"The Gendered Cyborg: 'Borg Bodies and Questionable Agencies"

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The subjective placement of bodies, and the continual construction and deconstruction, inside of the cyborg has become increasingly divergent. With Donna Haraway's treatise on cyborg bodies, the focus on this non-dominant figure seemed almost utopian -- a post-human space that would allow a kind of interesting segue way into positive reception of Othered figures inside of discourse. However, in Scott Bukatam's work on bodily identity in relation to the cyborg, there is an interesting tension in how he relates gender throughout the chapter “Terminal Resistance/Cyborg Acceptance.” The figure there seems hyper-masculinized, not analogous to Haraway's reading at all. However, by using more contemporary examples of “cyborg”-women I will attempt to examine this issue in a less masculine light. In the 1998 cult-hit Serial Experiments: Lain, the trippy Japanese “anime” studies a female cyborg-esque figure – a figure that seems to work against Bukatam's focus. Lain is a prototypical high-school aged teen who is simply looking for a place of her own when she is first granted a computer. From there, the initially focused and, dare it be said 'normal' girl falls hugely down the Matrix-like rabbit hole. Lain finds a sense of agency in her connectivity to the technological space that is markedly liminal in representation.

Within the structure of identity of the cyborg the focus is almost intentionally periphery. The cyborg exists outside of space of “real” identity – the liminal is all that is left. Though this can prototypically, and perhaps originally in canonical contexts, be seen in relation to hyper-masculine figures like Robocop and the first introductions of the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation, there has been a change in recent versions of the 'borg figure. However, with the integration of females into this argument, Bukatam seems to fall into Victorian ideological constructions of gender involvement:

“. . .ego development might result in the defensive formation of a mental “armor” [sic] in which the subject attains invulnerability by aligning itself with the rationalistic predictability of the machine.” ^[1]

By claiming the male to be analogous with machine – Bukatam is creating a binary in which male is also rationalistic, equating femininity with “goo” and the converse to the binary rationalistic in “hysteric”. Bukatam leaves the feminine form almost ignored in this structure – as something to be either destroyed or ignored while focusing the force of the cyborg as being of masculine force, even though the mechanistic form of the cyborg can, theoretically, be construed as a performatively genderless. And, inside the structure of Lain the viewer sees an increasingly fragmented, yes, but utterly controlled creature who has power and agency in the world around her – granted only through her technological attachments.

However, the fusion of the human-machine that is apparent in the cyborg is perfected in different forms. Without the solid structure of human-form it can be an increasingly alien cyborg that is represented. With, as Bukatam posits, the structure that the “techno-organic fusion of these cinematic cyborgs thus represents only an exaggerated defensive formation, [there is] another panic subject frantically hiding its obsolescence behind a suit of armor [sic]” ^[2] Thus the liminal space of cyborg becomes an even more causal reality – in which the cause and effect of the machina/human placement is questionable. The anxieties apparent in the cyborg are deeply rooted in the body – especially the prescribed “proper” bodily identity. The binary of proper bodily/gender prescriptions are inherent to each individual society and are commonly rooted in binaries that place man above woman, and grant distinct biological/cultural productions between the man/woman divide. Thus, the placement of body inside of the machina – therefore leaving man or woman inside is subject to those anxieties. The body on the inside is the liminal post-human – the problematic structure is then often shown in a fragile or otherwise “othered” light. The internal 'borg is dependent on their machinery to stay alive. And, subsequently, Lain exists in a space that is “jacked in” on the “wire”. This wire structure is similar to the Internet but is exponentially more powerful. Lain's ability to change the wire, and change “reality” because of her increasingly pervasive presence on that structure is what makes her simultaneously interesting and bodily created as a figure of anxiety. However, her actual bodily identity is that of a high school aged girl that has little to no true power in the world. Lain figures as a “normal” teen, but the series progressively shows that she is a fragmented form of humanity. Lain also represents the continual anxiety in Japanese society pertaining to youth culture – especially the youth culture of young women. As Battle Royale explicates in Japanese society and Kill Bill brings to the Western viewer, the figure of the young woman is often that soaked in blood and lacking of conscious control. Lain is represented as being in control of her surroundings, though it seems that she has a consistently changing amount of sub-routines (or sub-personalities) to complete this task.

From that conceptualization then, the discussion of the “split subject” that Bukatam develops is, perhaps, more pertinent. The idealized form of human is placed as a subject-form that is aware of self. However, inside of the liminal space that allows cyborg the focus begins to split. In Bukatam's study of the character Delphi, it is found that she, is “. . . just a girl, a real live girl with her brain in an unusual space. [. . .] Delphi literalizes the alien spectator – the split subject – as well as the surrogate reality of the spectacle” ^[3] Thus Delphi, like Lain, lives the double-life. She is jacked into the surroundings that allow her a further placement in the world. Lain is consistently in the here-space of reality throughout the disjointed narrative of the program; however, she is also progressively more and more apparent in the there-space of the wire. Lain doubles her communication ability by being able to mobilize control in both her physical (rather frail) form that is unassuming, as well as her monumentally controlling space on the wire.

Indeed, the process in which Lain can change the “systems” seems infinite simply by the fact that she is “. . . “jacked in” to a computer system which permits the user [in this case Lain] an extended mobility, a heightened phenomenal awareness, and an entry into a previously closed realm of experience.” ^[4] This “previously closed realm” may be referential to the Other-space that is the Internet or Lain's wire. The structure of this “realm” is, by othering, almost infinite. In the wire-space Lain has access to cognitive functions of people as well as the “basic” ability to access an infinite amount of information by her main personality, as well as her infinite subroutines. This is at direct odds with the focus of Bukatam's study of so-called “. . .feminist science fiction, [which views] this desire to merge with the machine[. . .] as aberrant, and is often presented as an act of surrender rather than empowerment.” ^[5] As Lain, and an influx of other techno-phile based anime characters, develops her ability she gains the ability to control the world through this one-ness with machine. Although she is physically “jacked-in” by wires and cables, she gains all of her agency through this integration. Indeed, Bukatam further formulates that ideology by claiming that:

“When the cybernetic cyborg is female, transcendence does not await her in the form of bodiless-- or embodied – exultations nor in the satisfying multiplicity of subjectives experience by Edison Carter/Max Headroom [in Neuromancer]” ^[6]

This further postulates that the binary space is supposedly masculine/feminine in which men are preeminently related to having agency in all spaces – even feminist spaces, supposedly. However, as can be seen, this degree of agency is meeting more and more almost genderless or gender neutral characters – especially those that exist in positions that supposedly challenge the norm.

The differential that exists here is related to questions of spatial bodily identity. The liminal space allows for an increase in the ways of which the natural and/or naturalized construction can be challenged. Indeed, “[t]he polemical advantage of the cyborg, for Haraway, is that it resists being encoded as natural.” ^[7] Thus the denaturalized figure of the cyborg is related as Other no matter the initial sphere of which the body technically exists in. Indeed, “. . [i]n the fantasy of the BwO (body without organs), the body resists the finality of the organism.” ^[8] Thus, the organism – the human in some ways – is the thing that dies, while the body continues to live and control their spaces. When there is a cyborg, or wired body as Lain has, the body itself loses importance. The anxiety about body are represented in the so-called “pure” body that is attempted to be created outside of this. As soon as the body is covered – and theoretically made stronger in the machina-world – gender becomes meaningless.

Liminal spaces abound in technical landscapes, but with the increasingly staged placement of cyborg fantasies, the anxieties relating to these concepts have raised, not lowered. This may be surprising in some ways; however, the paradigm shift may be noted. Though only half a decade has passed since Bukatam's original publication of his book, there had been an increasingly cogent amount of cyborg and cybernetic females who had embraced technology to gain more agency from that technological advancement.

[edit] References

1. ↑ Bukatman, S. 1993. "Terminal Flesh." & "Terminal Resistance/Cyborg Acceptance." in Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-Modern Science Fiction." Durham: Duke UP. (303)
2. ↑ Bukatman, S. 1993. "Terminal Flesh." & "Terminal Resistance/Cyborg Acceptance." in Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-Modern Science Fiction." Durham: Duke UP. (310)
3. ↑ Bukatman, S. 1993. "Terminal Flesh." & "Terminal Resistance/Cyborg Acceptance." in Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-Modern Science Fiction." Durham: Duke UP. (318)
4. ↑ Bukatman, S. 1993. "Terminal Flesh." & "Terminal Resistance/Cyborg Acceptance." in Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-Modern Science Fiction." Durham: Duke UP. (319)
5. ↑ Bukatman, S. 1993. "Terminal Flesh." & "Terminal Resistance/Cyborg Acceptance." in Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-Modern Science Fiction." Durham: Duke UP. (316)
6. ↑ Bukatman, S. 1993. "Terminal Flesh." & "Terminal Resistance/Cyborg Acceptance." in Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-Modern Science Fiction." Durham: Duke UP.(320)
7. ↑ Bukatman, S. 1993. "Terminal Flesh." & "Terminal Resistance/Cyborg Acceptance." in Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-Modern Science Fiction." Durham: Duke UP.(323)
8. ↑ Bukatman, S. 1993. "Terminal Flesh." & "Terminal Resistance/Cyborg Acceptance." in Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-Modern Science Fiction." Durham: Duke UP.(325)