ahh, embedded videos. i just became even more cyborg. thanks.

Welcome to your ville.

YoVille is a place where you can create your own world, have your own house, your own pet, and a job that’s willing to pay you generously in 6-hour increments. Sure it’s virtual, but it’s yours.

You enter your world with the option to create how you look—long hair, short hair, leather boots, Speedo—whatever your pleasure. The color of your skin is an option as well. In most cases I would assume that most choose a tone that closely resembles their real life flesh. Yet, others may not—maybe curious to see how it feels to live in someone else’s skin. Your body is finished and it’s time to go to work, need to make some money to put some furniture in the bachelor pad. On the way to the Widget Factory you’re welcomed with invitations to play a game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors” or “Tic-Tac-Toe.” You gladly accept, collect your coins in victory, and make your way through the crowd gathered around the timecard machine.

Three seconds later you’re finished with work. You stretch your arms and make your way back home. Standing next to your YoVille-issued sofa you stare at the windowless walls, dreaming of what your place will look like someday. Wood floors, Asian wall-hangings, big screen TV, and maybe even some nice windows that come with those winter snowflakes inside—there’s no limit to the possibilities of your world. You realize that someday you may save enough money to move out of your humble place and move up in the world. Buy one of those Cape Cod or Gothic homes you saw brochures for at the Realtor Office. Shoot, dream big or not at all—Contemporary home here you come. But wait, those cost $40 in YoCash. The factory only pays in coins so someday, when the time is right, and you meet the right person to share it with, you’ll have to pull out the credit card and claim your dream. After all, the exchange rate is at $5 YoCash to $1 U.S.—doesn’t get much better than that.

You are immersed in what you have earned and even more immersed in what you yearn to have. You work hard, showing up to collect a paycheck every chance you get (whenever you have access to a computer), and with every new purchase your lips stretch in satisfaction. There is no one to tell you what to do or who you are. You have the greatest life in the world and for some reason feeling virtually good has something real to do with actually feeling good. Nice. Time to turn in for now, six hours until my next shift…I mean your shift.

Being cyborg and the language I speak...

What is (a) cyborg rhetoric? As the good cyborg-in-training I am I turned to some virtual help to get me started on answering this question. According to Dictionary.com and its virtual reference of Random House Dictionary (2009), a “cyborg” is “a person whose physiological functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device.” I’m certain that this definition refers to a person whose life depends on some kind of machine (e.g. a pacemaker, hearing aid, etc.) or something artificial like my eyeglasses, but I would argue that this definition, especially today, reaches further into our lives. I would have to be the first to admit that much of my well-being, or livelihood, relies heavily on something electronic or some artificial intelligence. My life would be unrecognizably different without my home computer, my microwave oven, and my cell phone. Even the little navigation device that often sends me in circles has changed my life—for the better, I don’t know yet? In this way, I am already a cyborg. Maybe one that clings to remnants of what it was like before, but still helplessly drawn to the technological offerings of what being cyborg is about. If I am cyborg, then rhetoric is the way I communicate, or try to communicate. Not just the words coming out of my mouth, but the ways I communicate as a cyborg. My rhetoric is the computerization of this journal entry turned “blog.” My rhetoric is the response paper I printed out an hour ago. My rhetoric is the “Good morning” text I sent earlier today. My rhetoric is the final paper and presentation I will turn in at the end of the quarter. If I am the cyborg I think I am, then my rhetoric is everything that persuades others and myself that I exist, that I have evolved—no, that I am evolving still.

Cyborg Mind, Body...and Spirit?

There has to be more than just mind manifested through brain, supported by flesh and bone wrapped neatly in multi-colored skin. Sure, as a package, this can seem pretty complex and more than enough to explain the most abstract questions about human life. However, I think human existence goes beyond the conscious mind and the earthly body that gives it life. I think there has to be (at least) a third aspect to the mind/body relationship—a bonding aspect that acts as mediator, communicator, or even translator if you will. As Hayles reports that the mind is nothing without the body (246), I would have to argue that the mind and body are nothing without the human spirit embodied within their corporation. Not to say that we necessarily have a soul to be saved or a spirit that needs enlightening, but just that life is definitely more than just flesh, bones, and functioning thoughts created by a conscious mind. When I am affected by intense emotion, whether it’s positive or negative, it does more than just affect my psyche; instead, it does something on a deeper level. Sorry to say, but those who attribute love, hate, and utter joy to something strictly scientific may be suppressing the idea that a big part of being human may possibly be spiritual.

It seems that this may go beyond the cyborg. It seems that this is what will always differentiate us from the cyborg within. It seems that though the cyborg utilizes our rhetoric and wields technology as its sword of advancement, there is a part of us that is impenetrable, a part of us unseen, unexplainable, but rather felt, believed, known. The cyborg has attached itself to our body, immersed itself in our minds, but cannot affect the spirit it will never understand.

Acting how I wanna be.

According to Hayles, “Embodiment is akin to articulation in that it is inherently perfomative, subject to individual enactments, and therefore always to some extent improvisational” (197). If in fact embodiment is action rather than a state of being, then I am actively trying to be who I am each and every day. Does this mean that I actually don’t know my family, friends, classmates for who they really are? And that the people I know are just active representations of the kind of people they hope to be? Am I this person because of a conscious decision I make each morning when I get out of bed? If so, then what of us who feel uncomfortable with who we are? Why is it that we sometimes choose to be someone we’re not that too fond of ourselves? Obviously, this is a question that is best answered with more questions. I feel like I am so many different people at different corners of my life. A brother and a son at one corner, then a friend and classmate at another—not to mention the other corners in between and along the way. Am I one of these more than the others? Or am I all of them presented in separate packages? If embodiment is an action then I am afraid that I am none of them—they’re all just how I “act” in certain aspects of my life. My apologies for all the questions, but the questions seem to be the clearest thing to me—if in fact we act rather than be.

Immersed in The Matrix...again.

Watching The Matrix again had me immersed in it in entirely new ways. I’m one who tends to be rather nitpicky with details in a movie—the one who catches inconsistencies or scenes (and lines) that contradict each other. I’m usually the viewer who catches editing mistakes like a cup appearing and disappearing throughout a scene or dry clothes on a person who just got wet. What got me immersed this time through the movie were the details I hadn’t noticed before. Well, I may have seen/heard them but never realized how each affect the movie until after knowing what happens in the plot. Another way I was immersed was by reading the movie as opposed to just watching it. I played the movie with captions running and found it to be a whole new experience altogether. I’m not sure what kind of immersion this would fall into—maybe textual immersion? Whatever it might be called, it kept me reading/watching even though I knew what was coming and practically what was going to be said. I wonder what it would be like if we all came with captions running over our heads or on our chests…?

Cyborg Presence...

For Aristotle rhetoric was the art of persuasion and for Burke, identification—at the core values of cyborg rhetoric is a connection to “presence.” The cyborg is here, no, wait, the cyborg is us. It has used rhetoric to become a part of us, exist within us, and make itself known through us. The cyborg in me is speaking now, trying to make sense of itself through a language never meant for it. The cyborg has figured us out and is now trying to reveal itself in any way possible. For the cyborg, rhetoric is a tool for coming into existence. The machine in us has adopted (and is evolving) the language of the human to establish a presence, become an entity in itself—not just a technological advancement, but an advancement as a “living” being. Just as we attempt to make language our own, so too is the cyborg making rhetoric its own, utilizing it to manifest its identity. We are the cyborg whose identity is unclear to even ourselves; therefore, our only hope is to make our presence known. Through cyborg rhetoric we have a voice, a means for our evolved selves to be noticed, heard, and wondered upon. The cyborg is post-gender, post-race, post-social class, and post-human and cyborg rhetoric, in its development, is how we were introduced and presently the only way we can talk about (or attempt to make any sense of) it. Cyborg rhetoric reveals that we are no longer where we were, but at the same time, not quite where we are headed. The cyborg has acquainted itself with us through rhetoric and as abstract and unclear much of this relationship is, one thing is absolutely clear—the cyborg is here and it is a part of us.

I'm smart, witty, and beautiful. I'm smart, witty, and beautiful. I'm smart, witty, and beautiful...

For some reason who we are in this world is never quite enough. We search for ourselves in books, movies, and relationships. The person in the mirror is not ourselves but a reflection of someone who needs to be better—more handsome, more beautiful, smarter. We create a new sense of self through social networks that offer us a reality that is not “real” but offers a satisfaction that effects us in virtually real ways. The term virtual used to represent presentations of real—things not quite real but “virtually” real. Today, with the emotion, attachment, and self-creation rooted within our virtual selves, virtuality has become reality.

I'm here, virtually

I am a graduate student because I think so and my university status tells me so, but I am virtually a writer because that is the direction my goals and desires are taking me. The mere act of writing itself may not be enough to establish myself a writer, but I am virtually every bit the writer that I can hope/strive to become. Virtual is to be and not quite be simultaneously. A thing can only be something when coupled with what it is not—not only the signifier and signified, but the unsignified as well. (Kind of like how this entry makes sense and doesn’t make sense). To be virtual is to be what your mind, imagination, and understanding will allow (or desire) you to be.

From cyborgs to the virtual that makes or breaks reality

Over the winter break I caught myself wondering what “Cyborg Rhetorics” was going to entail. Now that I’ve been in the class for a short period I find myself in a different kind of limbo. It turns out that even the scholars in the field are somewhat undecided in their positions within the realm of cyborg selves and virtual reality. From Harraway to Ryan—and the notable works of thinkers like Baudrillard and Levy—it turns out that this field of thought (and study) is full of questions and seemingly opposing views. Still, I would I would go as far to say that these views are not opposing each other at all, but actually working together to help explain something that may be too abstract to explain (for now). Without offering a concrete explanation, but rather two vastly differing ones, Ryan has made clear that the world of virtual reality is one that we are still trying to make sense of. This feeling is one that is familiar throughout Haraway’s text as well. From cyborgs to the virtual that makes or breaks reality, one cannot deny that this is part of who we are today. Whether one chooses to accept it or not, it’s here to stay, growing more a part of our lives with every day.