first, I want to give everyone the link to my bibliography.
second, I hope everyone is doing well. I look forward to seeing rough drafts in the near future and to see how everyone’s projects are coming together.
and third, I have again ventured into the graphic commentary of the facilitation this week. There are a few more words with some of the images this week. I look forward to the feedback. I am trying to find the balance I need to best communicate and push inquiry.
Creating Dissonance 
Very creative post, Brian.
Your choice of graphic design highlights HCI and our cyborg reality. I titled my post “We are All Cyborgs…” because we truly have merged our humanity with technology. Different philosophers will argue when exactly we can consider this merger to be definite, but most people imagine cyborg characteristics as humans augmenting themselves with robotic limbs. That raises a lot of issues. On one hand, it marginalizes anyone who has prosthetic limbs as “other than human,” but it also ignores the countless ways technology pervades our everyday lives. I always appreciate Donna Haraway, a renowned feminist scholar, for her definition of cyborg, which essentially argues that “human,” “animal,” and “machine” are fluid between each other. Her definition allows us to see our humanity in our technology, just like you have done with your post. Or the artist in the art. It follows a similar sentiment to our beloved Transcendentalist like Emerson and Thoreau that say God is evident through man and nature.
This doesn’t mean that we need to be careful to only produce beauty in our technology. Rather, I think it means we need to recognize our relationship with technology, as you have, and understand that we are bonded with it, either physically or conceptually.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for your comment. I appreciate the last bit about we don’t need to be careful to only produce beauty. If our technology is reflective of or come in part from us then I am not sure it is possible for it to only be beautiful. And then we also get into how beauty is subjective…so some bit of code or tech advance could be seen as beautiful, crass, terrifying, etc.
I also like that idea of cyborg including organic and not organic. And maybe it is the combination and [re]combination of those elements that is truly what it means to be cyborg. It does start getting into questions of being born, being made, being created, or being constructed, and what the answers to that question mean from an existential idea. It means not only asking “Who am I” but also “What am I”.
Thanks again for the comment.
~Brian
LikeLike
Brian,
Your creativity always amazes me! You were able to capture some really important information from the week in a meaningful way, including the discussion of always needing to be “on”, and the important issue of access that we have discussed in previous weeks, including the week you facilitated! It is interesting how digital literacy, financial access, and disabilities all come into play when discussing new technologies. I have found myself often asking “but WHO is benefitting” often lately when seeing new ways technology can “help”.
Interesting stuff! Thanks for your post!
LikeLiked by 2 people