Cyborg: The Body-Machine of the Civilian-Soldier

Abstract

From the body AS machine (in modern western medicine, fascism and sport) where the machine is a figure or metaphor for the body we come to the body AND machine (in technologies, especially communication technologies) forming a composite. From the machine-body of modern western medicine, through the fascist body of the war-machine, we come to the body-machine of the civilian-soldier, to, in word, the cyborg. The term ‘refers to [a?] cybernetic organism, a self-regulating human-machine system’ (Featherstone and Burrows, 1995, p.1). Cybernetics is the study and use of command and control systems in machines and organisms (see Wiener, 1954/1989, pp.15–17). As command and control involve feedback, cybernetics is more precisely ‘the science of automatic, self-regulated control’ (Levidow and Robins, 1989a, p.8).