The word „cyborg“ is the contraction of cybernetic organism. For the purposes of this article, we will define it as an organic being with mechanic body parts. It applies to an organism that has restored function or enhanced abilities due to the integration of some artificial component or technology that relies on some sort of feedback.The term was created in 1960 by Manfred E.Clynes and Nathan S.Kline to refer to the enhanced man who could survive in extra-terrestrial environments [1]. But more on space exploration later…
First, we have to go back to the earliest occurrences of cyborgs in arts which date back from the mid-XIX century.
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| The steam concert by Grandville, Jean-Jacques, 1844 |
Rust, Bone and Steam - the Early Cyborgs
The first visual appearance of cyborgs dates from 1844. Le concert à vapeur (The Steam concert) presents a band of musicians that have integrated their instruments into their bodies, and have steam coming from their heads. It’s a strange, humorous and an enticing idea if you ever had to carry around a heavy cello or a tuba [2].
The master of the fantastic, Edgar Allan Poe, also tackled the concept of cyborg in a beautifully written short story The Man That Was Used Up (1839). Obsessed by the physical perfection of the mysterious Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith (including his moustache [3]), the protagonist runs around the city to learn his story, only to discover that the handsome officer is more a puzzle than a man. At the time of the colonial wars and the industrial revolution, Poe plays with the imagery of the strong warrior and questions the increasingly important place of mechanisation in everyday life.
A Pacifist Dystopia
In the aftermath of World War II, artists tried to think of solutions to ensure a lasting peace. In Limbo (published in 1952 but set in 1990), Bernard Wolfe imagines a world where humans try to suppress their aggressive impulses by performing voluntary amputations of their arms and legs. Unfortunately, the science of prosthetics progresses too, and the new limbs end up being better for war than the natural ones. The description of this society of limbless men extends to social, sexual and philosophical problems as well. This satire is also a severe critic of totalitarian thinking and acting [4].
In his 1963 novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Philip K.Dick imagines a bleak future for humanity. In the year 2010, the earth has become so warm that one must carry an individual cooling system to venture outside during the day. Mars and a few other planets are inhabited by human colonists forced into exile by a draft. Their only escape from their life on a desolated planet is to chew a hallucinogenic drug: Can-D that “translates” them into a parody of the earth. Then Palmer Eldritch, an enigmatic cyborg space explorer believed to be dead comes back from a system far away. He brings with him an incredible new drug, whose potential to create hallucinated worlds goes far beyond what could be experienced with Can-D. However the nature of the drug and his motive soon appear to be very sinister. In this rich novel, the character of Palmer Eldritch is presented as a futuristic incarnation of the devil, coming to tempt and judge humans.
“The elevator arrived. The doors slid aside. Inside the elevator waited four men and two women, silently. All of them were Palmer Eldritch. Men and woman alike: artificial arm, stainless teeth… the gaunt, hollowed-out grey face with Jensen eyes.” [5].
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| https://bit.ly/2IFpT3c via pixabay |
Welcome to the Era of the Macho-Cyborg
Of course, there are multiple examples of cyborgs in Sci-Fi television series such as Star Trek, Doctor Who as well as in the Marvel universe. Too many in fact, to present here. However, I feel I should mention the The Six Million Dollar Man which aired between 1973 and 1978 as it remains a reference in popular culture. Steve Austin, former astronaut with bionic arms is a friendly cyborg, who looks completely human most of the time and works for the US government. Contrarily to earlier examples of cyborgs, there is nothing scary about him.
Austin was soon followed by another righteous cyborg: Robocop. In Paul Verhoeven’s movie of the same title, (1987), RoboCop is a police officer killed by a gang of criminals and later revived as a powerful cyborg who violently fights crime and corruption. However my favorite “cyborg civil servant” character has to be Inspector Gadget. I grew up watching the excellent animated series (which originally aired between 1982 and 1986), which has the best theme song ever. I dare you not to immediately google it. Of course, there is also a 1999 movie directed by David Kellogg.
These three different characters are examples of the late 70’s-80’s concept of a cyborg as an improved man, ultra-masculine without the satire of earlier depictions (from E.A. Poe or B. Wolfe). Moreover, the cyborg is not seen as a threat anymore, but as the next step in the human evolution, helping to solve the problems of our society.
Entering the Cyberspace
Then, there are the cyborgs whose bodies are entirely artificial. Let’s talk about Ghost in the Shell. Before the recent Hollywood adaptation, Ghost in the Shell was a manga from Masamune Shirow published in 1989 [6]. The protagonist Motoko Kusanagi is a woman whose mind (her “ghost”) now lives inside and artificial body (the “shell”). Here, the body and the mind are presented as two different entities. Indeed Motoko is able to leave her body and enter the cyberspace to hack computer systems or find other “ghosts”.
Motoko: “Just as there are many parts needed to make a human a human, there’s a remarkable number of things needed to make an individual what they are. A face to distinguish yourself from others. A voice you aren’t aware of yourself. The hand you see when you awaken. The memories of childhood, the feelings for the future. That’s not all. There’s the expanse of the data net my cyber-brain can access. All of that goes into making me what l am. Giving rise to a consciousness that l call “me”.”
This duality has been perhaps best introduced by William Gibson in his iconic novel Neuromancer. In this 1984 (so pre-internet) thriller, Gibson develops the concept of cyberspace (a term he invented). In this world, most people are cyborgs. However, implants are not enough to render life bearable, and when the protagonist is not able to enter cyberspace, because his nervous system is damaged, he feels trapped.
“For case, who’d lived for the bodiless exultation of cyberspace, it was the Fall. […] Case fell into the prison of his own flesh.”[7]
I cannot conclude this article without a few honorable mentions to pop culture characters who are cyborgs, even though you might not see them that way: Darth Vader, Edward Scissorhands but NOT the Terminator (despite what he says repeatedly during the movie, he is a robot – not a cyborg).
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| https://bit.ly/2DLDrH6 via pexels |
When Reality meets Science Fiction
To misquote Gray, Mentor & Figueroa-Sarriera, science-fiction writers and the editors of the Cyborg Handbook [8]: "It’s not just Robocop, it is (y)our grandmother with a pacemaker“.
Today, cyborgs are living among us. A British man -Niel Harbisson- is the first official human cyborg. Born colour-blind, Niel Harbisson had an antenna implanted into his occipital bone in 2004. It allows him to hear colours including infrared and ultraviolet. The antenna detects the wavelenghts of the colour in front of him and produces a sound that he hears through bone-conduction [9]. Since the antenna now appears on his passport, he has been recognized in 2018 has the first human cyborg by the Guinness Book of World Records.
Although the term cyborg now officially also refers to a real being, reality has yet to catch up with fiction. Artists have been dreaming up cyborgs for over 170 years. In addition to being highly entertaining, science fiction novels and movies inform and alert us to the shifting of our society by imagining worlds with different possibilities for the evolution of humanity.
Aliénor Ragot
PhD Student, AG Holtkamp
[1] Clynes and Kline, Astronautics 1960.
[2] Grandville and Taxile Delord, Un Autre monde : transformations, visions, incarnations, ascensions.1844
[3] "You perceive I cannot speak of these latter without enthusiasm; it is not too much to say that they were the handsomest pair of whiskers under the sun", The Man That Was Used Up p.361
[4] Anonymous, Psychiatr Q, 1953
[5] The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch p. 171
[6] Shirow, Ghost in the Shell, 1989 (manga); Oshii 1995,2004,2008 (animated films); Sanders 2017 (live-action film)
[7] Gibson, Neuromancer, 1984
[8] Gray, Mentor & Figueroa-Sarriera, The Cyborg Handbook, 1995 p. 2
[9] https://bit.ly/2L5nyjA
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