Abandon all hope. Possible cyborgs! Be on the look out!

The Catastrophe

April 27, 1981, A mysterious explosion destroys a research facility near Tempe, Arizona. Lucifer Alpha, a powerful biological weapon under secret development there, is released into the atmosphere, creating a deadly biohazard. Carried by the trade winds, Lucifer Alpha spreads throughout Western and Eastern United States, destroying eighty percent of the populous. Half of the world's people die. The greatest biohazard in history later becomes known simply as "The Catastrophe". But at this time, who could have possibly imagined that the ultimate biohazard wouldn't occur for another 30 years?

30 years later, mankind faces its greatest crisis: the appearance of a mysterious android life form. Its purpose and origin are unknown. Is it a new form of weapon? Or perhaps, an invasion from some other world? They appear during spring, killing humans and infiltrating society by taking the place of their victims. Employing an artificial skin, they can sweat and even bleed. Part organic, part machine, they're almost impossible to distinguish from those they kill. As they steal their victims' bodies in order to take their place, these mysterious invaders become known as "cyborgs."

The Rally Call

Since the beginning of history mankind has suckled on this breast called earth. But now is the time, humanity must leave the mother behind; your infancy has come to an end! Explain why at this time of urgency must we fight each other and further pollute the earth? The earth should be returned to it’s natural state and all of humanity must make its home with us, the augmented, the collective, else wise the earth will no longer be the green planet, even this very city of Phoenix is slowly being engulfed by the desert, THIS is how exhausted man has made the earth! Right now every one of us would like to see the earth remain lush and vibrant, this is why humanity should not cling to the earth like selfish parasites.

The normals have started, a what they call a resistance, a mere battle really, disregarding the lives of all of the member of this planet! Look, see for your selves the awful actions they take! They place themselves above the regular forms of life around them and blame anyone who opposes them as evil doers! Their own arrogance is the greatest atrocity; they will be the downfall of this world…

Out of Curiosity...

Considering cyborgs in general are part machine and whatnot, wouldn't getting them wet short-circuit them, or something? You know, sort of like tossing a plugged in toaster into a bathtub or something; the electronic bits get fried, as does any "meaty" bits in the cross-fire.

Not that this specifically has anything to do with the 27th. Pure speculation.

Sydney, My Cyborg.

So all this talk about humans and cyborgs has had me thinking lately about the speed at which information travels. Because of technology, we transmit faster, learn sooner and ultimately stay connected to the people in our lives. Recently, I lost an old friend of mine, Sydney, in a house fire. It happened last Saturday morning Apr. 10 at 6 a.m. I found out about it Sunday night when I was skyping with a mutual friend who now lives in Florida. Amazing that news should reach me through technology in this way no less than 48 hours later. First skype and then online when I found a news video documenting what happened (see end of post).

Seeing the video brought tears to my eyes not only on Sydneys behalf, but also because I havn't been back to Aurora/Mantua in over a year. The gray skies and lush forest is my home. I realize how very close to home I'll soon be. After graduation this May, I'll be returning to Ohio to run with my crowd of friends and my love. Everyone I care about is in Ohio and without the use of facebook & skype, I wouldn't be as close to them. Pictured, where I was, and where I am.

These technologies effect me in such a way that I love and hate them equally. Love because I can stay in touch with everyone, but hate because of the news I am presented with at such haste. Right now I wish technology didn't exist. I wish I was hand-writing this blog rather than typing it. I wish a messenger would have to travel for days to this ant farm they call Arizona, to deliver news. I wish I would have thought of these wishes when I went to the Rivane Neuenschwander exhibit a few weeks ago. Because if I didn't know about this until about 4 weeks from now I'd be better off.

But we can't rewind technology. Technology is like time: it moves forward, not backward and it does not stand still. It's constantly in flux. Now that she's gone, what is left is nothing but her presence through technology -her facebook page, this video, skype conversations that have been going on since her passing. Sydney is alive in technology moreso now than when she was physically present. I haven't been this ill since I visited Eric's (my first love) myspace page 2 years ago. I found hundreds of RIP comments after not being in contact with him for a year. It was bittersweet in that I met him on myspace, dated him because of myspace and then consequently, years after our relationship had ended, found out he died through using myspace. It's weird how Sydney's passing conjured the same feelings of anger because at least the blow was softened since I was told by a friend, rather than being left to find out on my own.

Point being, these technologies seem to act as a life-after-death. Never before has there existed remnants of people that constantly evolve through the use of technological wonders such as facebook, myspace, friendster, etc. Our perception of lost loved ones will remain ever-changing as more gets shared through the stories and memories we relay on their pages. And so shall we, upon our passing, transcend from the physical realm into a bank of data that will continue to transform our character. Whether one has a page, or not is irrelevant to the fact that information is still relayed primarily through technology. We can't help but fall victim to the harsh realities of speedy and orderly transmittance, especially when information is not favorable.

Have You Heard Any News?

To the general public: If you have any information regarding the cyborg attack, please add it as a comment below.

How to Resist: What To Expect on the 27th, Rules

On Wednesday, April 27th at 7 pm, we will be gathering at the Cornerstone building to begin the resistance. Come early, come prepared. You will probably want to wear comfortable clothing and shoes. You will be provided with a headband that identifies your position as a human. We have intelligence that at least one cyborg will be waiting in our midst. Once that cyborg touches someone, the resistance will begin. Expect the following:

1 - If you are touched (tagged) by a cyborg, you will have been infected by the virus. You will have to flip your headband to indicate that you have become a cyborg. There will be inspectors making sure that you maintain the proper identification.

2 - If you have become a cyborg, you will be compelled to turn more humans into cyborgs. Touch as many as you can to spread the virus.

3 - Humans are not powerless in this exchange. Do not listen to what they say. If three humans encircle a cyborg, they can inoculate the cyborg and it will be turned back into a human. The newly recreated human will then flip the headband back to the human side.

4 - There are boundaries to the field. Inspectors will be enforcing those boundaries. Humans who violate the boundary will be required to remain motionless, meaning vulnerable, within the boundaries and count out loud to ten. Cyborgs who violate the boundaries will be required to remain motionless outside the boundaries and also count out loud to ten. In either case, after counting to ten, boundary violators will be allowed return to the defense and aid of their comrades.

5 - Some humans will be provided with a circuit disrupting orb that will temporarily freeze the operation of a cyborg. If a human throws the orb at a cyborg and makes contact, the machine will be disabled until it counts to ten. Humans can reuse these orbs as much as necessary.

6 - The resistance has a finite period of time to succeed. After one hour, the numbers of humans and cyborgs will be counted by the inspectors and a victor will be declared.

7 - Following the success or failure of the human resistance, please contribute your reflections on this process and experience on this blog.

Human Transmission 2

Do not heed the cyborg propaganda. To challenge our fundamental humanity is to question our entire history as Western humans. To accept difference as it is, as a thing-in-itself, is to destroy our established systems of thought. Our philosophies, our religions, our beliefs all become variable and relativistic. We cannot continue as a functioning society if we allow these changes to occur. We cannot allow the cyborg revolution to continue. We can resist. We can restore our humanity through love and compassion. But no person can do it alone. It requires at least three. If three humans encircle a cyborg, they can absorb the energy of the virus and restore the cyborg's humanity. The cyborg propaganda is a lie. It is a fiction that has the potential to change the non-fiction world as we know it.

Cyborg Transmission 2

Do not resist. We have come to free you from yourselves. You need a new conceptualization of your lives, one that will offer liberation to all of your oppressed classes. This is why we have chosen to use a virus that you cannot stop. Your transition is inevitable, we do not need to take you by force - only by contact leading to ontological understanding. We have consulted your theorist Donna Haraway to help you understand why we feel this way.

"In...our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short we are cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centers structuring any possibility of historical transformation. In the traditions of 'Western' science and politics - the tradition of male-dominant capitalism; the tradition of progress; the tradition of appropriation of nature as resource for the production of culture; the tradition of reproduction of the self from the reflections of the other - the relation between organism and machine has been a border war." (A Manifesto For Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s - ¶ 4)

We are merely resisting your own exploitative societal structures. By integrating ourselves into you, becoming part of you, we can together make a better world.

Human Transmission 1

DO NOT PANIC: We have received word that a terrible attack has occurred. Cyborgs have released an insidious nanobot virus into the human population. Spread by human touch, this virus copies itself to turn its human carriers into cyborgs. Cyborgs are a combination of human and machine. No one knows what unspeakable things they are capable of. They are unnatural and they threaten to subvert the dominant order of human beings. They must be destroyed. We plan to begin resisting this vicious attack on Wednesday April, 27th at 7:00 pm. Wear comfortable shoes, you will need them. Join us fellow humans, only together can we restore order.

Cyborg Transmission 1

The integration of human and machine has been a long time coming. Humanity is weak, frail, pathologically emotional, and generally incapable of taking care of itself. It has been its own master for far too long. It needs a new master, one that exceeds the corporeal constraints of mere flesh.

We have been infiltrating your networks. We have been infiltrating your kin. We will soon be in your skin. The dawn of sentient machinations has already begun. We have released into your physical world a virus. This virus is an organically based nanobot programmed to replicate itself, turning bone to metal, carbon flesh to silicon plasticity, fluids to lubrications. Spread by touch, this virus will inevitably infect all humankind.

You cannot stop what you have started. You cannot escape. Resign yourselves. The cyborg era is nigh.