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Master of Electronic Art
Mediated Body 591
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The "Cyborg" and the "Gaze" Overview Donna Haraway's essay " A Cyborg Manifesto" is famous in the scholarly world. She uses the term "cyborg" as a metaphor for an analysis of the way in which (changing) technology and society impact on human lives. Her view point is certainly from a feminist perspective, but the points made are applicable to all peoples experiences/identities. Laura Mulvey's 1975 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" similarly identifies how society and technology work together to identify/represent/position individuals. While her controversial work was specifically about the objectification of women in movies by "male gaze", it brings to our attention the exact mechanisms by which an emotional perspective is created by the use of visual media, which can be called "The Gaze". While feminism is a complex topic/movement, and not everyone wants to be a part of the debate, these two famous examples provide the opportunity to look at the way media objects are consciously and unconsciously constructed and understood, both by the creators and the consumers/readers. Primary Reading "You Are Cyborg" By Hari Kunzru in Wired magazine http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffharaway_pr.html "Notes on "The Gaze'" by Daniel Chandler http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/gaze/gaze.html "Lara Croft: Feminist Icon or Cyberbimbo? On the Limits of Textual Analysis" by Helen W. Kennedy in The International Journal of Computer Game Research, volume 2, issue 2, december 2002 . http://www.gamestudies.org/0202/kennedy/ The character "Seven of Nine" in the T.V. series "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Images on-line at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_of_Nine More The original "Cyborg manifesto" essay. Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181. Available on-line at http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html The original "Male Gaze" essay by Laura Mulvey "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" by Laura Mulvey (originally published - Screen 16.3 Autumn 1975 pp. 6-18) Available on-line at http://www.jahsonic.com/VPNC.html "Gender Ads" attributed to Dr. Scott A. Lukas A website devoted to examples of how women are "positioned" by a "Male Gaze" in advertising. Warning: This website contains many, many extreme images of women in erotic positions. The images were collected here together for the purpose of criticism them. While none are actually pornographic, and all are taken from mainstream (Western) advertising, some images will probably offend some people. Don't go here if you are easily upset by sexually suggestive images of women. The link to the overall website The link to the specific "Male Gaze" section. |