With this article, we conclude our journey into the evolution of the cyborg and Japanese culture . Using two anime in particular, we will attempt to lay the foundation for some discussion.
In anime media narratives, a new conception of cyborgs emerged with Neon Genesis Evangelion in 1995. Unlike in the past, the pilots of these machinic beings called Evas are not located in command modules located in their heads or chests. Instead, they are inserted into the robots' napes within pressurized capsules filled with amniotic fluid, allowing them to be piloted via neural impulses.
These "envelopes" constitute a new, sophisticated form of cybernetic organism in which a sort of animal instinct is kept under control by the minds of the pilots themselves. When the pilots lose consciousness or are seriously injured, the Evas ' survival instinct is reawakened . They actually prove to be more than just exoskeletons supporting the humans who control them (Marcello Ghilardi, 2011). This anime , famous for its characterization and introversion of the characters, can be used to begin to conceive and criticize cyborg subjectivity inserted and immersed in a cyborgian society (Chris H. Gray, 1995).
The nature of the term cyborg
At this point it is important to better clarify the nature of the term Cyborg . It is a compound of cyberg and organism , that is, cybernetic organism. It indicates the mixture of flesh and technology that characterizes the body modified by hardware grafts, prostheses and other implants. It can be compared to another neologism, bionics , which is composed of biology and electronics, and means an organism with an electronic prosthesis (Donna Haraway, 1999). Three key ideas can be described from which to start to give a useful definition of Cyborg . First of all, Norbert Wiener (1953) defines cybernetics, the science from which the cyborg takes shape , as
«the study of logical action and feedback programs based on the stimulus-response dynamics of animal and human behavior».
Instead, starting from books and stories pertaining to cyberpunk , the prefix cyber is associated with a technology that unites the organic with the inorganic , the human with the mechanical. The third typology is embodied in the idea of a robot that imitates the human both externally and internally, albeit with synthetic materials. In this case, it would be a simulacrum or replicant, an imperfect copy that repeats the compositional patterns of the original, without reaching its completeness. According to Alessandro Goramasca (2000), in a society like ours, which contemplates the organic/mechanical fusion, and is therefore highly technologically developed,
«We are not only enveloped in a “mechanosphere” that enhances and extends our sensorimotor activity, but we are also immersed in a media and cybernetic space that envelops our bodies».
Lacrimae rerum = mono no aware
The emotional characteristic underlying this state of media immersion can be traced back to the Eastern equivalent of lacrimae rerum , the pathos of things. The mono no aware, the sense or feeling that is (com)moved by things (Ghilardi, 2000, p. 153) and that makes them important and worthy of a meaning beyond the instrumental one. It is constituted in a problematic manner, in the figure of the cybernetic body narrated, for example, in Ghost in the Shell . It is literally a shell that acts as a support for the mind. It originates from informational bits and then establishes itself as a true collective consciousness capable of defining the subject, effectively expanding the boundaries, and therefore, the very concept of the body.
This body expands to such an extent that it can no longer tolerate the confines of its own home, in fact it presents itself, according to Linda De Feo (2009), as
«a sensitive segment of a complex network of passionate actions that shatters into protean, spreading and hybrid splinters, starting a new cycle of desire».
We can therefore attribute to the definition of the term body a meaning relating not only to the physical, but also to the territory. In other words, the
vital functions that the subject occupies, the range of gestures, passions, desires that he has at his disposal, the social and symbolic devices that he possesses, the relational fields in which he is placed (Abruzzese, 1988).
The cyborg is therefore an entity that forges connections, and an interactive figure that evokes new modes of interaction, receptivity, and global communication. As such, the cyborg deliberately, and quite shamelessly, diffuses and blurs the dualistic distinctions that underpin our culture.
Code Cyborg
Today, in the network society, simply speaking of a machinic cyborg is no longer exhaustive. In addition to defining himself as a relational and related complex of information, the individual needs to transcend his own bodily boundaries and externalize and define himself in relational models that can move adequately in the new contexts of the media landscape. In the words of Linda De Feo (2009),
"It maintains constant contact between humans and the inorganic outside, while the body, functioning in a dimension dominated by electronics, expresses an increasingly intense integration with communication tools. […] The process of virtualizing aesthetic experience definitively detaches expression from the highly localized spectacularity of industrial imagery, making it perpetually evocative, ubiquitous."
Let's try to think about a cyborgian typology that contemplates this dematerialization of experience and which could serve as a basis for further reflections. The cyborg of code . Following the previous reflections, it would no longer represent the utopia of our evolution, nor the total reconfiguration of our humanity evoked by transhumanists (Rosi Braidotti, 2014). It would represent a new critical idea from which to begin to define both the contemporary imagination and our identity. Our digital self-definition necessarily involves a reconfiguration of our being, a conscious reincarnation in the digital avatar . Whether agentive or relational (Bailenson, Yee, 2011), it allows us to recreate a form of control in worlds of information overload (de Kerkhove, 2011). The transformation process from the electronic cyborg to the code cyborg would constitute the turning point marked by the change in technology, no longer configurable only as a prosthesis, but also as
«a set of tools aimed at creating increasingly structured and sophisticated universes, both in terms of material functioning and in terms of the elaboration of the imaginary» (De Feo, 2013).
video game cyborg?
From this perspective, for example, video games could be seen as universes of meaning in which individuals can both experiment and gain practical experience of the potential of a life lived virtually, and fulfill that intrinsic need for order that can only be achieved by following the rules of those virtual, playful worlds in which we are immersed. Ultimately, one could propose a more mature imaginative figure than that of the cyborg hypothesized and deduced from Pellitteri's (2008) text, one that contemplates, on the one hand, a certain degree of governance of immaterial technologies by the user, and that is constituted by a cultural background capable of conceiving of constantly evolving culture as a challenge, a perpetual game in which participation allows for emotionally fulfilling socialization. The Video Game Cyborg.
Bibliography
- Abruzzese A., Archaeologies of the Imagination. Segments of the Cultural Industry between the 800th and 900th Centuries, Naples, Liguori, 1988;
- Braidotti R., The Posthuman. Life Beyond the Individual, Beyond the Species, Beyond Death, Rome, DeriveApprodi, 2014;
- De Feo L., From Cybernetic Bodies to Virtual Spaces. Toward a Philosophical Historiography of the Digital, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2009;
- De Kerkhove D., Brainframes: Mind, Technology, and Market, Bologna, Baskerville, 1993;
- Ghilardi M., From Sabi to Cyber: A Transforming Imaginary, in Casari M. (ed.), Cultures of Contemporary Japan: Manga, Anime, Video Games, Visual Arts, Cinema, Literature, Theater, and Architecture, Mottola, Tunué, 2011;
- Goramasca A., “The Metaphors of the “Meka-Body,” in Id (ed.), The Doll and the Robot: Pop Culture in Contemporary Japan, Turin, Einaudi, 2001;
- Gray HC, The cyborg Handbook, New York – London, Routledge, 1995;
- Haraway D., Cyborg Manifesto: Women, Technologies, and the Biopolitics of the Body, New York, Oxford University Press, 1999;
- Pellitteri M., The Dragon and the Lightning: Models, Strategies, and Identities of the Japanese Imagination, Latina, Tunué, 2008;
- Weiner N., Cybernetics: Control and Communication in Animals and Machines, Bompiani, Milan, 1953;
Lecturer in Communications and HR Management. Journalist with a degree in Sociology (cum laude). Editor-in-Chief of Sociologicamente.it.
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