Week 6 Questions

1) Steve Mann describes his wearable computer invention as a form of ________ for one person (fill in the blank)
(see youtube link to Mann interview in web resource page)

surveillance

2) Steve Mann's concept of opposing camera surveillance with "Sousveillance" is described as a form of “reflectionism”. What is meant by this?
(in ReadingsF)

He is using reflectionism to describe a way for the person being surveilled to surveil the surveiller. He puts it in terms of “reflectionism” to infer a mirror effect with surveillance. In other words, whoever is imposing surveillance will some how be surveilled by another.

3) In the section of "Sousveillance" called "Performance Two" Steve Mann describes how wearing his concealed device becomes more complex when used in what type of spaces?

Semi-public spaces such as shopping malls.

4) The final paragraph sums up what Mann considers the benefits of "sousveillance" and "coveillance". What are they?
(ReadingsF)

They offer the protection of the village/community or hierarchical organization. In other words, there is a check and balance between the people in charge of surveillance and the people who surveil those people.

5) In William J Mitchell's 1995 book "City of Bits" in the chapter "Cyborg Citizens", he puts forth the idea that electronic organs as they shrink and become more part of the body will eventually resemble what types of familiar items?
(ReadingsF)

They will become more like clothing, soft wearables that fit to the contours of your body such as shoes, gloves, contact lenses, and hearing aids.

6) From the same book/chapter, list two of the things that a vehicle that 'knows where it is' might afford the driver & passengers.
(ReadingsF)

- direct you to the nearest gas station
- supply information about passing buildings and their occupants

7) Mitchell tells the story of Samuel Morse's first Washington-to-Baltimore telegraph message. What was it?
(ReadingsF)

“What hath God wrought.”

8) Donna Harroway in "A Cyborg Manifesto" argues that women should take the "battle to the border". What does she say are the stakes in this border war?
(in ReadingsF)

The stakes are the territories of production, reproduction, and imagination.

9) Harroway posits the notion that:
"We require regeneration, not rebirth, and the possibilities for our reconstitution include the utopian dream"
What is this dream?
(in ReadingsF)

The dream is “the hope for a monstrous world without gender.”

10) Many have argued that 'we are already cyborgs' as we use devices such as glasses to improve our vision, bikes to extend the mobility function of our legs/bodies etc, computers and networks to extend the nervous system etc. What do you think? Are we cyborgs?
(one paragraph)

I believe that we are cyborgs, but not the form of cyborgs that are often depicted in movies and television. We are cyborgs because we are able to perform and unthinkable amount of tasks or gather information using a single device, such as a smartphone. Although I do not believe that it extends to our nervous systems, I think that the technology available has transformed the way we interact and communicate with each other and the rest of the world in a way that a cyborg would without the need for robotic implants or robotic arms like in Terminator.