Cibernetica, cyberpunk,
cyborg
Sociologia delle comunicazioni
07.4.11
Lo strumento (implica un
soggetto che lo usa): es.
scalpello/scalpellino;
pennello/pittore;
pentola/cuoco
Il meccanismo (macchina ad
orologeria): movimento
autonomo, meccanico,
predeterminato (lineare,
ripetitiva)
La macchina cibernetica
(macchina comunicativa):
Continuum umano-macchina;
interfaccia; feedback;
ricorsività; non linearità;
bootstrapping (apprendimento
dal basso bottom up): ICT
(Information and
Communication Technology)
“The hand-tool needs to be
moved by an external source,
whereas the machine moves
itself. In this sense, only
machines can be automata.
But there are also machines
that use tools… [and]
potentially humans can
become tools of machines, as
Aristotle pointed out…” (M.
Lister et al Introduction to
New Media, p. 415)
La cibernetica
• C3I: comunicazione, controllo,
comando e informazione
• La rivoluzione tecnologica del secondo
dopoguerra: la cibernetica come teoria
dei sistemi e macchine basate sulla
comunicazione (feedback) e
l’informazione (codice; Claude
Shannon e la teoria dell’informazione)
• Le conferenze di Macy (1946-1953)
La cibernetica come una scienza interdisciplinare che studia i sistemi naturali e
artificiali in grado di auto-regolarsi attraverso
lo scambio di informazioni con l’esterno
(comunicazione).
Le macchine cibernetiche presuppongono delle
analogie formali con l’organismo (es. degli
organi di senso (input/output)capaci di
comunicare con l’esterno e degli organi in
grado di effettuare delle azioni come risposta
a tali stimoli)
“Let us consider the activity of the little
figures which dance on the top of a
music box. They move in accordance with
a pattern, but it is a pattern which is set
in advance, and in which the past activity
of the figures has practically nothing to
do with the pattern of their future
activity. The probability that they will
diverge from this pattern is nil…. The
figures themselves have no trace of
communication with the pre-established
mechanism of the music box. They are
blind, deaf, and dumb, and cannot vary
their activity in the least from the
conventionalized pattern.” (Norbert
Wiener The Human Use of Human
Beings: Cybernetics and Society, 19501954, p. 21-22)
“I call to the kitten and it looks
up. I have sent it a message
which it has received by its
sensory organs, and which it
registers in action… The kitten
bats at a swinging spool. The
spool swings to its left and the
kitten catches it with its left
paw.” (ibidem, p. 22)
Prima cibernetica (1940-1950s):
sistemi omeostatici, antientropici, auto-regolanti: il
termostato, la contraerea
Seconda cibernetica (19601970): ecologia della mente,
autopoiesi, Gaia o la terra
come organismo vivente
Terza cibernetica (1980-2000):
Vita artificiale, fenomeni
emergenti, complessità,
networks, autoorganizzazione dal basso: le
reti
La crisi del soggetto moderno (il sé
autonomo fondato sulla coscienza
e la ragione: Descartes, Kant etc)
Le critiche della psicoanalisi (Sigmund
Freud, Jacques Lacan); dello
strutturalismo e del poststrutturalismo (Michel Foucault,
Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze)
del femminismo (Helen Cixous, Julia
Kristeva, Luce Irigaray);
Del post-colonialismo (Gayatri Spivak,
Homi Bhabha etc);
“Una cosa è certa: l’uomo non è né il
più vecchio né il più costante
problema posto alla conoscenza
umana. Prendendo un campione
cronologicamente relativamente
breve dentro un’area geografica
limitata – la cultura europea sin dal
XVI secolo – e come dimostra
l’archeologia del nostro pensiero
l’uomo è un’invenzione recente e
una che forse sta per finire… come
un volto tracciato sulla sabbia
sull’orlo del mare.” (Michel
Foucault Le parole e le cose 1966)
Anni ‘80 e ‘90:
La crisi del soggetto
umanistico e la tecnologia
cibernetica
Cyborg, cyberpunk,
cyberculture
“A cyborg is a cybernetic
organism, a hybrid of
machine and organism,
a creature of social
reality as well as a
creature of fiction.”
(Donna Haraway (1984)
“A Cyborg Manifesto” in
Simians, Cyborgs and
Women: The Reinvention
of Nature p. 149 )
“Contemporary science fiction is
full of cyborgs – creatures
simultaneously animal and
machine, who populate worlds
ambiguously natural and
crafted. Modern medicine is
also full of cyborgs, of
couplings between organism
and machine, each conceived
as coded devices… Modern
production seems like a dream
of cyborg colonization work, a
dream that makes the night
mare of Taylorism seem idillyc.
And modern war is a cyborg
orgy….” (ibidem, p. 150)
“…’cyberpunk’… captures
something crucial to the work
of these writers, something
crucial to the decade as a
whole: a new kind of
integration. The overlapping
of worlds that were formerly
separate: the realm of high
tech, and the modern pop
underground.” (Bruce Sterling
“Preface” to Mirrorshades:
The Cyberpunk Anthology.
1986 p. xi)
“For the cyberpunks,…
technology is
visceral… it is
pervasive, utterly
intimate. Not outside
us, but next to us.
Under our skin; often,
inside our minds.”
(ibidem p. xiii)
Stelarc
“Technology itself has
changed. Not for us the
giant steam-snorting woners
of the past: the Hoover
Dam, the Empire State
Building, the nuclear power
plant. Eighties tech sticks to
the skin, responds to the
touch: the personal
computer, the Sony
Walkman, the portable
telephone, the soft contact
lens.” (ibidem, p. xiii)
Iphone guitar
“Certain central themes spring up
repeatedly in cyberpunk. The
theme of body invasion, prosthetic
limbs, implanted circuitry, cosmetic
surgery, genetic alteration. The
even more powerful themes of
mind invasion: brain-computer
interfaces, artificial intelligence,
neurochemistry – techniques
radically redefining the nature of
humanity, the nature of self.”
(ibidem)
“Pre-cybernetic machines… were
not self-moving, self-designing,
autonomous… Late twentiethcentury machines have made
thoroughly ambiguous the
difference between natural and
artificial, mind and body, selfdeveloping and externally
designed, and many other
distinctions that use to apply to
organisms of machines” (Haraway
p. 152)
“The machine is not an it to be
animated, worshipped and
dominated. The machine is us,
our processes, an aspect of
our embodiment. We can be
responsible for machines; they
do not dominate or tolerate
us. We are responsible for
boundaries; we are they.”
(Haraway p. 180)