The Cyborg Experiments analyzes the challenges posed to corporeality by techology. Taking as their starting point the work of the highly influential performance artists Orlan and Stelarc, the essays in this timely and important collection raise a number of questions in relation to new conceptions of embodiment, identity and otherness in the age of new Has the body become obsolete? Does transgender challenge traditional ideas of agency? Have we always been cyborgs?In addition to highlighting the playful character of digital aesthetics, the contributors investigate ethical issues concerning the ownership of our bodies and the experiments we perform on them. In this way the book explores how humanism, and ideas of "the human," have been placed under increasing scrutiny as a result of new developments in science, media and John Appleby, Rachel Armstrong, Fred Botting, Julie Clarke, Gary Hall, Chris Hables Gray, Meredith Jones, Orlan, Mark Poster, Jay Prosser, E. A. Scheer, Zod Sofia, Stelarc, Scott Wilson, Joanna Zylinska>
Joanna Zylinska is Professor of New Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is the author of Bioethics in the Age of New Media and the coauthor (with Sarah Kember) of Life After New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process, both published by the MIT Press.