Tag: cyborg

From Manifesto to Music

Sydney V.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Donna Haraway (September 6, 1944 – present) By jonatkins
https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/donna-haraway-september-6-1944-to-present

In Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, she discusses a world where gender is not limited to binaries but instead is fluid. Her work rejects the rigid gender roles and societal roles in general of our world, such as man versus woman and human versus machine. She calls for us to make the world a place where fluid identity is accepted.

Janelle Monae utilizes similar themes in her album Dirty Computer. Monae challenges traditional ideas of gender and sexuality in many songs in her album. For example. in the song “Make Me Feel,” she explores fluid romantic attraction and rejects the binaries we typically see in society. Her characters in the album also express a variety of gender and sexual identities. In the song “Screwed,” she explains how freedom is found in the true expression of one’s identity.

Monae also criticizes societal boxes that are typically implemented. In her album, she uses the term “dirty computers” to represent groups that are marginalized for being different than the majority. This can be translated to groups such as racial, ethnic, and LGTBQ+ communities in our society today. She uses her album to resist these social constructs and promote non-conformity. Monae also discusses the complex relationship between technology and humanity. Technology is used to dehumanize and deindividualize the individuals in the album; however, technology is also used by the non-conforming people to channel their individuality and fight back against the majority. This highlights the complexity of the widespread implementation of technology in our society. Technology can create both positive and negative effects on society.

Scene from “Dirty Computer” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8343642/

In conclusion, both Cyborg Manifesto and Dirty Computer emphasize the fluidity of identity and technology’s role in helping and hurting society. Monae uses Haraway’s ideas to comment on the lives of marginalized people in today’s society, including racial and gender minority groups, which is extremely relevant to us today.

Challenging Binaries In The Contemporary World: The Haraway-Monae Manifesto

Rudy W.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

In her Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway explores a world in which the concept of traditional or societal binaries, oppression within technology, feminism, and identity are challenged. In her writings, Haraway uses the half-human half machine- cyberog as a metaphor for liberation. The idea of the cyborg represents fluidity being that it is composed of different elements to make up one whole being. Haraway argues that social constructs that are embedded into our society such as gender, sexuality, and identity are not meant to define us, rather they are fluid and constantly evolving.  

Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae explored the Manifesto that Haraway discussed by highlighting themes of liberation, feminism, and queerness. Throughout the album, Monae uses songs such as “PYNK” to highlight the complexities that exist within ones’ identity; directly correlating to Haraway and her idea of a fluid rather than a fixed identity. Monae also incorporates the intersectionality of queernesss within her identity as a black individual by describing how to break away from heterosexual norms which are opressive.Within her identity, Janelle Monae describes herself as a non-binary individual. While she goes by she/her and they/them pronouns, Monae does not believe in the binaries of gender identiy which is a theme that is consistent within Haraway’s Manifesto. 

The most identical themes that are present within Haraway’s and Monae’s works are the technology cyborg elements. As previously mentioned, Haraway uses the cyborg as a metaphor in her Manifesto to represent liberation through technology. The cyborg does not have a fixed identity due to its robotic and human components; it is a fluid entity. Monae uses technological imagery to centralize the idea of their album. In the visual elements of the album, they often portray themselves living in a world that is enhanced by technology while also incorporating afrocentric elements. This is very important when discussing the theme of cyberpunk; a genre in which diversity in the form of Afrofuturism for example, is not very prominent. Janelle Monae uplifted, liberated, and empowered the various communities of which she belongs to: woman, non-binary, queer, African-American. This is the main idea of the Cyber Manifesto. Haraway conceptualized the idea of a non-binary world that allowed identities to be fluid; Monae gave life to this concept.