OrgransEverywhere no. 3 Cyborgs and Monsters

7/25/2019 OrgransEverywhere no. 3 Cyborgs and Monsters

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BEN WOODARD

LIAM YOUNG

TOBIAS KLEINDENIS VLIEGHE

SIMONE FERRACINA

SARA HENDREN

SUKJONG HONG

TIM MALY


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CYBORGS & MONSTERS


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BEN WOODARD investigates the spacebetween haunted and green houses, and calls forthe opening up of homeness to broader outsideecologies. I Want to Live Inside this Monster:Haunted Houses and Ecological Design.

LIAM YOUNGand TOBIAS KLEIN

with DENIS VLIEGHE explore the effectsof external flows on the internal geographies of thebody. Internal Prosthetics for Cloud Computing.

SIMONE FERRACINA performs digi-tal plastic surgeries on the body as perceived in

virtual-physical blended space. Digital Surgeon.

SARA HENDREN proposes an ethics ofaugmentation rooted in the cyborgian experienceof disability.Towards an Ethics of Estrangement.

SUKJONG HONGtransforms and over-writes the monstrous others generated by ColdWar narratives. Necessary Monsters in Cold WarAsia and the DiasporaAn Illustrated Index of

Political Outcasts and Outsiders.

TIM MALY narrates the science fictionalstory of a woman who gets pressured into con-suming the drug-filled remains of an enemy aca-

demic. 24 Hour Smarty People.

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I WANT TO LIVE INSIDE

THIS MONSTER:HAUNTED HOUSES AND

ECOLOGICAL DESIGN

BEN WOODARD


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In the 2009 Norwegian film Hidden(Skjult), theprotagonist Kai returns to the house he grew upin, which is somewhere between psychologicallyand supernaturally haunted and gets set to burnit down. Such a move is (in the rules of horrorfilms) unthinkable, as it upsets the stability of thehouse, and the tenants who stay there. Te house

must remain and the inhabitants cannot simplyleave. Kai only stops because he is interrupted bythe police (an officer who is also an old friend)and events soon take a course that pull him away(but always back to) the domicile of his abusiveupbringing.

Te haunted houses popularity is no doubt tiedto the reasoning by which a haunted house can-not be easily abandoned or destroyed. Tis is dueto the simple fact that houses are places of rest,safety, and general non-weirdness. Te hauntedhouses being is a coincidence of opposites anoverly close weirdness resulting from the unfa-miliar and the familiar. Uncanniness is equivalentto unhomeishness.Tis coincidence of opposites is further torquedby the tautological nature of homeness (this isour home, we belong here and so forth). Tis isnot to ignore the house as a sign of long-termeconomic stability (or was at one point) but home(or being home) once youve settled in, is the coreof ones quotidian safety and sanity.

But it becomes difficult to articulate what makesa house a home besides being where the heart is.Haunting seems a bit more straight forward asthe normal (i.e. non-noticeable) functions of thehouse are disrupted as some trauma is unresolved

and the previous tenants cannot move on, crossover, and so on. Something happened in the placeof no-place, of safety, which then disrupted thehouses future function as a house: future tenantshave their living-in sutured to a living-with un-beknown to them. Living in or living in generalis always better than living with, there is some-thing unappealing about with-ness. Withness canbe sustained with the familial and the romantic,with other human entities, but we do not care to

mix with-ness and objects.

Following this line of thought it is possible to seehow the haunted house and the ecological houseare less than alien to one another. Green archi-tecture in house design can come off as a forcedwith-ness, upsetting the inness or onness humansare accustomed to with inhabiting the earth. Fur-thermore, the greenness of green housing brings

the demands of far wider exteriors to the interiorof the home. Eco-houses uncomfortably bringin the corrosiveness of the outside. Te house isweirded by its operational split between being forits inhabitants and being for the outside.

A more in depth analysis of haunted houses, andtheir green counterparts, is necessary in orderto fully make sense of some kind of ecologicalhauntings or architectural with-ness. 1

If hauntings de-familiarize the home or thehouse they do this through an imperfect or im-partial construction of affect space passing onknowledge of a past wrong or forgotten grief,or injustice. Tat is, some psychical disturbanceinfects the house as a passive structure with thehouse, depending on the time of its haunting, be-ing complicitous to varying degrees. While theghostly or spiritual can be justified as the persis-tence of the spiritual or some ghostly substanceit is more often a personality (soul, specter, ghost,and so forth) that refuses to leave that is as at-tached as the new tenant (or the investigator) toremaining.

Films and other narratives about haunted housescan simply indicate hauntings within a house,merely the localizing of the seemingly unlocaliz-able (the spectral) or can mean that a house par-ticipates in various degrees in the haunting pro-cess. Here we can take a brief look at three films:Burnt Offerings, Te Haunting, and Te Legend ofHell House.

For the sake of house-ecology these films are

addressed for their differing level of haunting-participation. In Burnt Offeringsthe entire house

A Necessarily Selective Typology of Haunted

Houses

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seems to be a living entity. In the film a youngfamily rents the house for a summer with the onlystipulation that they must care for an old wom-an living upstairs named Mrs Abrydice. Strangehappenings begin to occur in the house but theircauses are never seen and the actions are blamedon various characters. Mrs Abrydice isnt seen un-

til the husband, at the end of the film, attemptsto enter the room and sees that his wife is (or hasbecome? Or always was?) her. He then dies (asdoes their son presumably) and the house, whichhas seemed to be falling apart along with thewithering landscape, suddenly appears to be inthe prime of its existence.

Te Haunting is a bit more suggestive as thingshappen without a determined cause though theycould be natural or supernatural: unexplainedbreezes, hot and cold spots, etc. It could be thenightmare most of us have of ecological living, ofhaving no environmental control of our houses. Afear which is of course unfounded but rooted inliving in a green house and living in a faulty, bro-ken down house. One step towards living outside.

In the Legend of Hell House physical manifesta-tion is unquestionably supernatural and further-more the design of the house plays a large role.Te houses purported haunting tenant, EmericBelasco, also known as the roaring giant, attacks,rapes, and possesses the investigative team. Teteams physicist, Lionell Barrett, uses a machinethat appears to rid the house of specters but thisis eventually revealed not to be the case as Belascohad built a shielded room for his corpse, prevent-ing the effectiveness of Barretts machine.

In each of these cases the construction, or liveli-ness of the houses materials is at stake. Tat is, thearchitecture plays a larger role than in many otherfilms where the house is simply a place where badthings happened. Or, in other words, we have astrange case of testing the relation of the humanand the non-human, and of the living as non-or-ganic both as a vital energy (whether spiritual ornot) and as the liveliness, to follow Jane Bennett

for instance, of inorganic matter as such.2

Tere is also the difficulty of mapping haunting or

the psychological weirdness of the haunted ontoa non-psychological manifestation whether it beectoplasmic, physical, audio visual, or otherwise.

Construction is of course different than thehouses haunting being linked to its location, withTe Shining and Poltergeist being the privileged

examples. Both houses are architectural failuresas in Te Shiningthe hotel is built upon an Indianburial ground whereas in Poltergeistit is built atopa gravesite.

As all these films rely on human characters to dem-onstrate the ghostly activity, a duality is set wheremanifestations are explained as one extreme (yourmind is playing tricks on you, youre stressed, thecharacter has some personal flaw which explainstheir irrational behavior) or the other (its leakypipes, shaky foundations, infestation and so on).Somewhere between the purely mental and thepurely physical, a state of haunting equilibrium ismet, where signs of mental uncertainty feed intoapparently non-mental phenomena and vice versain order to reach a perfect state of unhomenessor the uncanny.

Te initial treatment of the uncanny by ErnstJentsch focused on the concept as a difficulty inthinking or navigating ones environment, but hesubsequently focused on automata with the privi-leged example taken from EA Hoffmans taleTe Sandman, which Freud engages at length inhis piece on the Uncanny. Freud shifts the focusof the uncanny from automatons to the removal

of eyes and the function of repetition in the storyeventually tying it to the concept of doubling asdiscussed by Otto Rank.3

In his short essay titled Te Uncanny Freudimmediately sets up the uncanny as somewherebetween affect and aesthetic, a feeling directlytied to not only the arts but the determinabilityof various forms of media (or maybe more openlyexpression) as it affects ones sensibility.4 Freud

then sets to produce an exhaustive etymologicalexcavation of unheimlich and heimlich as well as

The Uncanny

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other terms he sees as related, picking up on oneparticular detail: that the heimlich can be thatwhich is hidden from strangers in the safeness ofthe home.5While I am not as interested in theOedipal avenues Freud takes from this, it is worthnoting that this association only concretizes thehome as an in-ness or as an entity a world apart

from the environment, or from the possibility ofan otherness infecting its walls.

Freud does not wish to dwell on the house as anexample of the uncanny, despite its admitted po-tency, but moves on to the more general topic ofour relation to death.6But what is more interest-ing for our purposes here is the human shelteringin relation to exteriorized forms of life. While onecan say that the house goes back to our primitivedesire for shelter, how the house has become livedin (an evolution a long way from the cave as safeplace) does not seem adequately approached byour relation to death.

Tis quick mention of the haunted house byFreud is taken up as the point of departure of thefirst chapter in Anthony Vidlers Te ArchitecturalUncanny. Vidler ties the uncanny specifically toEdgar Allan Poes Te Fall of the House of Usher(tobe discussed below). Vidler takes Freuds uncan-ny (unheimlich) through different thinkers andinto contact with various architectural construc-tions and critical trajectories. For the task at handVidlers discussion of Hubert Dreyfus translationof unheimlich as unsettled7is particularly inter-esting.

Unsettledness (coupled with unhomliness) makes

a particular cause for the meaning of unheimlichin the United States. As Vidler notes, Poe is acentral figure in the uncanny and HP Lovecraft(whose texts will also be discussed below) makesa particularly strong case for the importance ofPoe especially as a creator of a particular genre inthe States. In his impressive essay on supernaturalfiction, Lovecraft notes that the great task of Poewas transplanting the gothic into the colonies adifficult task given the lack of European history,

which is a generational lack as much as it is one ofarchitecture no crumbling castles and no ghosts

of mad kings.

Tis may in part explain the fascination of bor-ders and odd treatment of violence in earlyAmerican literature such as George Lippards TeQuaker City,and Charles Brockden BrownsEd-

gar Huntly.

Both these novels are particularly weird in theirmanifestation of guilt, which is tied to historicalinevitability but unnecessary violence. Te Shin-ing, which has been read by some as a commentabout the disappearing (murdering, banishing,forgetting) of Native Americans, participates inthis odd manifestation through unreliable nar-ration (the fathers madness, the boys visions)particularly evident in the elevator of blood andthe mentions of Indian burial grounds, Indian at-tacks, and white mans burden.

A simple observation here is that houses are notsupposed to live, they are supposed to bear theuse of their owners (which again seems to sug-gest the kind of J-Horror film such as Te Grudgewhere badness takes root somewhere and refusesto leave until it is understood and, even then, maycontinue to destroy). In this sense a green house,a house which lives with its environment therebyforcing its tenants to live with it, is architecturallyand anthrocentrically anathema.

In recent years, hauntings have moved fromhaunting specific locations to haunting people (asis the case in Paranormal Activity, and its sequel,as well as inInsidious). In the Paranormal Activity

films, a woman is continuously haunted by a spiritdespite those skeptical around her, whereas inIn-sidiousa boy and his fathers astral projections gotoo far out (into a place called the Further) andgain parasitic spirits which then haunt their bod-ies.

Essentially, houses are supposed to be dead thingsthat we fill with life and objects weve attachedmeaning to, houses are not supposed to live. Our

attachment to houses is through the meaning weassign to them in terms of memory, because it

Eco-Houses

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is our house, because we belong there. If there isone particularly memorable visual cue represent-ing this tension it is the bouncing ball appearingin the aforementioned Hidden as well as in TeChangeling.

Yet, we need houses to become more and more

like living things, to be haunted by the outside, theearth and nature beyond that.

In her very informative text Green Gone WrongHeather Rogers critiques the over-capitalizationand industrialization of the green movement inthe developed world. One aspect she examines isthe feasibility of green, or zero emission housing.She focuses on the Beddington Zero Energy De-velopment (or BedZed) in the London boroughof Sutton. Te high-density units have individualgardens, insulating vegetation on their roofs, solarpanels for electricity and heat as well as their ownwaste treatment plant.8Tey use passive heating,living machines to process black water, and havebiomass in their power plant (though several ofthese features have failed to be properly main-tained).9Rogers points out that BedZed is a wel-come alternative to the divide between ecologi-cal living as being seen as living outside and highend apartments which are green only to the extentthat they can claim it as a selling point.10One as-pect of BedZed that is particularly appealing isthat it is constructed with some thought towardsthe region it occupies, like Gaviotas but to a lesserextent.

Arcosanti as an unfinished ecological ghost town,Synergia Ranch and many ecovillages do not seem

to emphasize design but merely reduced impact;various ways of living off the grid. But this formof ecological separatism is shortsighted as livingin cities (or at least compact smaller communities)is not only inevitable but more ecologically (aswell as intellectually, technologically, culturally)beneficial.11But in some cases non-radical designmakes for far better ecological living. As Rogerspoints out in her account of her visit to the ecovil-lage of Vauban, reduction in surface area drastical-

ly decreases energy usage but this of course meanspushing design into the unfamiliar and raising the

specter of the uncanny, the unhome or worse, thenon-home.12

Here I wish to briefly engage some stories whichare not exactly haunted in the spiritual sense but

are about structures disrupted by what one wouldcall unexpected forms of life: Edgar Allen PoesTe Fall of the House of Usher, HP Lovecrafts TeShunned House, and Hawthornes Te House of theSeven Gables.

Te House of Usher is a house that appears tohave a sentience, a malicious pan-psychist attach-ment to the twins who occupy it. Tere is a deepconnection between the house and the inhabit-ants as well as the arrangement of the inorganicand the effect of the inorganic on sensibility.

Te old Pyncheon house of Hawthornes TeHouse of the Seven Gablesis, in a fashion not all toodifferent from the House of Usher, portrayed asan organic entity, as being weathered by old age.Like that in Te Shining, the house absorbs theinjustices and violences committed by its ownersand their descendants and the difficulty of leav-ing trauma behind. What separates Hawthornestale from Te Shiningor Guy de Maupassants Te

Innis that redemption (at least at some level) ispossible, as nature itself, in the novel, brings forthflowers as a sign that the past can be forgotten.And, furthermore, as the elm in front of the houseseems to do, nature makes the house a part of na-ture itself.

Finally Lovecrafts Te Shunned House worksas a kind of mediation between these two houses,though some possibility of saving the house re-mains at the end as well. Te house of Lovecraftstale is not haunted in the traditional sense butseemingly ruined by a strange organic presence.Lovecraft writes:

Te fact is, that the house was never regarded by the solidpart of the community as in any real sense haunted. Tere

were no widespread tales of rattling chains, cold currents

of air, extinguished lights, or faces at the window. Extrem-ists sometimes said the house was unlucky, but that is as

Living in Alive or Materialized Generations

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far as even they went.13

Te house is described not as haunted but merelyas unlucky due to the fact that so many peoplehad died and there is something is oddly peculiarabout it.

owards the end of the story the protagonists digin the basement of the house (hoping to find thecause of the houses oddness) and find a horrificorganic object in the basement:

Suddenly my spade struck something softer than earth.I shuddered, and made a motion as if to climb out of thehole, which was now as deep as my neck [] Te surfaceI uncovered was fishy and glassya kind of semi-putridcongealed jelly with suggestions of translucency. I scraped

further and saw that it had form.14

o the narrators horror he discovers that theobject is an elbow from an ill-begotten creature,which he then buries in a deluge of acid. Afterone of the earths nethermost terrors is destroyedthe garden outside the shunned house begins toflourish and the trees bear fruit.15

Te organic nature of Lovecraft s tale differs

from merely the strangeness of inexplicably mov-ing objects found in a classically Gothic tale ofhaunting such as Walpoles Te Castle of Otranto.In many ways, the difference between TeShunned House and Otrantocould be seen in thebiological in relation to the architectural or whatconstitutes but upsets the system (the structure)and the desire for and creation of structure itself.

Returning to Vidlers discussion of architecture,

he brings up Kants architectonic (which func-tions as a kind of metaphysical or at least consti-tutive superstructure of doing philosophy) which,in the closing pages of Te Critique of Pure Reason,is bothered by the unclean generative nature ofthe biological, discussing maggots or lowly or-ganisms.

Tese odd maggots of Kants text questionwhether the systematicity of life is ever in itself,

self regulating, or whether it is merely a boundplaced externally to try and make sense of it, to

call a messy ecology of creatures a body.

Furthermore, the house of Usher is both thestructural house and the family as an entity, whichalso draws up this tension between generation asstructure and generation as uncontrolled growth.Vidler points out that E..A. Hoffman, the

aforementioned inspiration and Freuds centralfigure for the uncanny, was an amateur architectand that some of his other tales mock the idea ofthe architect in nature, or the natural architect,the figure who wonders into nature and sets thestones intuitively in the right place.16

Hanging in the background are the strange gen-erations of thought leading to the uncanny whichVidler traces back to Schellings later writings onmythology thereby connecting Kants projectto Schellings, to Hegels, winding through thepsychological and physiological torments of Ni-etzsche and ending up on the desk of Freud.

Te generational house is a relic, a thing of thepast. Who lived there before, what happenedthere is a horror, as the memories of unknowncrimes, abuses and murders paint the walls. Bloodcomes down. Te water drips and becomes non-water. We move elsewhere, build a new place.Spread out, go sideways, go off the grid not justin the sense of power but in terms of social work.Houses are built cheaply and quickly and arepacked together, but packed together sidewayswith pools and lawns regardless of climate.

Living in generations means living close and itmeans living in a thing that can be overcrowded,

and teeming in life in a way that has been oftenthought of as infestation or curse.

Economically the house appears a less and lessattainable goal, something integral to the Ameri-can dream (and to economic dreams elsewhere,at least in the west or maybe anywhere globalcapitalism has sunk the teeth barely protruding

from its fat lips) where they are being taken bybanks from those who can no longer afford them.

Monster

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Eco houses, or green living, invoke an odd col-lision of restricted and open economies in Ba-tailles sense. Affordability seems to disavow anypossibility of opening the house to the energeticoutside, passive heat of the sun, or any odd formof life. It is better to have a house that cannotbe afforded and cannot afford the outside but

is slowly ruined by it as we reinvest energy intokeeping the houses aesthetic up to date and cleanlooking.

Te technology exists to let in the outside and itis becoming less and less expensive. It is the statusof the desire that is questionable.

We have to foster a desire to live inside which isactually a living with, we have to declare not nec-essarily emphatically, that I want to live insidethis monster. Or to put things a bit strangely, itmay be required to undomesticate the house.

o return to the film Hidden, we cannot burndown the haunted house not merely because ofour affective or psychical investment in it but be-cause the house is an ecology, though it is hightime to accept the pesky materiality of this ecol-ogy that it is not merely an ecology of memory.And, for design, it is imperative to vivisect theaesthetic, to seriously question how much theaesthetic should (if ever) override the force of themateriality of the world.

One could imagine a weird ecological tale wherean ambitious architect or designer buys an oldhouse and begins to gut the inside, but as theystart to install their new technologies or their

pleasing appliances, a form of fungus or mossgrows over: but the house functions, it func-tions better than it would have without it. In theend, can the architect be incensed when it comesdown to an aesthetic difference, and not one ofendurance, function, or rationality?

Te purported hauntedness of our houses in re-lation to the demands for ecology adds an extraacidity to the following aphorism by Nietzsche:

Te same old story! When one has finished building oneshouse, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has

learned something that one really needed to know in theworst waybefore one began.17

Tere are ecological ghosts attempting to tell ushow to avoid the eternally distasteful too late.18

Notes:

1. Tere is also the related but different phenomenon ofthe automated house and its horrorific apparition inDemon Seed. In the film a sentient computer wantingto do unrestricted research on man instantiates himselfin an automated house and eventually impregnates theex-wife of its inventor in order to give birth to a newspecies. A large part of the programs impetus to do theresearch is its disgust resulting from humanitys eco-

logical restlessness.2. See Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology ofTings (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010).

3. Tis is not to mention Lacans different take on the un-canny which he ties to anxiety and perception of self.

4. Sigmund Freud, Te Uncanny (1919), in Te Un-canny, trans. David McLintock (New York: Penguin,2003), 123.

5. Te Uncanny,133.6. Te Uncanny,148.7. Anthony Vidler, Te Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the

Modern Unhomely(Cambridge, MA: MI Press, 1992),

7-8.8. Heather Rogers, Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economyis Undermining the Environmental Revolution (New

York: Scribner, 2010), 69-70.9. Ibid., 71.10. Ibid., 72.11. See David Owens Green Metropolis: Why Living Small-

er, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sus-tainability(New York: Riverhead rade, 2010).

12. Green Gone Wrong, 82.13. H.P. Lovecraft, Te Shunned House, in Te Fiction:

Complete and Unabridged(New York: Barnes & Noble,

2008), 293.14. Ibid., 312.15. Ibid., 313.16. Architectural Uncanny, 30.17. Frederich Nietzsche, Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans.

Walter Kaufmann (New York: Modern Library Clas-sics, 2000), 413.

18. Ibid.

Illustrated by Simone Ferracina.

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INTERNAL PROSTHETICS

FOR CLOUD COMPUTING

LIAM YOUNG DENIS VLIEGHE

TOBIAS KLEIN


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We have created a world of fields and frequen-cies, invisible networks, ephemeral connectionsand endless streams of data. We live out our livesthrough our digital selves, and talk to virtualfriends through interfaces of glowing rectanglesthat span across geographies. In this world thephysicality and biology of the body is in ques-

tion. Building on existing technologies of neu-ral stimulators and GPS chip implants we havedeveloped an internal bio computing prostheticfor the cloud computing world. We augment our-selves with new senses for the digital landscape.We tattoo ourselves with conductive ink that ani-mates the skin with a new tribal ornamentationgenerated from the magnetic fields of our inter-nal wifi antennas. Digital connectivity becomesa part of the natural mineralisation processes ofthe body as our unique IP address fossilises likethe bones within us. MRI scans are a new formof portraiture for our own unique GPS broadcastfrequencies.

Connecting person to person with electrical puls-es we create hive network urban communities,virtual interactions become a part of our physicalselves and crowd sourced computation becomes anew kind of magic.

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DIGITAL SURGEON

SIMONE FERRACINA


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DIGITAL SURGEON _USER MANUAL

Digital Surgeon changes the way you appear to other Personal Augmentation

Interface (PAI) users. Be sure to understand all the settings and instructionsincluded in this User Manual before attempting to use the service. No surgery

will be broadcast in immersive environments until you select the Unwrap

Bandage! icon and confirm twice. Please remember that PAI users may not be

aware that your body modifications occurred digitally.

PLEASE KEEP THIS MANUAL

IMPORTANT!!!

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INTRODUCTION

Congratulations and thank you for purchasing Digital Surgeon, the first Personal Augmentation

Interface (PAI) software that enables you to modify and edit your body for real-time viewing in mixed and

immersive environments. Digital Surgeon empowers individuals to control how their body appears tothem and to their community. Whether you are interested in de-forming or con-forming to societal

ideals of beauty and belonging, we are proud to provide extensive support for an ever-growing plasticity.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

3 GETTING STARTED

3 Full Body Scan

4 System Requirements

4 INTERFACE

4 Main Menu

5 My Surgeries

5 New operation

5 Unwrap Bandage!

6 COSMETIC MODE

6 Body Part Selection

7 Face Selection

8 Operations

11 Beauty Slider

12 Filters

13 Uploads and Grafts

14 PLASTICITY MODE

15 Built-In Cycles

16 Time-Based Custom Cycles

17 Site-Based Custom Cycles

18 User-Specific Surgeries

19 DEMIURGE MODE

19 Assigning Surgeries

20 INVISIBILITY CLOAK MODE

21 TRANSLUCENT BODY MODE

21 Networked Sensors

22 Reading the Body

23 GLOSSARY

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GETTING STARTED

Digital Surgeon modifies your body by altering the algorithms associated with the way it is perceived in

mixed environments. Your Personal Augmentation Interface (PAI) will pick up your current surgeries and

execute them in real-time through digital masking and overlay. Because surgeries areviewer-oriented, you may tag bookmarked surgeries to specific viewers or groups in your social network

(See User-Specific Surgeries, page 18).

FULL BODY SCAN

One full-body scan session is included with your purchase of Digital Surgeon. Our body scans

feature the latest available technology and highest resolution, ensuring optimal 3D body-mapping

precision.Please be aware that during the body scan session you will be asked to expose any parts

of your body you intend to digitally modify. To ensure that your surgical augmentations match

your body as you move through space, you will also be asked to perform several movements.

Digital Surgeon does not retain, print or transmit copies of your body scan. All information relatingto the 3D mesh from your scan is instantly uploaded to your PAI unit and erased from our system.

1

1 Your face will be scanned separately in greater detail.

2 Please identify for your attendant any unusual features you may want

to conceal and augment (scars, blemishes, tumors, missing limbs, etc.)

2

3

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SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Digital Surgeon seamlessly integrates into most Personal Augmentation Interface (PAI) systems.

Please find an updated list of compatible software and hardware on our website. The Digital

Surgeon plug-in and your 3D body mesh will be uploaded to your PAI system at the end of the bodyscanning session. At this time, and in order for Digital Surgeon to function properly, please verify

that the following system requirements are met:

Active PAI hardware and software system (Immersivisionturned on)

Computer vision system (markerless motion tracking and recognition technology)

Active PAI ID (GPS/RFID wearable passport technology)

Broadband wireless internet access

INTERFACE

Once you have installed the Digital Surgeon plug-in, the main menu will automatically pop up in your

augmented field of vision. Air-tap any of the icons to access a sub-menu. You can hide or expand the

menu at any time by air-tapping the Digital Surgeon icon.

MAIN MENU

The main menu consists of three simple icons. From here you can easily access any further setting

or preference. This User Manual will guide you step by step through each sub-menu.

1 3

2

1 Digital Surgeon icon. Air-tap to

minimize the menu. Please note

that several EU countries require this

icon to be visible along with your

digital surgery. In such countries, the

icon will glow when visible to others.

2 The eye icon will be green (on) when

your surgeries are broadcast and red

(off) when your surgeries are off-line.Edit or add surgeries only when the

eye icon is off.

3 The syringe icon indicates your

surgeries. Air-tap it to manage

your surgeries and create new ones.

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MY SURGERIES

In this folder are stored and listed all your saved and

bookmarked surgeries, indicating:

Status (active/inactive)

Visibility (everyone or designated subjects)

Surgical Mode

Filters Applied

NEW OPERATION

Air-tap this icon to initiate a new surgical operation.

A Digital Surgeon operation can be performed

according to five (5) different surgical modes. Thesystem will prompt you to select one of the following:

Cosmetic Mode

Plasticity Mode

Demiurge Mode

Invisibility Cloak Mode

Translucent Body Mode

UNWRAP BANDAGE!

Once you have selected your surgical procedure and

tested it off-line at the mirrorand maybe e-mailed a

picture to your best friend to know her opinionyou are

ready to select the Unwrap Bandage!button.

Once selected, re-confirm the command twice and your

surgery will go live! Anyone approaching you in mixed

environments will perceive the change.

Unwrap your true beauty now!

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COSMETIC MODE

This mode allows users to enhance their appearance by overlaying digital cosmetic surgeries on their

own bodies. In front of a mirror, select the body parts or regions you wish to enhance, highlight them

and select the parameters you would like to adjust. Fine-tune the results until you have reached thedesired appearance.

BODY PART SELECTION

Selecting the body parts to be modified is the first step in creating a new digital surgery. Browse your

default body regions in front of a mirror, hovering over a region to highlight it. Air-tap on the

highlighted region to select it, and proceed choosing your desired transformations.

Please note that these body regions have been defined specifically for your body during the scan

session. Selecting custom regions is possible but may result in slow or inadequate mapping.

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FACE SELECTION

After selecting your face, a series of sub-regions will appear. These sub-regions were derived

from your facial features during the body scan session. Select a region and start your operation!

1 Select to unlock detailed face sub-regions (see below).

2 Detailed hand regions available in extension pack. For more information, please see website.

3 Detailed foot regions available in extension pack. For more information, please see website.

! !

Digital Surgeon will automatically blend your surgeries to adjacent

body parts and regions in order to achieve a smooth and consistent

look. If you prefer exposed seams, overlaps and gaps, you may

change the perimeter transitions settings in the operations menu.

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OPERATIONS

Digital Surgeon offers a comprehensive set of tools you can use to transform the selected body

parts. Please find below a list with their description and corresponding icon.

SCALE

Change the size of the selected region while keeping the proportion between

its parts intact.

MOVE

Move the selected region from its original location. The leftover scar will be

masked with real-time broadcasts of adjacent body parts.

ROTATE

Rotate the selected region to change its orientation. The default point of

rotation is located in the center of the region. To move it, double air-tap and

drag it. Double air-tap to confirm.

APPLY MIRRORDraw an axis and use it to mirror the selected region. To apply the mirror to a

cluster of regions (e.g. the entire face) double air-tap the symbol and add

regions. Double air-tap to confirm.

PINCH

Select a point in the region to push or pull it, changing its proportion with

adjacent points in the mesh.

STRETCH

Select two points in the region and drag them to stretch the region.

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INFLATE

Inflate a region or part of a region. Adjust the slider to define the desired

distension/bulging.

DEFLATE

Deflate a region or part of a region. Adjust the slider to define the desired

shrinkage/flattening.

SCULPT

With the sculpt tool, you can manipulate the 3D mesh associated with the

selected body part as if you were sculpting a block of clay. The results will be

rendered as a semi-transparent layer, blended with the rest of your body.

TEXTURIZEUpload a texture or picture to apply it to the selected body part. Use the slider

to determine bump depth and mapping attributes.

GROW HAIRS

Select the points in the region where you would like to place hair follicles.

Specify hair type, length, color and opacity on the slider.

SMOOTH

Subdivide the mesh of the selected body part to smoothen its surface. The level

of subdivisions can be modulated on the beauty slider.

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NEW LAYER

Makes a new layer onto which you can write text, draw lines and shapes, apply

colors and upload images and patterns.

AUTOGRAFT

This tool copies your selection into a new layer. Move and transform it to

perform autologous grafts. Changes in the original body part will be

broadcast in real-time on each graft.

CUT / INCISE

Make precise incisions and excisions along lines, shapes and grids. Mask selected

areas or remove them revealing underneath layers. The depth of each incision

can be adjusted on the slider.

CUSTOM SELECT

Draw circles, ellipses, rectangles or freehand shapes and use them as selections

for other operations.

STITCH OBJECT

Upload a 3D object, scale it, place it in the desired location and suture it onto

your digital body mesh. Sutured objects can be removed at any time by

air-tapping the remove object button in your operations panel.

EXTRUDE

Extrude a solid from the selected region. Apply a rotation, offset or taper to your

extrusion.

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BEAUTY SLIDER

Each operation is a session comprised of several tool-driven modifications. The attributes specific to

each tool can be modulated running your fingers through the beauty slider. Other than providing

sophisticated controls, the slider keeps track of mainstream perceptions of beauty and informs theuser of the anticipated correspondence between modification attributes and societal acceptance.

BEAUTIFUL

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SHAVE

Conceal your facial or body hairs with this filter. Select hairs to shave among

those automatically identified by the system. These will be masked with your

natural skin color.

FILTERS

Filters are modifications entirely controlled by Digital Surgeon algorithms. These modifications are

not intended as surgical operations, but rather for maintenance and upkeep of ones appearance.

They are the equivalent of cosmetic creams and make-up/shaving kits. They can be superimposed onoperations or applied directly to selected regions of the body.

COLOR

Darken or lighten the color of your natural skin and eyes, or use the color picker

to select the desired hue. Highlight body parts with color. Clear your skin from

acne, pimples, moles, scars, rashes and other visible and unwanted conditions.

ELIXIR OF YOUTH

Apply the Digital Surgeon rejuvenating algorithm to selected body parts. This

algorithm is developed to identify and mask physical signs of aging. For long-

term Digital Surgeon users, the algorithm re-maps previous 3D body scans.

SMILE

Use this filter to achieve a perfectly white and well proportioned smile. Your

teeth and gums were scanned in detail to achieve the best possible results.

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UPLOADS AND GRAFTS

The cosmetic mode supports operations that involve allogeneic (same species) and xenogeneic

(different species) skin grafting. Upon selecting the body part(s) to be digitally removed, upload

their replacements. Digital Surgeon will map them to the presumed scale and size. Manually adjusttheir attributes to your liking.

Please note that although there is an abundance of cloud-based repositories of body parts for

uploadboth paid and freenot all of them are compatible with Digital Surgeon. To ensure that

the uploaded body parts are realistically integrated in your overall appearance and that they

follow your bodys movements, please only upload from recommended online dealers. You can

find the full list on the Digital Surgeon website.

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PLASTICITY MODE

This mode allows users to program body changes in time. It adds a temporal dimension to the surgeries

supported in the previous mode, specifying when each surgical operation will be active. Digital Surgeon

challenges the permanence and irreversibility of traditional cosmetic surgery and provides the bodywith a new plastic, durational flesh.

Ongoing research will help determine if this mode can help alleviate or treat body dysmorphic disorder.

MOVINGMIRROR

PUSHANDPULL

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STRAIGHTEDGES

BUILT-IN CYCLES

Digital Surgeon provides several built-in cycles based on preset algorithms. You can select an

algorithm and adjust the following cycle parameters:

INTERVAL: Defines the space of time between broadcasted surgeries.

DURATION: Defines the amount of time during which each surgery in the cycle will last.

DEPTH: Defines the maximum distance between any given point of your body and its augmentation.

Please find below a diagrammatic visualization of the four basic built-in cycles. Hundreds of new

algorithms are available everyday on the Digital Surgeon website. Download them for free!

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1 2 3

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1

2

3

TIME-BASED CUSTOM CYCLES

In order to create a custom surgical cycle, select the saved surgeries and filters you would like to include

and air-tap the make cycle button. You will access the custom cycle control panel. From this panel you

can assign to each surgery a specific activation time by either selecting the interval between surgeries(switch surgery on every half hour) or specific times and durations (make surgery active every Monday at

nine o clock for eight hours). Custom Cycles will automatically sync with your PAI calendar, so you can

easily check their correspondence with scheduled appointments.

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3

2

1

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1

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SITE-BASED CUSTOM CYCLES

Digital Surgeries and filters can also be assigned to specific locations. The associated surgery is activated

whenever the user steps into a pre-defined area, building or room. The body adopts the site-specificity

of fashion (wearing suit and tie in the office, flip-flops at the beach) and changes in time adapting to itsenvironmental setting.

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4

3

2

18

1

4

3

2

1

Husband

Best Friend

Mom

Strangers

VIEWER-SPECIFIC SURGERIES

Digital surgeries and filters can be assigned to viewers by programming your custom cycle so that

specific body modifications are activated by proximity. As selected categories of viewers (strangers,

friends, co-workers, soccer teammates, people with red shirts) or specific subjects in your social circleapproach you, the system will activate the desired surgeries in their field of vision.

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19

DEMIURGE MODE

This mode reverses the softwares ability to showcase viewer-specific surgeries, and offers the

opportunity to impose surgeries on others. The bodies of people surrounding us become engaged in

our curatorial effort toward greater customization. The obvious ethical questionsraised by the Demiurge mode are responsible for it being illegal in several countries. Check the Digital

Surgeon website to make sure yours is not one of them.

ASSIGNING SURGERIES

Body modifications can be assigned to a maximum of five (5) individuals or categories based on

machine and/or facial recognition. In order for the system to be activated and identify target

individuals, please attain a written statement of consent from the person you would like to perceivedigitally modified.

Once our legal department has received a consent notice from one of your contacts, their name will

appear in the patients list and unlock in the assign surgery tab. You are free to add a maximum of

three (3) surgeries to their body as perceived by you.

If surgeries are assigned to subjects who are not Digital Surgeon customers or if their PAI system

does not include compatible 3D information, Digital Surgeon will employ sensors to capture their

depth data in real time. However, it is likely that surgeries in partially concealed areas of the body

may appear unstable or fail to load/map correctly.

If you are unable to perform and test surgeries in real time with your patient, you can programDigital Surgeon to automatically record a video of your next face-to-face encounter with the patient.

Re-play it at a different time to select body parts and test out surgeries. Double tap to confirm and

save.

Please be aware that patients have the right to request a detailed record of all bookmarked body

modifications performed on them. Patients may also decide to withdraw their consent at any time.

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20

SLIMMED HEADLESS STRIPED H STRIPED V CARVED

ROUGHED DOTTED TATTOOED FEATHERED GRIDDED

INVISIBILITY CLOAK MODE

This mode allows users to mask selected parts of their bodies with real-time environmental backgrounds.

Select the regions you would like to conceal or one of the built-in masking configurations (see below),

and Digital Surgeon will apply your selected invisibilities using adjacent background data from theviewers field of vision. For better masking resultsnot limited to the viewers current point of viewthe

system is programmed to make periodic video recordings of your surroundings, and will automatically

search the archived frames back and forth to paint a convincing masking background.

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21

TRANSLUCENT BODY MODE

This mode translates electrophysiological information collected by epidermal sensors and other

monitoring devices into patterns and colors, allowing users to visualize the complex, ecological

dimension of the body and its autonomic biological processes.

NETWORKED SENSORS

In order to run Digital Surgeon in Translucent Body mode, you must attach to your skin a series of

temporary electrophysiological status monitors capable of measuring electrical activity in the body

and wirelessly transmit the collected information. Sensors may be used to monitor temperature,

muscle contractions, brain activity, heart beats and so forth. You can find a detailed list of compatibledevices on the Digital Surgeon website.

Once your PAI system detects a new sensor, you can opt to turn its signals on. They will be rendered

as real-time graphic overlays.

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1

3

2

1

Heart Beat

Muscle Contractions

Brain Activity

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22

READING THE BODY

The information provided by the monitors can generate two- and three-dimensional shapes based

on an ever-growing variety of algorithms. Shapes, colors and patterns can be abstract visual

representations of the bodys inner workings or follow readable grammars organized aroundclinical and physiological signifiers. You can upload existing grammars or create new ones by

selecting the custom grammar creator tool. Assign a sensor to shapes and families of shapes and

attribute to each corresponding parameter a range of colors, quantities, scales, deformations,

filiations, locations, movements and so forth.

2

3

1

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1

Heart Beat

Muscle Contractions

Brain Activity

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GLOSSARY

AIR-TAPPING :

To deliver a light tap against afloated virtual object or button in

order to select it or interact with a digital immersive interface.

AUTO-GRAFT:

A digital surgery that employs real-time recording from other parts

of the body for masking or deformation purposes.

AUGMENTED BODY:

The body as perceived by others through immersive digitalfilters.

The body that Digital Surgeon operations are performed on.

CYCLE:

A series of digital surgeries that repeat following regular user-defined

sequences, rules and instructions.

GRAFT:

The substitution of a given part or region of the augmented body

with images or 3D meshes downloaded from the cloud.

IMMERSIVISION:

The PAI mode that provides seamless merging of virtual and real

world experiences, making digital surgeries socially relevant.

OPERATION:

A pre-programmed modification in a subjects augmented body,

capable of being executed iteratively when specifed by the subject.

PATIENT:

A subject whose augmented body is modified by someone other

than herself and that may or may not be able to perceive the

changes.

PERSONAL AUGMENTATION INTERFACE (PAI):

A cohesive and elastic interface controlling ever-transforming

aggregations of hardware and software around the body.

PLASTICITY:

The adaptability of the augmented body to changes in time andspace, as well as situations and moods.

SURGEON:

A subject curating virtual modifications to be broadcasted on her

augmented body or that of others.

SURGERY:

A digital modification resulting in changes in ones appearance in

virtual/physical blended space. ThefollowingsymbolsbyTheN

ounProject(thenounproject.com)areusedunderaCCBYlicense:

EyeandSyringeonpage4,

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rlenmeyerFlaskandSickleonpage12,Cloudonpage13.

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TOWARDS AN ETHICS OF

ESTRANGEMENT

SARA HENDREN


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Not only do physically disabled people have experiencesthat are not available to the able-bodied, they are in a bet-ter position to transcend cultural mythologies about the

body, because they cannot do things the able-bodied feelthey must do in order to be happy, normal, and sane

If disabled people were truly heard, an explosion of knowl-edge of the human body and psyche would take place.

Susan Wendell, Te Rejected Body

When you think disability, think zeitgeist. Im serious.

John Hockenberry, Te Next Brainiacs, in Wired (August 2001)

Theres a trump card in all conversations about cy-

borgs that goes like this: You find yourself equallyfascinated and troubled by the latest prospectsfor distributing your intelligence among ever-more-refined machines. You remark that you canno longer tell the difference between your handand your phone, and you mumble some wordsabout authenticity and mediated emotions andvaguely wonder aloud about what human and hu-mane experiences youre losing.

But your conversation partner with that trumpcard will tell you what Donna Haraway told us solong ago: We have always been cyborgs, and thedistinction between the natural and artificial isso blurred throughout history as to be meaning-lessand drawing the distinction tends to be aninstrument of domination anyway. Ever since wepicked up sticks to aid us in catching food or oth-erwise manipulating our environments, we havebeen seamlessly extended by our tools. And this is

ultimately a good thing.

Further, your conversation partner may announcethat you are likely blinkered by the present mo-ment, overvaluing the drama of the changes weare witnessing: All our current hype and fearabout our relationships to technology mirror thescale and tone of the rhetoric that accompanied,say, the advent of cars, or telephones, or some oth-er historical change.

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But this line of thinking is most often a conver-sation stopper, isnt it? I think even a purist would

agree that there are network-enhanced, extensivetools we are using now that outpace even a pro-visional, context-specific ethics or grounded un-derstanding about how to use them and abouttheir ripple effects. Te stakes at hand includehuman agency and passivity, even if it is impos-sible to understand the scale of humachinechanges with confident historical perspective.

Agency and passivity are important stakes indeed,

and the continuing popularity of dystopic futur-ist visions, replete with resentful flesh-machinewarlords, speaks to our anxiety about these stakes.

And yet, much technological research still sur-veys the functional range of a given device andasks: What will this allow us to do? Whatsmore challenging, and more urgent, is an attemptto anticipate: What kinds of lives do we want?What kinds of cities, environments, communi-

ties? And then to fashion speculative and/orpractical tools that lean in those directions.

I want to suggest an overlooked area of researchor, betteranother necessary intellectual posture

toward investigating cyborg machinery that canhelp us approach the frontiers of the next human-machine designs. Let me mention the two mostpopular and visible kinds of machine-flesh cyborgextensions, and then introduce a third kind of toolthat may be rather less familiar.

So much of our cyborg-talk centers around aug-mented reality applications and tools. Frequentconferences and expos feed apparently endless

appetites for AR gadgetry, games, or other meansfor visualizing alternate scenarios that enliven oradd operational depth to our experiences in theworld. Te Layar app for smartphones is cur-rently one of the most celebrated applications ofthis technology, superimposing information and/or contextual data over images captured throughthe phones viewfinder camera. And with wear-able, head-mounted displays, the possibilities forinteractive, digitally-manipulable environments

are just beginning to be explored.


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EksoBionics.

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Ill label these instruments tools for enhance-ment.

Also familiar are tools for restorationmachin-ery that recreates, say, motion or sensation whereit had been lost.

For instance, the DEKA Luke prosthetic arm, aDARPA project created for aiding amputee vet-

erans, includes a range of motion in the fingersso delicate that a user can pick up a single grapewith precision. South African athlete and double-amputee Oscar Pistorius is famously challengingall notions of speed and agility with his bioniclegs; he recently qualified for the World Cham-pionshipsnot for disabled athletes, but againstrunners with flesh-and-bone limbs. And EksoBionics is successfully using its Eksoone of therecently-developed exoskeleton technologies

to allow wheelchair-users to walk.

Tese are extraordinary stories, and they demon-strate the best that the engineering and designfields have to offer. But there is a potential fal-lacy in these narratives: a temptation to claim theend of disability, a triumph over odds such thatdependence couldeven shouldsomehow be-come obsolete.

Famously augmented figures like Pistorius be-

come the face of prosthetics because we consum-ers of these images decide that they havent lettheir disability define them; they have tran-scended the limits of their bodies in an affirm-ing way. Tese cyborgs seem anything but passive,and so we love themthey promise the not-yet-disabled and the not-visibly-disabled, by their ex-ample, that with these very new technologies, it ispossible to overcome our bodies if the need arises.

But the drama that we impose on these stories,with its too-rapid sense of closure, tends to crowd

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nexperience.


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out the many seasoned cyborgs all around us.Tese are ordinary people living with disabilitieswho have long relationships with embedded tech-nologies alreadythey are accustomed to tryingout the available tech that will afford them great-er agency. And they are very, very experienced inthe struggle against passivity, in all senses.

People with disabilities have a long history of

decisions being made for them and things beingdone to them, so they are our richest source ofknowledge about how to become a cyborg withwits intact, and they can help researchers changethe questions about what technology should af-ford us.

Journalist and wheelchair-user John Hocken-berry, who has traveled the (very un-wheelchair-friendly) world for story assignments, wrote in

Wired:

Tese cyborgs, people with disabilities and usingadaptive technologies, already embody the alter-native platform. And thats not hard to believewhen you are looking at Oscar Pistorius.

But Hockenberry writes that most people, ob-serving him on the street or meeting him for thefirst time, still fail to see what he calls the inher-ent body-machine integrity of the way he gets

around, because most people are fixated on themedical aspects of his condition, and most people,

57

When you think disability, you have to free yourself fromthe sob-story crap, all the oversized shrieking about peo-ple praying for miracles and walking again, or triumphingagainst the odds.

...Making the body work regardless of physical deficit isnot a challenge I would wish on anyone, but getting goodat being disabled is like discovering an alternative plat-form.

When you think disability, think zeitgeist. Im serious.1


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if they are honest, are fixated on the tragicmedi-cal aspects of his condition. So we dont see thealternative platform. We see wheelchair-bound.

What if even more of our cyborgian technologi-cal research and design were grounded in the longexperience of people with disabilities? We would

get a lot more than better wheelchairs. We wouldask questions about whether our technologiesare giving (any of ) us more or less freedom. Wewould start to create criteria for less well-knownneeds, and we would learn something about re-taining our power and our senses of self in ourdance with machines.

o that end, I want to suggest a third kind ofcyborg tech to watch for and nurture. I want tosuggest that, in addition to enhancement and re-storative tools, we also create prosthetics and allforms of body-architecture that interrogate theassumptions and ideas about the body, its capaci-ties, and disabled-ness itself.

I want to see more critical devices and designsthat leave open questions about the liberationsand limitations of our extended machine-body-selves, that indicate still-invisible conditions ofability and disability, dependence and strength,that disrupt our easy notions of technical effi-ciency and utility. Id like to see more of what youmight call tools for estrangement.

In Architecture of the Off-Modern, Svetlana Boymwrites that

the device of estrangement places emphasis on the processrather than the product of art, on retardation and defer-

ral of dnoument, on cognitive ambivalence and play. Bymaking things strange, the artist does not simply displacethem from an everyday context into an artistic framework;he also helps to return sensation to life itself, to reinvent

the world, to experience it anew.2

Let me be clear and repeat that I mean an aes-thetic device of estrangement. Tis kind of es-trangement has nothing to do with tools thatenfreak a passive user into an exotic stranger

recent history exhibits an all too common obses-sion with normality and abnormality that makesItaliancollectiveGAIAcreatedthisadaptive

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ters that bear out a users status in subtle ways.

ools that estrange may mean redesigning anordinary tool into something else, raising ques-tions about what that tool is for, who the weareris. Or they may be tools that offer challenges tonew technologies, advancing at the cutting-edgeof design. In any case, these tools should resistthe closure of clear answers. Its akin to what art-ist and industrial designer Krzysztof Wodiczkohas called interrogative design. Its design thatdraws attention to some set of social or cultural or

political conditions and interrogates the origins ofthese conditions. Instead of posing solutions toproblems, interrogative and estranging tools askwhether we are asking the right questions in thefirst place; they ask whether pure use is enough.

When engineers work more closely with artistsand designers, they can collaboratively re-framethe conditions and structures at handand newpossibilities emerge. And when designers refash-

ion or re-program familiar objects in speculativeways, we understand technology more appro-

freaks into spectacles for normals.

I mean, rather, speculative and practical technolo-gies that upend all our expectations about whatassistive aids should do, who they are for, andhow mysterious and often invisible the wholeeconomy of human needs really is.

We are so accustomed to structures and toolsthat organize us: Hearing aids, handrails, ramps,canes, Braille text, and audible crosswalk signalsare created by literal and figurative codes for hu-

mans who use the city in different ways. But thesedifferences harden into abstractions, creating afalse sense of ordered coherence by their divisionof technologies that link a person to her dis/abil-ity in one-to-one fashion.

Moreover, assistive technology engineers willreadily admit that it is easy to get caught in nar-row functionality traps: Here is a straight-aheadproblem; here is how we fix it. It is easy to ignore

the many varied ways that people use their tech-nologies, and there are social and cultural regis-

TakehitoEtanisMasticatorexternalizesthephysicalproces

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priately as techneas articulation of new andpossible applied knowledge that is animated bydisruptive questions: questions of ethics, or equal-ity, or otherwise invisible conditions of contem-porary existence.

Disabled users of cities couldbe guides to a bet-

ter anticipation of our techno-hybrid futures; toooften theyre thought of as dependent minorities,whose interests dont have relevance for the main-stream. Tis is surprising, since anyones abledstatus can change quite dramatically at any time,and since aging alone will continue to disable ev-ery person along some spectrum, at least for thenear future. We need tools and designs that pointto disability and ability as complex interdepen-dence, and to social conditions of accesseitherdiagnostic or circumstantial or historicalthatcan help create critical discussion about the futurethat we all want.

Donna Haraway has also written that the compli-cated notion of the cyborg is capable of sustain-ing oppositional and liberatory projects at the lev-els of research practice, cultural productions, andpolitical intervention.3 ools for estrangementhelp us keep a provocative, oppositional skepti-cism toward received ideas and, with luck, maygrant us liberatory flashes too.

Notes:

1. John Hockenberry, Te Next Brainiacs inWiredAugust 2001. Full text available online.

2. Svetlana Boym, Architecture of the Off-Mod-ern(New York: Princeton Architectural Press,

2008).3. Donna Haraway, Te Biopolitics of Post-modern Bodies: Constitutions of Self in Im-mune System Discourse in her collectionSimians, Cyborgs, and Women: Te Reinventionof Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991).

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NECESSARY MONSTERS IN COLD WAR

ASIA AND THE DIASPORA

AN ILLUSTRATED INDEX OF POLITICAL

OUTCASTS AND OUTSIDERS

SUKJONG HONG


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An Excavation

Tracing the Cold Wars legacy in Asia does notrequire a visit to the monumental ruins of thateras security infrastructure. One can also godown the rabbit hole of cultural production andchildhood cautionary tales to confront its quint-

essential product the enemies in our midst, themonstrous others who threaten the fragile peace.In the United States, these monsters resurface inimmigrant enclaves and are reproduced and rein-forced by ethnic media, benevolent associationsand overseas consulates. Tey circulate by thepower of a rumor, by repetition, and for those un-lucky enough to be branded monstrous, by livedexperience.

As a child, one rarely goes looking for monsterstories. Instead, they find you, relayed casually inthe middle of a conversation or surfacing withina daily ritual. I count myself among those whoreceived a bi-cultural Cold War education, where,along with the standard American fare of War-ner Brothers and Marvel Comics villains, G.I. Joeand M*A*S*H I inherited a canon of monstersfrom a Korean-American community that hadsurvived war and military dictatorship in SouthKorea.

As I traveled from my birthplace of Chicago tothe birthplace of my parents, South Korea, thento Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines, as well asAmerican cities such as Los Angeles and NewOrleans, to where I live now, New York City, Ifound myself moving through communities thathad witnessed hidden massacres, lost loved ones

to extrajudicial killings, and even now were flat-tened by the sound of foreign military exercisesand finding the toxins of jet fuel resurfacing intheir newborns.

Yet, rather than talk directly about their experi-ence and complicity in state violence, peopleoften gave form to their anxieties through thetelling of stories, from hauntings by ghosts to be-trayals by spies, bad women and godless youth. It

turned out that the figures who featured in myinheritance of monster stories were not unique to65

Korean history, but were convenient archetypesacross many societies caught up in the Cold War,in the geopolitics of containing Communism andclaiming influence in Asia, and the rush to mod-ernization and modern statehood. As cautionary

tales relayed by elders, these monster stories aremeant to be thoughtful gifts, disciplining nar-ratives passed down from one generation to thenext, a mythology that runs parallel to that of theAmerican Dream. Yet when monster stories goborder-hopping across eras or national bound-aries, they can lose some of their coherence andlogic, and stand out as obvious artifacts of a po-litical project that has failed to keep its persuasivepower.

As Jorge Luis Borges writes in his preface to theTe Book of Imaginary Beings (1967), the zoo ofmythology would seem to hold an infinite numberof monsters, but in fact, there are necessary mon-sters, those that are congenial to mans imagina-tion and therefore arise across many places anderas. I would argue that the defensive nationalismof emerging nations such as South Korea and thePhilippines produced an impressive pantheon ofsuch necessary monsters figures that were de-viations from the body politic, without loyaltyto the state and void of any discernable humanbond or characteristic. Tese monsters are centralcharacters in the narratives of security states andcultures, part of a larger project of silencing dis-sent and stifling alternative discourse through ex-clusion and fear. Tey engender and justify stateviolence, the surveillance and policing of citizens

by citizens, and manufacture numerous meansto guide the young away from dissenting modesof political participation. Tey work their magicthrough the soft power of an insinuated threat the horror of no longer belonging.

For many diasporic communities in the UnitedStates, these stories are a powerful oral traditionthat fills in the deep silence otherwise surround-ing the pivotal events of history. Te convenient

myth of harmonious ethnic enclaves linked bylanguage, custom, and economic interdepen-


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dence belies the fact that these spaces are alsobattlegrounds where dominant narratives aboutthe past clash with the emerging consciousnessof new generations and conflicting accounts thatchallenge the master narrative. But undoing ex-clusion is not a simple task. It has somehowbecome easy to forget that many Korean, Fili-

pino, and Vietnamese immigrant communitiesin the States were first linked to this country byAmerican military presence and intervention intheir home countries, spurred by the broadcast ofAmerican television, music and film, and facili-tated by the early border-crossers in their fami-lies, from strike-breaking farm workers to USwar brides. But this link, and the resulting needto smooth over this tumultuous past, is a criticaldriver in the production of necessary monsters.

As disruptive facts emerge about the past, as clas-sified state records from the 1950s and 1960s aredeclassified, and as a new and more diverse gen-eration of scholars and artists begin creating andrevising narratives, the storyline that relays whois monstrous is revealed to be an ongoing and in-complete project. I recall a 2006 New York imesopinion piece, Here Tere Be Monsters by fre-quent Korea commentator Aiden Foster Carter.In the op-ed, he notes the unprecedented successof the film Te Host (or Monster in Korean),which as of 2011 is still the most-watched film inSouth Korea, with 13.1 million tickets sold. Tefilm features a terrorizing monster birthed by theillegal dumping of formaldehyde by US militarypersonnel into the Han River, which runs throughthe center of Seoul. o many, the film was seen asa parable of sorts, with the beast as an embodi-

ment of uneasy and unequal relations between thetwo longtime allies. Carter dismisses the largerdebate raging in South Korea about who bears thecost of polluted American bases and of Ameri-can soldiers crimes, and testily concludes, I sup-pose we shouldnt begrudge either South Koreansyearning for national reconciliation or their sum-mer thrills. But maybe they could think a littlemore deeply about where the real monsters are.Predictably, the real monster to Carter and many

other voices commenting on Korean politics isNorth Korea. However, it is clear that he does in

fact begrudge the South Koreans for enthusiasti-cally consuming this allegorical tidbit of film.Such occurrences highlight an interesting pos-sibility when monster stories, instead of beingmerely received and repeated, are transformed, asthe narrative fundamentally shifts and monstersbecome amenable beings that society no longer

rejects outright. Sometimes it takes authors, art-ists, social groups, or broad-based social move-ments to recast the monster as a protagonistrather than a villain. In this shift, monsters areno longer intentionally destructive forces, butcan be portrayed as restless outcasts that hauntand terrorize the living through no fault of theirown. Tey may embody injustice or grievances,personal or collective, of lives taken too soon orforged in horrendous conditions. Sometimes theymay illuminate how the underclass lives, or pro-vide a way to acknowledge or mourn those whohave disappeared or become linked to unspeak-able traumas. As Avery Gordon writes in Ghostly

Matters: Hauntings and the Sociological Imagina-tion(2008), which Grace Cho expounds upon inHaunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy andthe Korean War(2008), hauntings are not rare su-pernatural occurrences, but more often, the unex-amined irregularities of everyday life.

But why dwell on monstrosity? For me, ex-amining the production of monstrous others isnot merely a political or intellectual exercise. Itfeels like an imperative, a necessary act to begindreaming of political and social subjects who arenot forever distributed across the still-powerfulCold War binary of us and them - obedient citi-zens on the one hand and the godless, bloodless

beings wreaking havoc on the other. By namingand giving form to these monsters in represen-tational sketches, I wanted to explore what lies atthe root of these powerful narratives that impli-cate me and many around me, that try to limit theexpression and investigation of what is possiblein this world, politically and socially. What fol-lows is merely an introductory index and a firstattempt within a larger process of questioningthese super-narratives of exclusion.

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1. Ghost Child (The Double)

As a child growing up in Chicago, I recall many classroom lessons about Stranger Danger the adultlurking near playgrounds who conspired to kidnap unaccompanied minors. However, instead of

watching for kidnappers, I dreaded the street corners and bus stops where traumatized Vietnam Warveterans spent their days. One man in particular kept calling me by someone elses name, one which Inow recognize as a Vietnamese name. I always walked past as quickly as I could, but the way he con-tinued to call me, insistently, plaintively, by this name, has stayed with me. Tere was no need to travel

to a war zone to feel the long shadow of US military life overseas. Sometimes, I realized, you can besomeone elses ghost. In this case, the traumatized veteran who lived in his haze of memories, unableto leave the site of war, was Americas living undead, quickly forgotten and left to fend for himself. ButI was his living ghost.


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2. Yankee Princess (The Shapeshifter)

Sometime as a teenager, shopping in the aisles of a department store, I pulled out a wrap shirt andshowed it to my mother. At the time, the wrap shirt was all the rage. What about this? I asked. Sherecoiled, and immediately exclaimed, Tat is what prostitutes wear! At the time, I was startled thata piece of clothing could provoke such horror - and what exactly was a prostitute anyway? But several

years later, as I began to study modern Korean history and travel to the country itself, I began to realizethere were districts and entire towns that good women did not go to namely the camptowns and red-light districts near US military bases. In the Philippines and in Okinawa, Japan, as well, countries thatalso housed significant numbers of American troops, the cautionary figure of the loose woman was

an essential part of growing up female. Te women who left home to make money in the sexual serviceseconomy surrounding American military bases not only numbered in the tens of thousands, but wereamong the first and most significant proportion of post-war immigrants to sponsor their relatives tothe United States, a seldom-discussed fact. In the 1960s and 70s, Korean women working in this sector

were called upon as patriots and personal ambassadors by the presidential political secretary, contrib-uting up to 25% of South Koreas foreign exchange capital, while all implicated governments activelycoordinated and implemented policies to regulate womens bodies to protect American servicepeople.Yet this history of obligatory sexual labor and exploitation is covered up with shame and secrecy, the

women themselves dismissed for decades as Yankee princesses. Tese women were often struck fromthe family record, banished from the domestic realm of housewives and mothers, but often lived on in

monster tales, a modern successor to older tales of shapeshifting fox women the trope of the unreli-able, deceitful, mobile single woman.69


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3. The Ungrateful Orphan

Te gaze of Korean and Vietnam War veteransfollowed me into adulthood. Usually, the Korean

war vet surfaced as a second skin under the firstlayer of someone I was casually having a conver-sation with - the bus driver, the street vendor, anacquaintance. When they found out my ancestry,they replied with some variation of: I fought inthe Korean War. I saved your country In say-ing this, the veterans invoked a relationship ofbenefactor and beneficiary, in which I was theperpetual war orphan, the infantilized symbol ofa nation that had needed rescuing. It became aregular occurrence at anti-war gatherings aroundthe country to be rebuked by veterans for myingratitude. I especially recall when, in a 2002anti-war rally, amidst a crowd that must havenumbered 200,000, a passing troupe of veteransdressed in regalia zeroed in on me and yelled, Isaved your ass! I saved your country! You wouldbe nowhere without us! In that instant and manyothers, I am reduced from a dissenting adult toa perpetual, ungrateful infant, my political viewsascribed to the outrageous rejection of a gift.

Again, I found myself considered monstrous.

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4. The Ivy League Communist Student

Little did I know that I, too, could be cast into the role of monster within the Korean-American com-munity. Doing educational work that highlighted Koreas labor movement or that advocated forchange in the military alliance between South Korea and the US were portrayed as pro-North acts.

And who was I? I was roped into a social grouping of outsiders that of the Ivy League communists aparallel that was already present in the characterization of radical student groups in South Korea, whoalso tended to attend elite universities there. I read about us in the Korean-language local papers orheard comments on the radio, and my parents also repeated it to me when I visited home. In this tell-

ing, student became a pejorative, a status synonymous with someone who has no life experience, whoreads dangerous texts in college, and has the leisure time to entertain radical, world-changing theory.


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5. The Vigilant Mother (The Con)

At the same time, I want to acknowledge a mon-ster that is fully welcomed in diasporic com-munities rather than shunned. Tis monsteremerges regularly, stirring up Cold War rumorsas a way of discrediting certain candidates in lo-cal elections. It has happened several times overthe past decade for districts in Flushing, NewYork, and others where the Asian-American voteis courted, where political candidates are oftenKorean or Chinese. In these instances, suddenly,the Korean-American School Parents Associa-tion or a mothers group suddenly becomes ac-tive. Tey convene meetings to rail against can-didates who have visited North Korea or Chinaor those who have been associated with peace orother political activities in the past. Tey are usu-ally part of someones political campaign, but notexplicitly so. One cannot deny that many are infact, actual parents. But as for their strategy, theysuccessfully invoke the vigilant parent to guaran-tee broader community support while pushing ahidden agenda. For who can argue with an an-gry mother? Tus, this figure is my own politicalbeast to contend with.


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6. Landscapes of Monstrosity and Impossibility

Not only figures and creatures, but landscapesalso feature in the Cold War pantheon of mon-strosity. For example, the demilitarized zone be-tween North and South Korea is composed of 60

years worth of untouched landscape, an ecosys-

tem preserved by 2 million landmines and dot-ted with various observatory points from whichto view North Korea. As a no-mans land, ex-cluded to all but a few, the demilitarized zonehas also become a projection screen for nation-alists, animal lovers, and mystics. While count-less endangered species make their home in thishabitat, there are also more outrageous claims,about extinct species of the Korean peninsula,such as the Siberian tiger, being spotted in the

area. In addition, some have reported sightingsof stranger creatures in more remote locations,such as the lake in the center of Mount Baekduin North Korea, of lake monsters short hairyhominids that were spotted even as late as 2007.

Tus, the DMZ and the view of North Korea be-yond it serve as a kind of container landscape forextinct and fantastical fauna to thrive.

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7. Estranged Landscapes

When I lived and researched in central Vietnam,I rode the train through rural provinces while myVietnamese colleagues pointed out the barrenhills and mountains. Agent Orange and timberdeforestation had created these desolate areas,

they explained. Whatever the exact cause, it wasclear that state-led reforestation was not able tomimic, even remotely, the natural growth of aforest. Te passing scenery looked like a reel oftoothpicks stuck in the earth. When I went to alocal village, the very first place the village leadertook me to was to the tree of 16 hugs, the cen-tral landmark of their village. In this moment, Igot a small glimpse of how great the loss of treescould feel to small rural localities. But I wouldalso argue that these monstrous landscapes arenot unique to Vietnam, but anywhere there is anattack of natural resources along with infrastruc-ture and urban environments. Te landscape be-comes strange, menacing.

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8. Benzene Boy

Tis figure is not so much a monster as a figure haunting manycommunities I have visited. In 2007, I went over the courseof several weekends to visit a small district in the outskirts of

Anghiles City, the Philippines, home to the former Clark AirBase of the US military. Te air base had been closed for some

years already, but I met numerous people who were fighti

OrgransEverywhere no. 3 Cyborgs and Monsters

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