Techno-Prosthetic Romantic FuturismProsthetic Self"It's not like I'm using. It's like my body's developed this massive drug deficiency." [1] William Gibson calls it an old joke, and it is, but it reveals something about subjectivity. The "I" in that sentence becomes aware of itself--conscious--only after the failure of its prosthesis--the drug--to maintain an effortless equanimity. In lieu of subjectivity, then, pharmacology. [2] In lieu of selfhood, prosthesis. Notes1. William Gibson, Neuromancer (New York, Ace: 1984), 3. 2. See Derrida's "The Rhetoric of Drugs," in Points . . . : interviews, ed. Elisabeth Weber, trans. Peggy Kamuf et. al. (Palo Alto: Stanford UP, 1995): 228-55. Navigation |