Human
After reading, I realized that human understanding is more comprehensive and different from my previous knowledge. Stories demolish the old-fashioned humanistic concept of humanism from the Renaissance and Enlightenment epochs, which used to praise people as the stable, rational, self-knowing beings at the center of the universe.
Thinkers such as Copernicus, Darwin, Einstein, Freud, and Nietzsche explored the possibility that humans are not as fixed or static as the Greek philosophers suggested and that our perception of reality also has its limits. Feminist and postcolonial theorists like Irigaray, Fanon, and Spivak criticized the original humanist model as being white, European, able-bodied, cisgender male-centered, which left out vast segments of humanity.
Braidotti’s posthumanist research brings up questions as to whether the “human” is even a real category and if it is possible for us to really “transcend” or “move beyond” it. Krenak’s indigenous approach disputes the Western notion of “humanity” as a universal concept since, according to him, it was ingeniously used to justify colonization and exploitation of other cultures. These readings have demonstrated a great deal of flexibility and complexity in the human concept and how it can be viewed from many angles, which requires constant re-examination and deconstruction.
Animals
This class has demonstrated how my vision of animals and their status in the human-technology relationship has significantly changed. First, my opinion was rather traditional, and I considered animals separate from humans, whose roles were mainly determined by their functionality or just being pets. Nevertheless, the course readings and discussions have made me rethink my original perspective and realize the complex dynamics between humans, animals, and machines in the technoculture in our current time (Paxling, 2019).
This is one point that made me understand that animals are living beings in this digital world, and they are not the ones who are being used unknowingly. The narration of Jessica Maddox tells us how Instagram pet accounts are used as a medium to create happiness and counter the evilness of the internet. “Searching for contentment and aesthetics beyond obvious sources is, in itself, an act of resistance; animals and their digital forms have often played this role,” Maddox asserts (p. 3338). Hence, animals are not just objects of ownership or exploitation but also a source of joy and resistance against this notion.
Besides, “Homemade Pet Celebrities” by Natalie Ngai has shed new light on the emotional ties between people and animals in the digital world. Ngai believes that the micro-celebrity experience is based on a more incredible allure of shared feelings than on making commercial gains. Social media creates “teamwork” when sharing pictures of our pets, which implies that the idea about pets as belonging to us is not exactly true. This concept goes against the view of pets as possessions and adds more complexity to interspecies relationships in the digital era.
Moreover, the “extended self” discussed in the readings calls my attention to the differentiating line between humans, animals, and machines (Grgić & Novena, 2021). In the digital age, the extended self appears online via the images of other people, places, things, or pets, and this blurs the boundaries between the self and itself. This challenges the idea of human exceptionalism and asks us to rethink the relationships between humans and animals or machines.
However, these readings have enhanced my knowledge but equally presented some complexities and inconsistencies. Although pet Instagram accounts promote happiness, they are not exempted from the more significant societal issues on the internet, such as commodification and the “cute economy” (p. 3346). Thus, the escapism, resistance, and exploitation conflict demonstrated here reveals the complexity of human-animal relationships on digital platforms. Through this course, my view of animals has been dramatically altered. I have been forced to question the stereotypical view that has been around for centuries and feel more prepared to look at animal-human-technology interactions differently. Though these readings have enriched my knowledge, they have also brought another thought-provoking and complex question that underlines the fact that the relationships between humans and others in digital days are never finalized.
Machine
Reading, my comprehension of “machines” has been significantly augmented beyond devices and tools, which are just technological ones. The music synthesizers used by Tara Rodgers build a case that machines can be creative tools that connect technology and artistic imagination and redefine traditional borders (Ogilvie-Hanson, 2021).
The song by Janelle Monee, “Many Moons,” shows that machines and technology can be the means for discovering identity, especially regarding perspectives such as Afrofuturism, which is usually the case for marginalized people. The machine now contemplates a more significant concept than just the functional objectives.
In the context of memes, the Milner & Zulli and Zulli & Zulli scholars treat internet platforms as “mimetic machines” as their designed functions can influence participatory cultural production by making imitation and duplication easier. Also, Humphries’ idea of “the qualified self” emphasizes that a specific data trail of our online activities and data traces ends up in a machine or personal branding machine that is used to present us how we want to be seen.
In general, the readings have presented me with machines not only as technical objects but as sociotechnical systems within the human practices, cultures, and identity performances through which they are entangled in a sophisticated manner. Machines become spaces where technology, gender, race, art, and politics coalesce and undergo a reconciliation process.
References
Grgić, A., & Novina, M. (2021). Extended self and identity over time. Disputatio philosophica: international journal on philosophy and religion, 23(1), 65-76.
Ogilvie-Hanson, E. (2021). Posthuman Production: Technology and Embodiment in the Works of SOPHIE and Holly Herndon.
Paxling, L. (2019). Transforming technocultures: feminist technoscience, critical design practices and caring imaginaries (Doctoral dissertation, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola).
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