The “need” for modification?

I just read an article about Mary Jose Cristernan, or “vampire lady” as she is called in the media. Mary has tattoeed almost 100 percent of her body and added some extreme implants under her skin. The most striking added features are the “horns” she has on her forehead.

Mary is not the first to do this – remember Orlan? In fact, as a cultural phenomenon body modification is as old as mankind. This has caught the interest of many researchers and one clear outcome of the research in to the field is that extreme body modifications are very closely connected to the cultural or religious habits of the social group. There is a good book edited by Mike Featherstone about body modification in general.

But not only is extreme body modification a cultural phenomenon, it is understandably also a very very personal matter. In the modern west we have a tendency to view things like this in a psychological framework. So, we set out to explain implants, tattoos and altered eye colors with the mental needs of the individual. I agree that having horns is propably a very empowering thing to have but I disagree about diminishing this in to a set of psychological explanations.

Not only do tattoos and other body modifications share symbols they also are a platform for the personal identity. In some cultures, this identity is strongly linked in to the cultural background such as having your ear peirced in order to show your social status.

The extreme body modification pioneers and the possible advances of modern technology are connected in at least one level. They are transgressing the boundaries of the human body. As these boundaries become more and more flexible, one can argue that this is something that can also alter what it is to be human.

And this is where transhumanism comes along.

There are some technologies I have been following for years. One is the mind-machine interfaces and “wearable computers”. We can be brave and call this the “cyberzation of the body”. The other is the research done in the field of artificial intelligens. If Siri pops to your mind, you are where the technology currently is going.

Transhumanism is very much about a concept of “enhancing” the individual. I quoting the word “enhance” just because it seems very often to be used as a concept to describe a larger phenomenon and not just some tweeks of the body here and there. In fact, I consider enhancement to be one of the key concepts of the future “what is it to be human” debates.

I’m not going to write about the debate side of the matter. The debate more or less gravitates around the question of what it is to be human, so as everyone can agree, that is a big discussion.

The point I’m making is that if human-machine interfaces become entagled with our body and mind and if artificial intelligence systems are more and more  doing our thinking, we are very likely to be enhanced. But also, as this progress goes on, we will come to a point where we start doing things with these new tools and that can cause disconnect with the way we are used to communicate and present ourselves.

Imagine walking around with special glasses that augment the reality around you. You see peoples Fb-updates hovering over their heads, commercials in the sidewalk, arrows pointing to where you are going (is it a loss of humanity, if we can’t get lost anymore?). Being a “user” of a system is more about being “apart of something” that just having a good tool for, say, communication.

This is  of course a prediction made with Facebook in mind. The technology we now have paves the way for new technologies we (want) to develop in the future. The future horizon is a daunting view. I don’t think we need to be over cautious about it since I don’t think technology “just happens”. I think technology develops in concert with our cultural values and social needs.

I may be a bit optimistic about the “need” to be modified or enhanced in this way. The way we are going is very likely to produce positive and negative effects, such as creating a culture that is accessible by only the few with the wits and the resources.

In that case it is a good question to ask, who gives us the “need”. Since needs gives us solutions and these solutions create new social roles and (importantly) new social relations, the outcome is something to be discussed.

In this vision of the future “extreme body modification” is to be understood at an industrial level. It is therefore given to the “masses” and it is impossible to predict what the outcome will be. Currently the pioneers of cyborgs and body modification are laying in place the initial discussion about the future. What our “needs” will be is a more or less controlled outcome of that discussion.

Will there be a new concept of humanity or will there be the thousands of years old “mankind” entering an enhanced world. I suppose that is one starting point of discussing the matter in depth.