The Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age (Technologies: Studies in Culture & Theory)

The Cyborg Experiments analyzes the challenges posed to corporeality by techology. Taking as their starting point the work of the highly influential performance artists Orlan and Stelarc, the essays in this timely and important collection raise a number of questions in relation to new conceptions of embodiment, identity and otherness in the age of new technologies: Has the body become obsolete? Does transgender challenge traditional ideas of agency? Have we always been cyborgs?In addition to highlighting the playful character of digital aesthetics, the contributors investigate ethical issues concerning the ownership of our bodies and the experiments we perform on them. In this way the book explores how humanism, and ideas of "the human", have been placed under increasing scrutiny as a result of new developments in science, media and communications.Contributors:John Appleby, Rachel Armstrong, Fred Botting, Julie Clarke, Gary Hall, Chris Hables Gray, Meredith Jones, Orlan, Mark Poster, Jay Prosser, E. A. Scheer, Zod Sofia, Stelarc, Scott Wilson, Joanna Zylinska

Joanna Zylinska is Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She is the author of The Cyborg Experiments (Continuum, 2002).