "real world" power structures thereby creating the urgent need for a more functional, protective and realistic set of rules for internet users to live by when on-line. Adam suggests using the discourse of feminist ethics and feminist theory to propose more useful and effective guidelines for computer ethics. In the examples she gives Adam notes that it is the female's rights that are most often violated and the male that is most often the perpetrator. Adam also indicates the necessity of finding the causes of cyberstalking in order to assess what can be done to terminate such behaviour before it gets to a stage where people of little power become victims of harrassment.

I think Adam discusses some extremely valid points in her chapter. The stance Adam takes in looking at the concept of "prevention being better than a cure" is certainly something that should be considered but doesn't seem to have many practical implications as the finding and treatment of such anti-social individuals would be virtually impossible. However the current justice system does seem to struggle with the handling of cases such as the ones mentioned and there is a definitely an unquestionable need for user protection, user education and the increased responsibility of service providers in relation to both content and abuse.

A few good quotes: all page numbers from course reader.

"sexual harrassment...the unwanted imposition of sexual requirements in the context of a relationship of unequal power." (pp 131-2)

"...a cyberstalker can hide behind the anonymity of the internet." (pg 134)

"the majority of reported cyberstalking cases involve women as victims and men as perpertrators." (pg 134)

"the normal channels of law and justice are either not available or are not sufficient." (pg 133)

"...it is not always easy to see when their (women) rights are being violated. This may partly explain the reluctance of official bodies to see cyberstalking as a problem that affects women to the extent that they may need special measures to counteract it." (pg 135)

"The Reno report was balanced towards counteracting cyberstalking behaviour when it happens but said little of how we may stop the behaviour in the first place." (pg 135)

Links:

Stalking behaviour
An article by JA Hitchcock
Download a paper on cyberstalking from the Australian Institute of Criminology
Wired Article

"Make no mistake: this kind of harassment can be as frightening and as real as being followed and watched in your neighborhood or in your home."
-Vice President Al Gore

See you guys on wednesday- Kat :)

Random comics!

Howdy y'all,
Random first post by he with the strangely spelt name that confused Tama last week :-)

As of thirty seconds ago, my favourite site is Calvin and Hobbes, if only because I'm addicted to that comic. If anyone cares, I also stare at Dilbert a lot, but that might just be my inner geek trying to escape. Must ... keep ... inner ... geek ... locked ... up ...

minky frog

WARNING
this message contains greetings to other members of this blog. if you do not wish to be greeted do not proceed in reading this post.

if you are still reading i assume you would like to be greeted. well ha ha i have tricked you because that was a false warning. this message contains no such greeting. there is no true greeting behind the greeting signifier. hmmm...

now onto the second point of this post:

MY FAVOURITE WEBSITE

well that would have to be the Centrelink Website of course. Not only is it packed with absolute meaningless information on how to procastinate about getting a job or getting anything at all from Centrelink but it is also a way of filling out your fortnightly forms without actually having to talk to anyone employed by Centrelink or visiting one of their office - and THAT my dears is a blessing!

Muse-ic

hey everyone, i already had a user name so just letting you all know this is "kat." can i get a w00t? my fave web-site at the moment is muse's website because i am going to their concert in september and i'm stoked. i feel a w00t comin' on cuz :)

Listening to- "plug in baby" by muse ;)