Abstract
This essay gives a situated introduction to body hacking, an underground surgical process that seeks to transform the body’s architecture, offering an ethnographic account of the affects that drive this corporeal intervention for performance artist Cheto Castellano, and later, for the author. A brief history of recent body modification movements is offered. Through these situated stories of corporeal transformation there is an exploration of Eva Hayward’s concept of transbecoming, exploring the perpetual change of the body in transition, particularly in relation to posthumanistic transformations. The article closes with a speculative cyborg feminist body modification project titled 10,000 Generations Later, which explores how a subdermal archive of silicone implants stored under the author’s skin may assist her in a posthumanist transbecoming after the death of her companions species toy poodle Luk Kahlo, and perhaps even in a distant future. The author argues that this project becomes an apparatus of mestizaje between speculative cyborg feminism and significant otherness.
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Notes
In her in depth analysis of the recent history of body modification Victoria Pitts highlights how mainstream media frames body modification as mental illness and pathology, pointing out the predominant tendency for body modifications that “do not beautify the body according to social norms, or that are painful,” to become discursively framed as self-mutilation, thus helping to associate these bodies with social deviance ([21], 17). See: [22]
Despite the tendency for body hackers to claim autonomy over the narrative their body gives through corporeal transformation, it is important to remember that bodies are always engaged in a relational semiotics, and are interpellated, or called into being, by diverse power structures.
For a fascinating analysis of the historical development of the surgical and medical discipline in the late 19th century, and the role of anaesthesia in its development, see [19]
For an extended consideration of cyberpunk and its ties to body modification see: [23]
For an in depth analysis of the cultural politics of the group known as the Modern Primitives see: [24]
For an extended analysis of the use of body modification as queer visibility, see: [24]
Genesis Breyer P. Orridge, together with h/er wife Lady Jaye Breyer P. Orridge developed a pandogyne project to evolve into a new gender and merged identity called Breyer P-Orridge; together they underwent numerous surgical procedures, including breast implants and cosmetic facial surgery, to achieve this united but separate self. Both Genesis and Lady Jaye are featured in the recent documentary The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, directed by Marie Losier, (2011).
Raellyn Gallina, calls herself “the grandmother of piercing” and uses body modification as a technology of healing. To hear her reflection on the 20th anniversary of the publication Re/Search Body Modification issue, go to: <<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZRA0JmSIpQ>>(Last Accessed June 21, 2014).
Fakir Musafar is a pioneer of the modern primitives and continues to practice body modification today. See: Body Play and Modern Primitives Quarterly, begun in 1991, partially available online: <<http://www.bodyplay.com/bodyplay/index.htm>>(Last Accessed on June 21, 2014)
Cited in [25]
Judith Butler points out the difficult process of securing gender reassignment surgery, since the diagnosis of gender dysphoria is often necessary for insurance plans to cover the surgical procedure. Butler argues that “the relation between gender identity and mental health would have to change radically, so that economic and legal institutions would recognize how essential becoming a gender is to one’s very sense of personhood, one’s sense of well being, one’s possibility to flourish as a bodily being.”
Judith Butler, “Undiagnosing Gender,” Transgender Rights, ed. Paisley Currah et al. (Minn: U of Minn. Press, [20]) 296.
I admit that this is a very broad grouping, and would like to emphasize that not all body modification practitioners who are outside the domain of the biomedical complex may self identify as body hackers. To clarify my intention in using this terminology, I would like to insist that body hackers are those who are willing to risk legal and moral sanctions in their effort to undertake non-normative corporeal transformations. A context specific analysis of each society’s normative values would be necessary to further substantiate the use of this term. Curiously cyborg body hackers, whose key figures like Lukas Zpira and Cyborg Sampa, wish to draw a distance between themselves and the Modern Primitives, nonetheless share a commitment to performing their modifications through an underground network of practitioners that are generally self trained and operate outside of traditional medical complexes. Thus, to reiterate, my definition is distinct from that available in Zpira’s hacktivist manifesto. In contrast, Orlan, a feminist performance artist, would not be labeled as a body hacker under my use of the term, because not only is Orlan’s modification work performed by surgeons who are trained by the modern biomedical industrial complex, her surgeries also take place within the medical operating room. Furthermore, she refers to her modifications as situated within the history of plastic surgery. Nonetheless, despite her self proclaimed distance to the afore cited body modification movements, her work may similarly be critiqued for its appropriation of the aesthetic image of the exotic other. For an interesting analysis of Orlan’s work, please see: [6]
People who undergo numerous corporeal modifications are often thought to be psychologically unsound, or suspected to have body dysmorphic disorder, which is defined in the discipline of psychology as a condition where one’s own body is subject to acute self hatred. For an extended discussion of the pathologization of subjects who undergo body modification see: [22]
One example is “Liao”, a Chinese CEO, who has performed his own tattoos, subdermal implants, and genital beading with self-made prosthesis. Shannon Larratt, Meet Tommy Meat” [16]. 1.
Brian Decker, Personal Interview. NY:2008
Shannon Larratt, [17]
Haworth’s work is featured in numerous television programs, and in the documentary Flesh and Blood, Directed by Larry Silverman (2010).
I am grateful to Eva Hayward’s column, “The Sexual and ethical ambiguity of the beloved bivalve,” which gave me insight into the sexual transformations of the “beloved” oyster [15].
Please note that there is a difference between posthuman and posthumanist. I recur to Lucian Gomoll, who demarcates the differences: “posthuman is a hybrid figure characterized primarily by the overlay and interactions of human and machine.[…] Whereas discourses in the poshtumanities contribute to the decentering of classical notions of the human, offering a renewed emphasis on the relational or coevolutionary […] Posthumanists place us into radical relationality with other species, with whom we have co-evolved and co-exist.”
(Gomoll, [6], 2)
<<http://totalartjournal.com/archives/1764/posthuman-performance/>> (Last Accessed June 21, 2014).
The osmotic pump was developed by S. Rose and had already been outfitted in rats, rabbits and humans, administering continuous heparin injections. Klynes and Klein suggested that the same technology could be used to administer “psychic energizers” to keep the astronaut continuously awake and fully alert on flights of moderate duration, and proposed that the pump might even be used to “inject protective doses of pharmaceuticals” to combat radiation in space, amongst numerous other uses.
Clynes & Klein, “Cyborgs and Space,” Astronautics, (September 1960), p 27, 74–75.
Reagan’s “Strategic Defense Initiative,” (SDI) a technological development program that White House officials claimed might use “lasers, microwave devices, particle beams, and projectile beams” to counter enemy nuclear attacks was rebranded as “Star Wars” by his critics, in part because it seemed to cite the popular motion picture, and also because the announcement came “just weeks after President Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech.” See: <http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/march-23-1983-reagan-proposes-star-wars-missile-defensesystem/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0> (Last Accessed on June 21, 2014).
For Butler, a Black feminist, the Oankali’s self righteous approach to genetic engineering is likely a parallel to the rhetoric of social darwinism in the history of human slavery, and to the rhetoric of progress in the colonization of indigenous communities.
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As an experimental essay that seeks to disrupt the borders between artistic practice and research, I must extend thanks to the agents that have directly supported this hybrid work. To Cheto Castellano, whose “significant otherness” has provided a foundation for our collaborative research and practice for over a decade. To Donna Haraway, for her generous feedback on an early draft of 10,000 Generations Later. To Lucian Gomoll, whose feminist collaboration has deeply enriched my research practices. To Beatriz da Costa, whose critique helped my project to grow, and whose matter I hope to hold under my skin one day. To Luk Kahlo and Matsya, the canine companion species who transmit the universe’s secrets through vectors of saliva and affect. Any mistakes are my own.
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Olivares, L. Hacking the Body and Posthumanist Transbecoming: 10,000 Generations Later as the mestizaje of Speculative Cyborg Feminism and Significant Otherness. Nanoethics 8, 287–297 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-014-0203-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-014-0203-0