Lexicon

Abject
Accretion
Actant
Aeration
Aerobic
Algae-boosted
Animal
Anthropomorphism
Anti-Continuous Construction
Apocalypse
Aquaculture
Aquanaut
Ark
Artificial Intelligence
Autopoiesis
Assemblages
Asymmetry
Atrophy
Attraction
Autarchy
Automata
Automation
Autosymbiosis
Bambassador
Bathyscaphe
Bioconurbation
Biomedia
Bionics
Biosphere
Biotechnique
By-product
Capacity
Actant
Coisolation
Composting
Conservative Surgery
Consumer Envelope
Consumption
Continuous Construction
Conurbation
Correalism
Cultural_Memory
Cybernetics
Cybertecture
Cyborg
Dispositif
Diving Saucer
Dross
Earthship
Ecocatastrophe
Effluvium
Egosphere
End-use
Entanglement
Eutopia
Feedback
Foam
Folk
Gadget
Garbage House
Green Cyborg
Heuristic
Hoard
Holism
Homogenization of Desire
Hostile
Human Affect
Hybridized Folk
Hydroponic
Hyper-Materialism
Information Economy
Inner Space
Interama
Intra-Uterine
Maque
Megalopolis
Min-use
Mobility
Monorail
Multi-Hinge
Non-Design
Oceanaut
Oppositional Consciousness
Organic
Ouroboros
Panarchy
Parasite
Perceived Continuation
Permanence
Place
Prototype
Post-Animal
Reclamation
RI: Data Farms
RI: Garbage and Animals
RI:Shipbreaking
RI: Toxic Sublime
Sampling
Scale
Sensing Structure
Simulacrum
Simulation
Soft Energy
Spaceship Earth
Submersible
Superwindow
Symbiosis
Synthetic Environment
Technocratic
Technological Heredity
Technological Sublime
Telechirics
The Sublime
Thermal Panel
Actant
Thing-Power
Thinking Machines
Tool
Toxic Withdrawal
Turbulence
UV-Transparent Film
Vibrant Matter
Waste
Work

Simulacrum

Root: Latin simulāre- imitate, from similis- like, likeness. In her exposition of the ‘Cyborg’ world known as modern human life, Donna Haraway defines “simulacra” as Plato did; as “copies without an original”1. This poetic but enigmatic description raises a host of connected questions reaching deep into ontology and semantics; if there exists no corresponding “original”, how can an object claim to be a “copy”? The word “simulacrum” is of Latin origin, meaning likeness or similarity. The term was used first to describe effigies of deities; crafted representations of intangible, and almost by definition indescribable beings. The term then took on its more modern meaning of a re-presentation; a copy. It was perhaps in the age of mechanical reproduction2 that the term took on a negative tint, denoting a product that lacked the (presumably desirable) qualities of the original that it takes as its referent point. The definition of “simulacrum” presupposes and requires, in lieu of a true referent “original”, a shared understanding of its character. However, the hybrid nature of the Cyborg being’s existence is one that necessarily subverts and eludes attempts at the construction of a universal experience. Moreover, the Cyborg’s disassociation with the organic reproductive systems means it has a different understanding of mortality; the Cyborg dreams of being constantly regenerated, not of being reborn as its human ancestors did. 3 Haraway’s use of the word “simulacra” to describe the character of the cyborg being is important as it emphasizes the Cyborg’s lack of a focused “origin-point”, the intensive creation-and-apocalypse myth that has enthralled humans for so long. Instead, the cyborg has come into being insidiously; through assimilation, re-appropriation, upgrading and the use of simulacra. The connections between human, nature, and machine have become intricately interwoven through the continuous extension of will and consciousness, and it is already too late to deny that “we are, in short, cyborgs.” 4 Anthony Vidler’s essay on “Cyborg homes” reminds us modern cyborgs of the half human, half machine inventions of the past, and the importance of learning to copy in order to advance; to simulate in order to create. It is precisely the rejection, opposition of the ‘original’ that is key to the Cyborg’s great flexible strength in its lived battle against oppression, conformity and stagnation, what Haraway calls the Cyborg’s state of “permanent construction”.

1. Donna Haraway, “Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s” in Socialist Review, no. 80 (1985), pp. 65–108.
2. See “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin, originally published in (German) Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung in 1936.
3. Donna Haraway, “Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s” in Socialist Review, no. 80 (1985), pp. 65–108.
4. Anthony Vidler, “Homes for Cyborgs; Domestic Prosthesis from Salvador Dali to Diller and Scofidio,”Ottagono, No.96 (1990), pp. 37–55.