A Posthuman Examination of Video Games and Cyborg Bodies Zachery Tyler Rakes [email protected]
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Marshall University Marshall Digital Scholar Theses, Dissertations and Capstones 2016 My Avatar, My Self: A Posthuman Examination of Video Games and Cyborg Bodies Zachery Tyler Rakes [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://mds.marshall.edu/etd Part of the Computer Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Rakes, Zachery Tyler, "My Avatar, My Self: A Posthuman Examination of Video Games and Cyborg Bodies" (2016). Theses, Dissertations and Capstones. Paper 996. This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Marshall Digital Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses, Dissertations and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Marshall Digital Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. MY AVATAR, MY SELF: A POSTHUMAN EXAMINATION OF VIDEO GAMES AND CYBORG BODIES A thesis submitted to the Graduate College of Marshall University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English by Zachery Tyler Rakes Approved by Dr. Kristen Lillvis Dr. Walter Squire Professor Eric Smith Marshall University May 2016 ii © 2016 Zachery Tyler Rakes ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii CONTENTS List of Figures .................................................................................................................. v Abstract ........................................................................................................................... vi Introduction ................................................................................................................... 01 Chapter 1: The Player-as-Cyborg and Mixed Realities ................................................. 08 Chapter 2: Cyborg Conceptions .................................................................................... 29 Works Cited ................................................................................................................... 55 iv LIST OF FIGURES 1 Illustration of third-person perspective: Snake hiding from guard ....................... 14 2 First-person view from Snake’s perspective ....................................................... 16 3 Snake resisting torture ....................................................................................... 19 4 You enjoy the killing ........................................................................................... 23 5 Toyohisa Senguji's cyborg body ......................................................................... 34 6 Dota 2’s character selection screen ................................................................... 43 7 A sample profile page from Dota 2 ..................................................................... 45 8 Differing cosmetic models for the character Zeus .............................................. 47 9 The stadium setting for The International Dota 2 Championships 5 ................... 51 v Abstract My Avatar, My Self is a project which seeks to examine cultural conceptions of the flesh-and-machine physical cyborg and to subsequently challenge these conceptions with a new idea of the cyborg: the conceptual cyborg. This thesis serves to discuss through posthuman theory what the conceptual cyborg is, how it has become a prevalent force in advanced technological societies, and what it means for human beings to be conceptual cyborgs. Beyond that, I also discuss the importance of the conceptual cyborg’s ability to be digitally embodied in virtual spaces, and this idea is expanded on through an examination of science-fiction television, video games, and even social media in relation to the conceptual cyborg. By examining contemporary cultural artifacts of the past two decades, I explain how we are all already conceptual cyborgs and how video games are able to serve as the best examples for the conceptual cyborg’s powers of digital embodiment. vi Introduction This project has come about as a result of my personal interest in both video games and the advancement and augmentation of the human being. This research was initially pursued as a way to explore posthuman theory in relation to video game players and the ability for people to be digitally embodied within the many realms of video games. As I continued my work with theorists such as Donna Haraway and N. Katherine Hayles, however, this idea of posthuman, digital embodiment soon lead me to examine the concept of the posthuman cyborg. Ultimately, I began researching conceptions of the cyborg and have worked in order to re-conceptualize the reality of the cyborg into that of what I term the conceptual cyborg, which has become the focal point for this project. When seeking to conceptualize the cyborg, Donna Haraway terms the cyborg as, in one respect, “a creature of fiction,” as, in the public eye, the understanding of the cyborg has its roots in both science fact as well as science fiction (149). The term “cyborg” itself was coined in 1960 by scientists Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline as a shorthand for “cybernetic organism,” as they described a possible “augmented man” who would be more suited for space travel than ordinary humans (Kunzru par. 35). Though the term itself was only developed in recent decades, it could be argued that the concept of the cyborg has always been of some interest to mankind. All number of medical machinery, from pacemakers to insulin drips, for example, have “augmented” those who might have otherwise died without their intervention since the mid-to-early 1900s, making these people cyborg-like. According to Hari Kunzru, author of “You Are Cyborg,” soon after the publishing of Clynes and Kline’s paper “Cyborgs and Space” in 1960, cyborgs became the center 1 of research and development fascination. Military projects such as mechanical human exoskeletons and robotic implants were theorized and tested throughout the decade of the 1960s, with scientists trying to find some semblance of human advancement to shed the natural weaknesses of the human flesh. This cyborg research was not merely a staging ground for technological and physical human advancement, though, as the motivations behind these forays into cyborgian research often delved into the realm of human ascension, “a new and larger dimension for man’s spirit,” as said by Clynes and Kline, rather than mere augmentation (qtd. in Kunzru, par. 36). It is from this heritage of the cyborg that we have figures in popular culture such as the Terminator, the Six- Million Dollar Man, and RoboCop to give rise to the flesh-and-machine cyborg that so permeates popular culture today. This conversation about the flesh-and-machine cyborg is not exclusive to the public sphere, however – the cyborg has been a subject of critical academic discussion since the turn of the century. Kevin Warwick, for example, writes in his 2003 article “Cyborg Morals, Cyborg Values, Cyborg Ethics” that “the cyborg is formed by a human, machine brain/nervous system coupling,” making the cyborg that he examines in this piece very much a flesh-and-machine hybrid reality (132). The cyborg examined in this capacity falls in line with that of the flesh-and-machine cyborg forefronted in popular culture, and the ultimate idea behind this is the concept that, according to Warwick, the flesh-and-machine cyborg is considered an “upgrade[d]” human, with neural, physical links to machine-based technologies (136). As I looked further into these considerations regarding the flesh-and-machine cyborg, I found that there are currently those who might consider that this cyborg has the capacity to exist beyond the realm of science fiction. This idea of the cyborg’s ability 2 to reach further has actually developed to the point now where some people are, in many ways, embracing the idea of the cyborg as a “human, machine brain/nervous system coupling” (Warwick 132). As an example of this, we need look no further than Dusseldorf’s Cyborg Fair, an event in which attendees experiment, or watch others experiment, with what they consider cyborg technologies, attempting to augment their bodies to varying degrees. In an article written about this event by Anna Neifer, she describes how some attendees took it upon themselves to have an LED light chip, the Northstar V1, surgically implanted under their skin (par. 5). Reasons for installing the Northstar V1 vary for attendees: in order to backlight tattoos, mimic bioluminescence, or just to have it for the sake of self-augmentation (Neifer par. 12-14). The Northstar V1 is just one of many different kinds of personal bodily augmentation that people have begun to experiment with. Though this event and others like it are not necessarily in the mainstream public eye, they do show that there is currently an active movement behind the idea that the flesh-and-machine cyborg can move beyond science fiction and become a reality. Regardless of whether you consider the popularity of the flesh-and-machine cyborg in popular fiction or the niche movements that work towards actual mechanized human augmentation, it occurred to me that both, taken together, demonstrate just how deeply rooted this concept of the cyborg is in society at large. The flesh-and-machine, neural-interfaced cyborg is one that seems to have a hold on society’s imagination, with varying degrees of fascination and dedication to it. However, the process of physical cyborgian augmentation, though widespread in fiction, did not seem to be as immediately important in terms of its capacity to manifest itself in society. By this, I mean to say that this idea of the flesh-and-machine