In one of the week fours reading titled ‘As we may think’, Dr. Vannevar Bush writes about a time when scientists work and research was dedicated to building weapons for war, assuming from the date of this article it would be World War Two, and the fact that the war was coming to an end meant that its time for the men of science to move forward in their fields into new areas.
More specifically into the development and advancement on technological devices and methods. In one section of this article Bush questions the long-term benefits we have received and goes onto list what we have earned from technology, ‘First, they have increased his control of his material environment. They have improved his food, his clothing, his shelter; they have increased his security and released him partly from the bondage of bare existence’, another interesting quote from the article would be ‘…new and powerful instrumentalities come into use. Photocells capable of seeing things in a physical sense, advanced photography which can record what is seen or even what is not…’
They way I interpreted these quotes was that technology is, and has always been, an extension of ones self. The second quote does say photography is capable of capturing what is seen and perhaps what is not, which essentially means it goes beyond what we can see and our limitations, thus being an extension. This idea intrigued me and I ended going back and reading an article, which talked about what, the extension of technology could mean for us.
The article I am referring to is titled ‘From Post-Modern Condition to The Cinematic City’ by Al Sayyad. This article explores the idea of post-modern or cutting edge technology and what it could mean for the human race, by comparing to how the future is depicted in cinema. The article takes the concept of cyborgs, which in film are beings that are part human and part machine, and idea of cyborgs in films means that they can go beyond their own selves and the notions of humanity leading the world, in a destructive path, as depicted in films such as Blade Runner (1982). Bare in mind I am aware these are fictional notions; however what the article suggest is such a fascinating concept. It continues further by saying that being a cyborg doesn’t necessarily mean being a partially organic and partially technological being, but also it could be technologies that can help advance a person’s life e.g a pacemaker.
Looking at that statement, how I am interpreting it, is that the simple use of technology could consider a person to being a cyborg. That being said, does that mean the usage of modern day devices such as smart phones or social networking sites could be a form of cyborg? These devices that make our day-to-day lives so easy, which can be considered an extension of an individual given the personal nature of their design, does using them mean we are cyborgs? People nowadays cannot live without their iphones, they are considered to being a part of us. So now in moving forward technology will advance, it will grow, making life more and more easier and easier by the decades, what will actually happen to us as a race?