行政院國家科學委員會專題研究計畫成果報告

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行政院國家科學委員會專題研究計畫成果報告

人機複合體的性別與族裔迷思：亞洲藝術家林欣怡, 森萬里子與李部作品之比較(I)

研究成果報告(精簡版)

計畫類別：個別型

計畫編號： NSC 98-2629-H-468-019-

執行期間： 98 年 08 月 01 日至 99 年 07 月 31 日執行單位：亞洲大學外國語文學系

計畫主持人：陳淑娟

報告附件：出席國際會議研究心得報告及發表論文

處理方式：本計畫可公開查詢

中華民國 99 年 10 月 30 日

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行政院國家科學委員會補助專題研究計畫行政院國家科學委員會補助專題研究計畫行政院國家科學委員會補助專題研究計畫

行政院國家科學委員會補助專題研究計畫 ■ 成果報告成果報告成果報告成果報告

□期中進度報告期中進度報告期中進度報告期中進度報告

人機複合體的性別與族裔迷思人機複合體的性別與族裔迷思人機複合體的性別與族裔迷思

人機複合體的性別與族裔迷思：：：亞洲藝術家林欣怡：亞洲藝術家林欣怡亞洲藝術家林欣怡亞洲藝術家林欣怡, 森萬里子與李部作品之比較森萬里子與李部作品之比較森萬里子與李部作品之比較森萬里子與李部作品之比較(I)

計畫類別：■個別型計畫 □整合型計畫計畫編號：NSC 98-2629-H-468-019-

執行期間： 98 年 08 月 01 日至 99 年 07 月 31 日執行機構及系所：亞洲大學外國語文學系

計畫主持人：陳淑娟共同主持人：

計畫參與人員：黃偉齡、林喻晨、羅苡菱、林家華、吳芊紫、朱靜軒、

簡嘉妏

成果報告類型(依經費核定清單規定繳交)：■精簡報告 □完整報告

本計畫除繳交成果報告外，另須繳交以下出國心得報告：

□赴國外出差或研習心得報告

□赴大陸地區出差或研習心得報告

■出席國際學術會議心得報告

□國際合作研究計畫國外研究報告

處理方式：除列管計畫及下列情形者外，得立即公開查詢

□涉及專利或其他智慧財產權，□一年□二年後可公開查詢

中華民國九十九年十月二十一日

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一、中英文摘要及關鍵詞

中文摘要

網路藝術與數位藝術成了九○年代至今的當代藝術現象，有鑑於網路與數位創作藝術之普及，被視為位處科技邊緣的女性藝術家也分享了它帶來的便利，再者，隨著全球化的到來，

亞洲國家在科技發展上逐漸佔有世界上重要的地位，因此，不只在台灣，在鄰近的日本與韓國，陸續出現了不少以網路與數位媒體為創作媒介的女性藝術家，這些亞洲女性藝術家在其科幻創作中提出了與亞洲文化中的性別與族裔相關的題材。因此本計劃的研究對象為跨國研究，包括了台灣藝術家林欣怡、日本藝術家森萬里子(Marik Mori)，以及韓國藝術家李部(Lee Bul)。首先，三位女性藝術家之作品都具體呈現了重塑亞洲女性形象的企圖，尤其在科幻世界中，亞洲女性幻化成人機複合的綜合體，這些後人類的女性形象以亞裔女性的臉孔與身份出現，顛覆了以往只由白種女性在科幻世界中扮演的慾望對象，轉而成為自我形塑的主體。

亞洲女性在科幻的空間中是否成功地僭越了西方標準下「他者」的面貌，奪取了西方世界單向的創作權與詮釋權？值得探究。再者，三位藝術家在其作品中的性別觀點與科幻世界中的虛擬、扮裝、甚至嬉戲，都是她們作品中最重要的母題，因此本文將以 Donna Haraway 以及 Jennifer González 提出的有色女性之後人類科幻主義論點為主軸，展開對作品內涵的分析。

英文摘要

Cyber and digital arts are increasing phenomena in contemporary art since the 1990s. The widespread creation of artwork in cyber and digital arts allows female artists greater benefits and convenience. Female artists have been placed on the margin of technology. The desire to be artists stem from their beliefs that visual art is a compelling way to deliver ideas and change society for the better. To these artists having and fulfilling social responsibilities that ask difficult questions, challenge current thinking, and rethink social norms. Therefore, not only in Taiwan, but also in Japan and Korea, there are many female artists who use cyber and digital technology as the medium of their work and reveal the gender perspective on Asian identity issues and ethnicity.

Because of these observations, the authors investigated the work of three female Asian artists:

Hsin-I Lin from Taiwan, Mariko Mori from Japan, and Lee Bul from Korea. These three artists objectively reconstruct the image of Asian women, especially in the realm of science fiction. For example, Asian women can be mutated cyborgs. These feminine images of post-apocalyptic humans appear with Asian faces and identities. These images subvert the erotic objectification of white women previously used in the cyber world and change the subjects in their own right. Asian women successfully arrogate and replace the traditional images, which have typically only

represented the discourse of the West. They disinherit the dogmatic authorities of creation and explication. Furthermore, this paper will highlight the concerns of gender perspectives and the metaphors behind the virtualization and performance, which are the most important motifs in their work, as they try to explore the possible definition of Asian female cyborg.

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關鍵詞

身體、認同、亞洲女性、網路藝術、生化人、賽伯人、人機複合體、科幻、性別研究、

他者

body, identity, Asian woman, cyber art, cyborg, science fantasy, gender studies, other 二、報告內容

前言

人機複合體(cyborg)的概念最早於 1960 年代被提出，指的是採用輔助機械來增強人類克服環境的能力，目前關於人機複合體的中文譯名還有「賽伯人」、「生化人」、「機器人」、「機械體」，或是以「後人類」(posthuman)做為此類人體機器人的統稱。關於 cyborg 的討論已成為一門學科—Cyborglogy，而 cyborg 指的是一個神經機械有機體(cybernetic organism)，一個有如虛構物的社會現實創造物，也就是這樣的一個由現實創造的虛構體，讓原本也被納入在

「他者」(other)的女性與 cyborg 有了連結的脈絡。本計劃由此面向觀察與思考台灣以及鄰近各國的科技與人文環境，發現台灣網路無遠弗屆，台灣的性別議題也呈多元發展，而性別議題不再只是隱身於傳統的文字書寫或藝術創作，網路的發展帶動台灣對於性別議題的認知，

而身為亞洲全球化語境下的一份子，台灣與日本、韓國女性藝術家在網路數位藝術創作中，

皆呈現了其文化與族群所特有的性別面向，此研究將對亞洲女性與科技之間所創作出來的性別科幻文類，找到發言的位置。

研究目的

筆者認為，cyborg 的理論不能只與後現代接軌，更重要地是，人機複合體的概念與爬梳必須與後殖民做一連結，才能看出有色女性在全球位置如何自處的端倪。本計劃除了分析三位女性藝術家之作品，讓更多閱聽人進入網路數位藝術瀏覽與觀賞外，期以帶動台灣與亞洲各國女性針對科技發展此議題的創作與觀點做一交流與研究，在亞洲女性觀點下審理出屬於亞洲女性獨有的性別科幻文類，並進一步再思亞洲女性科技人未來的創作與批判路徑。

文獻探討

隨著網路女性主義的提出，除了白人女性意識到女性在科技與網路世界所形構出的創作與議題值得重視與研究外，有色女性的女性主義主義者也紛紛提出以族裔和有色女性為觀點的性別與科技觀，用以對抗西方霸權論述，其中包括 Haraway 的生化人宣言 (Cyborg Manifesto)、Braidotti 提倡以浪人(nomad)的姿態游移於科幻空間、 González 則試圖建構結合族裔與科技的批判性理論，而針對這些理論所進行的有色女性研究包括了怪物,女神,性愛生化人等面向,皆可見 Fouser, Volkart 等人之著作。再者, 也有學者以網路數位世界中的基因變異/進化為研究，提出了科幻世界中的性別與創造主的問題，可見 Daubner, Flanagan 等人之著作。

而在台灣，《網際網路的衝擊》、《網路與性別》、《數位藝術概論》等三本主要與網路數位藝術相關的書籍在二十一世紀出現，為此領域增添參考價值, 但書中卻難以對目前的女性網路數位藝術家之作品做一完整的研究。此外亦有數篇談論超文本的創作，參

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見李順興、陳古綺、郭挹芬、蕭惠君等人之著作，或是對鄭淑麗作品的討論，參見孫立銓、黃思嘉等人之著作，是比較接近探討藝術作品的相關研究，所以若與文學領域中探討科幻作品的研究相比較，台灣對於網路藝術作品中所呈現的性別與文化議題顯然不足，

也較缺乏理論的運用，再者，若談到跨國的研究，並且以亞洲女性觀點為焦點，更無相關論文，可見此領域中此類研究之不足，因此，本計劃的研究成果已試圖彌補此領域研究面向之不足，而從亞洲女性的觀點做一切入點，也提供了另一研究的可能性，唯在理論的運用上仍需借助非裔或拉丁裔有色女性學者的論點，較無法突顯出亞裔女性身為他者形象的特殊性。

Braidotti, Rosi. 2003. “Cyberfeminism with a Difference.” Jones 531-33.

---. 1997. “Mothers, Monsters, and Machines.” Conboy, Medina and Stanbury 59- 79.

Conboy, Katie, Nadia Medina and Sarah Stanbury eds. 1997. Writing on the Body: Female

Embodiment and Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia UP.

Daubner, Ernestine. “Manipulating Genetic Identities: The Creationof Chimeras, Cyborgs and (Cyber-)Golems.” Parachute 105: 84-91.

Flanagan, Mary. 2000. “Navigating the Narrative in Space: Gender and Spatiality in Virtual Worlds.” Art Journal 59: 74-85.

Fouser, Robert. 1998. “Avatar of a Feminine God.” Art/Text 60:34-6.

González, Jennifer. 2003. “The Appended Subject: Race and Identity as Digital Assemblage.”

Jones 534-45.

Gonzales-Day, Ken. 2001. “Choloborg; or, The Disappearing Latino Body.” Art Journal 60: 23-6.

Haraway, Donna. 2003. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Jones 475-497.

Hoffmann, Frank. 2002. “Lee Bul: Cyborgs and Karaoke.” Art in America 90.5:124-27.

Jones, Amelia ed. 2003. The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. New York:Routledge.

Lacecetti, Jessica. 2004. “Representing Realities-Toward a Feminist Hyperfiction.” Suite 101 31 Mar. 2007 <http://www.suite101.com/print_article.cfm/

postmodern_literature_criticism/111084>

Noyes, John K.. 2004. “Nomadism, Nomadology, Postcolonialim: By way of Introduction.”

Interventions 6.2: 159-68.

Volkart, Yvonne. 2000. “This Monstrosity, This Profileration, Once Upon A Time Called Woman, Butterfly, Asian Girl.” Make, the magazine of women’s art 89:4-7.

Jordan, Tim 著。2003。《網際網路的衝擊》。江靜之譯。台北：韋伯。

林宇玲。2004。《網路與性別》。台北：華之鳳。

紀大偉。2006。＜色情烏托邦：「科幻」，「臺灣」，「同性戀」＞。《中外文學》35.3(411) 17-45。

李順興。2003。＜超文本的蒙太奇讀法與資料庫形式＞。《文山評論》1.5：9-36。

---。＜超文本文學形式美學初探＞。Intergrams: Studies in Languages and Literature 29 Apr.

<http://benz.nchu.edu.tw/~intergrams/intergrams/002/002-lee.htm>

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孫立銓。2001。＜網路旅人---E 世代藝術家鄭淑麗＞。《藝術 99 專題—創作交流。異文化》

7：30-37。

黃思嘉。1999。＜網路藝術—改變身體架構，創造無限可能：專訪國際網路藝術家鄭淑麗＞。

26 Feb 1999 <http://news.etat.com/etatnews/text/990226-3.htm>

葉謹睿。2005。《數位藝術概論》。台北：藝術家。

蔣淑貞。1998。＜兩性戰爭可休矣？當代女性科幻小說的敍事模式與性別政治＞。《中外文學》26.8(308) ：32-47。

陳古綺、郭挹芬。2005。＜超文本藝術非友善互動書寫之時代性特質初探--以網路互動裝置藝術為例＞。《商業設計學報》9：255-270。

蕭惠君。2006。＜敘事文體在超文本、互動式故事、與數位電玩上的表現＞。《視覺藝術》9：

41-64。

研究方法

哈洛葳(Donna Haraway)從史學與哲學角度省思 cyborg 的可能意義，她在＜人機複合體宣言＞(A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s)一文中指出，cyborg 就是人的本體，因為二十世紀末的人類已是生物體與機器體的混雜種，而生物體與機器體之間的關係趨於模糊，已然成為社會建構的本質；此外，三種界限的模糊，讓人機複合體的分析成為可能：第一種為人與動物的界限，第二種為動物、人等生物體與機器 (animal-human or organism, and machine)，第三種則是肉體與非肉體((physical and

non-physical)(10-12)。延續以上所述的越界之思考，cyborg 讓女性主義者在受壓迫的社會情境中有了脫困與發揮的機會，其一是因為人機複合體提供論述的虛擬空間，容許女性主義者對抗既有父權文化下的權力結構；其二是人機複合體不一定是女人，但卻是具有女性主義特質的生物體，此觀念顛覆了現代性社會的典範。此外,拉丁裔的女性學者 González 更以其族裔背景為基礎，提倡在網路空間中重構一個有別於西方他者的女性形象。因此本計劃的研究方法採用有色女性主義者所提出以族裔和有色女性為觀點的性別與科技觀，用以對抗西方霸權論述的思考脈絡進行分析，試圖建構亞洲女性在科技世界中的身體觀與身份認同。

結果與討論

森萬里子的作品雖有意呈現亞裔女性在科幻氛圍下的東方以及神力，但因其奇觀化了東方女性的形象，在呈現與再現的兩難中，仍需要藝術家更多的智慧與思考；林欣怡的人機複合體有著自主的情慾主體，但是否能夠達到翻轉或顛覆的效果，仍有待更多的分析與論述；

而李部的女機器人呈現了她對西方科技的批判，尤其是女性在藝術史上的形象塑造，再者，

女機器人不完整的身體同時並存著幻想、恐懼、生長、殘缺的兩極化觀感，讓李部的作品充滿了交叉辯證的可能。不過，可以確定的是，從三位藝術家近年來不斷在西方大型美術館的展出，以及參與各個雙年展的情況看來，來自亞洲女性藝術家的作品已獲得了西方藝術世界的重視與迴響，這或許象徵著自我詮釋的主體已經產生，亞洲女性在網路數位藝術的領域裡已開創了有色女性自我論述的先機。

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for Emerging Artists(《台灣當代美術大系—陰性．酷語》). Taipei: Council for Cultural

Affairs, 2003.

Su, Chien- Hua (蘇健華). “ Cyborg, Cyborg Manifesto & Researches on Cyborg”(＜Cyborg、烏 托邦：個人解放的騙局！？＞). Journal of Cyber Culture and Information Society 3(2002): 113-147.

---. “Cyborg、Utopia: The Lie of Individual Relieves!?”(＜Cyborg、Cyborg 宣言與 Cyborg 研究

＞). Journal of Cyber Culture and Information Society 11(2006): 37-114.

Volkart, Yvonne. “This Monstrosity, This Proliferation, Once Upon A Time Called Woman, Butterfly, Asian Girl.” Make, the magazine of women’s art 89(2000):4-7.

Wu, Hsiaomei (吳筱玫). “Rewriting Cyborg: A Cybernetic Perspective” (＜重寫「賽伯人」：一個模控的觀點＞).

Chinese Journal of Communication Research 1(2002): 187-214.

四、計畫成果自評

此計劃已初步完成三位研究對象之作品分析，更進一步結合有色女性主義者所提倡之後人類女性主義，將之運用並詮釋其作品內涵，在分析過程中，筆者發現科技與後殖民的結合是一項新嚐試，再加上理論的來源缺乏亞洲人的觀點，因此稍有不慎，有可能再次落入自我東方化的困境，森萬里子的作品即為一例。再者，評論與創作者本身的初衷總有一段距離，

例如：針對林欣怡的評論中，對於她是否能利用自我的身體，翻轉觀看的機制，大多保持懷疑的態度，然而，經由筆者的親自訪談，透過林欣怡對自己作品的闡述與理念分享，筆者發現在研究者藉由理論推敲作品之時，並無法真正地分辨創作的真相，唯有透過第一手的訪談，

方能激發出新思維與具突破性的研究觀點，因此，此計劃與創作者的訪談可視為重要的研究成果，其內容亦補充單向式的理論分析未逮之處；未來，筆者也將持續進行此類型的訪談研究，希冀完成一份完整的訪談錄。相對的，建立訪談錄雖是最珍貴的研究資料卻也是最難達成的目標，此乃因經費的限制以及受訪對象的因素而無法如願，幸運的是本計劃已完成林欣怡的專訪，而李部的專訪則只能以電子郵件進行，但她個人提供的資料可彌補此缺憾，另，

森萬里子雖無法取得連繫，但筆者選擇籍由大量的相關評論與理論運用，分析其作品內涵，

亦已達成原訂之研究目標。

因此，此計劃的研究成果與價值可視為改善目前台灣人文藝術領域對於網路科技之研究

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視為畏途的現象，並補充研究數量之不足，此外，此計劃已有效整合視覺藝術、網路科技、

性別研究等領域的跨界研究，為一向以科技技術為傲的台灣，除了硬體科技的發達外，注入更多的人文藝術與性別議題的觀點。而參與此計劃之工作人員已習得專訪藝術家之技巧 (筆者與黃偉齡共同進行)，與整理訪談資料之重要性(由林喻晨記錄)，再者，參與者並撰寫論文，

習得網路數位藝術與性別議題之分析，有助未來研究能力之訓練(筆者與黃偉齡共同發表論文)，更重要的是，參與者已習得亞洲女性科技觀點下的性別研究之發展近況，希冀可將之運用於未來的教學與研究上(在此計劃後，筆者另一個針對女性與科技議題的研究：「女同性戀自傳超文本之敘述與視覺美學探討」，再次獲得 99 年度國科會專題研究計劃補助，除了是一項鼓勵外，更可視為筆者在此議題的延伸研究)。

最後，衷心感謝國科會對本計劃之補助與支持，在基本目標達成後，希冀除了參與者能在未來有更一步的相關研究出現外，期盼有更多結合性別與科技的研究，以立足台灣、放眼全球的精神，豐富並拓展此領域的研究觀點與面向。

五、附錄

本計劃部份研究成果已投稿《藝術論衡》，目前一審中。

“Who am I?”: Identity and Self-representation of Asian Women Artists in Cyborgs

^*

Shu-Chuan Chen

Stephanie Wei-Ling Huang

Cyborg¹, a concept that was first suggested in the 1960’s, is a term referring to the strengthening of human’s ability to overcome the environment using the aid of auxiliary machines.

The Chinese translated these terms giving names such as “賽伯人” (sai-bo-ren), “生化人”

(sheng-hua-ren) and “機械體” (ji-xie-ti) which are generally known as “robotic-human” or

“posthuman.” The canvass of the cyborg has already become an academic subject - Cyborgology.

Cyborg means a cybernetic organism, as in Su Chien-Hua’s statement “an admixture of machine and organism, a creation society-and-reality seemingly fabricated.” Because of these fabrications created by reality, those females who were included in the “other” now have a connection with a cyborg. According to Wu Hsiaomei, those scholars who had successfully lead the cyborg out of the science-fiction novel and into the sanctuary of academics belong to the school of thought raised by Donna Haraway, who had re-meditated the possible meanings of cyborg with the approach of history and philosophy (1). Haraway pointed out in her article, “A Manifesto for Cyborg: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s” that a cyborg is the substance of human beings. Because by the end of the 20^th century, humans has already become an admixture of organism and mechanism; the connection between organism and mechanism thus

*This paper is sponsored by National Science Council in Taiwan. Project no.: NSC 98-2629-H-468-019-

1 The creators of this term are Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline. It’s the compound word of “cybernetic” and

“organism”- any physical combination of “cybernetic mechanism” and “living organism.”

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gradually becomes indefinite, and becomes the essence of social construction. Moreover, the unclear demarcation of these has given rise to three possibilities in the analysis of a cyborg, namely the demarcation line between human and animal; second, animal-human or organism, and machine; third, physical and non-physical (10-12). To continue the cross-boundary thinking stated above, cyborg has offered a feministic outlet for these women artists by granting them an opportunity to bring their skills into full play under the oppressive societal environment which they live in. Another reason is that the cyborg offers a fictitious space for discussions, allowing feminism to confront the authority distribution under a patriarchy society. Furthermore, a cyborg is not necessarily a woman, but an organism with feminine quality. This concept has overturned the standards set in traditional society. However, in the cross-boundary thinking, Donna Haraway intended to create a link, a special connection between women of color and a cyborg. She especially stated in the chapter under “Fractured Identities” in the article “A Manifesto for Cyborgs,” that “embarrassed silence about race among white radical and socialist feminists was one major, devastation political consequence. History and polyvocality disappear into political taxonomies that try to establish genealogies” (19). The process on how one could break out through this kind of strained circumstance and silence, especially when faced with the issue of women of color who are even more marginalized, thus found an outlet in the mobility of the cyborg world, for it provided an vacuum for self expression. Bell illustrated the theories of this so-called cyborg feminism is “for some an uncomfortable, even oxymoronic term-is thus conjured her as a powerful force; powerful in its denial of dualisms, in its deployment rather rejection of cyborg imagery, such as pleasure in machine skill, but still powerfully feminist” (108). It is also reinforced by what Haraway said “ it means both building and destroying machines, identities, categories, relationships, space stories…I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess” (1991:181).

To compare with ecofeminism, Haraway searches the practical strategy to replace spiritual effect.

In addition, according to the authors, the theory of cyborg cannot simply be connected to just post-modernization, but more importantly, the concept and organization of the cyborg must have a connection with post-colonization, so there should be an inkling on how women of color should identify themselves within this whole world. Maria Fernández further stated that “both postcolonial studies and electronic media theory discloses an overwhelming preoccupation with the body, identity, history, feminism and agency that could be used imaginatively toward common ends” (60). Science fiction writers considered the human body to be merely flesh or nostalgia;

therefore, only a cyborg is suited for living in the future world, and fiction offers a vital concept to supersede the place taken by flesh. Pierre Levy also concluded that “by virtualizing itself the body is multiplied. Virtualization is not disembodiment but a recreation, a reincarnation, a multiplication, vectorization and heterogenesis of the human” (qtd. in Fernández 62). On the contrary, “postcolonial studies underscore the physiological specificity of the lived body as the realities of subjection are inscribed on the bodies of colonized peoples: torture, rape and physical exhaustion, as well as the learning of new bodily grammars and forms of discipline required by

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colonization and conversion” (Fernández 62-3). The parody, stereotype, exotic sentiment, or aboriginism suggested by the postcolonists seemed to have difficulty in forming relations with digital technology. However, not until the “A Manifesto for Cyborg” by Donna Haraway in 1980s did cyborg become the bridge formed between the feminism of white people and the feminism of the third world. Donna Haraway pointed out that women of color may be interpreted as the recognition of cyborg because the subjectivity of cyborg also came from the recognition of others;

but the most important thing is, cyborg is different from the subject that the first world, which consist of merely the white people, had recognized. She further compared the Frankenstein created by the white people.

The cyborg is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity. It is oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocence…. Unlike the hopes of Frankenstein’s monster, the cyborg does not expect its father to save it through a restoration of the garden; i.e., through the fabrication of a heterosexual mate, through its completion in a finished whole, a city and cosmos. (9)

Therefore, Donna Haraway also quoted the “sister outsider” theory proposed by Audre Lorde, trying to join all the women of color or the women of the third world. Also, she analyzed that

“Women of Color” are the preferred labor force for the science-based industries, the real women for whom the worldwide sexual market, labor market, and politics of reproduction kaleidoscope into daily life” (32). Maria Fernández also concluded that:

While the hybridization of humans, animals, and machines found enthusiastic acceptance among feminist cultural theorists, Haraway’s attempts to incorporate postcolonial or so-called Third World feminism have been largely forgotten in current theorizations. With the exception of references to cyborgian qualities, including the multiple subjectivities of the mestiza, women of color seldom figure in the work of cyberfeminists. The supposition that women of color are natural cyborgs or that they already possess the tools necessary to oppose and to subvert oppressive practices is often used tacitly to condone separatism (63).

Under the discussion of Donna Haraway, the relationship between the women of the third world cyborgs now can be re-affirmed. Furthermore, the issue of symbolic recognition or contradictions became the characteristics of both groups (women in the third world vs cyborg).

She commented in memory of cyborgs that “they do not remember the cosmos. They are wary of holism, but needy for connection” (9-10). Nevertheless, because cyborg “is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism… are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins” (10). Thus, the memories of a cyborg are irrelevant to the process or the purpose of her production. In our opinions, we consider the memories of cyborgs connected to their own

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experiences; and it’s a direct-and-individual’s connection, not one that returns to her mother or the father, the creators who had made her. It’s a direct connection based on experience, thus, the memory of the cyborgs are the results of the formation of constant mobility of cyborgs Consequently, the memories of cyborg have different behaviors in different implanting organisms.

This is the part which had not been dealt with in The Blade Runner (1982). Therefore, this article attempts to use the theories mentioned above as a counter to reading and grading Asian female artists, analyzing whether Asian female artists have successfully overstepped the Western standards of the feature of the “other” in the space of science fiction; and wrest the authority to create and interpret in the Western standards.

The three artists selected here are Mariko Mori from Japan, Hsin-I Lin from Taiwan and Lee Bul from Korea. First, the paper will focus on the analysis of representation of Asian women.

These three artists objectively present the intention of reconstructing the image of Asian women, especially in the world of science fiction. Asian women can be the mutated cyborgs. These female images of post-humans appear by the faces and identities of Asian women trying to subvert the erotic objects of white women that used to be shown in the cyber world, and turn them to be the subjects of their own. However, the question raised here is: Can Asian women successfully arrogate and replace the image of others only represented in the discourse of the West and disinherit the dogmatic authorities of creation and explication? We will have further discussion on this paper. Second, the paper will highlight the concerns of gender perspectives and the metaphors behind the virtualization and performance, which are the most important motifs in their works.

Above all, this paper will apply the theories from Donna Haraway and Jennifer González who advocate women of color as posthuman to analyze the artworks of these artists and compare the similarities and differences in the world of science fantasy they explore.

Mariko Mori: physical prodigy, deified identity

In the early days, Mariko Mori was a model and a dress designer; therefore, her works are filled with the enchantment of self-disguise and unbounded imagination. She rose as her early creation Birth of a Star (1995), she dressed herself as a Japanese high school teenage girl, wearing on her body materials symbolizing technology, on her head an exaggerated headphone, a remote control in her hand. These toy-like technological products gave the teenage girl a cartoony exterior.

She was surrounded by bright-colored balloons, and her playful facial expression seems to convey her satisfaction with her surroundings. It can be seen that Mariko Mori has intended to present the multiple relationships between teenage girls, pop culture, fashion and the art world. Thus, the

Birth of a Star created in 1995 is not only the first try-out creation of Mariko Mori but also a

fore-taste of her career as a artist. “This is who I am going to be,” and it has been proven later in Mariko Mori’s status in the art world. According to Schreiber, the dull-like cyborg, her stare and posture can been viewed as a interpretation of the subjectivity of cyborg.

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Mori blurs the line between science fiction and contemporary notions of femininity as represented in popular culture, particularly Japanese pop culture. Her gaze is somehow vacant while coquettish as she peers at the viewer through her icy blue contact lenses. Her playful stance indicates her sense of fun in her own participation in this culture and yet her own agency does not seem to be completely present. Her attitude is simple, uncomplicated and vacuous, much like the Teletubbies. (Schreiber)

Schreiber’s analysis has its point. In Birth of a Star, we would expect to see Mariko Mori’s cheerfulness in her participation, and as a positive feedback of the fashion world she was involved in. However, besides that, it’s incapable of leading the audience to a precise introspection of her thought through her artwork. We can only see thecollage of post-modernism, the fun of frolicking, but no subvert and overturn of post-modernism. It seems that Mariko Mori merely copied her icon onto a cartoon-star image as a self-identification. As an artist, Mariko Mori simply claimed her star-like future through this work.

Continuing this female cyborg disguise, Mariko Mori made her cyborg not only in a “back to the future” manner, but also a connection to the past. In Miko no Inori (The Shaman Girl’s Prayer) (1996), Maiko Mori incarnated as a female cyborg in a science-fiction film, wearing a silver cloth of galaxy and universe, with blond hair, and holding a crystal ball in her hands. The female cyborg staring at the crystal ball in her hands with concentration, she seems to be wanting to look through, a fore-tale of the future world. This piece of work is actually a video art work. It depicts a girl staring at the crystal ball, with a Japanese ballad sung by the artist Mariko Mori herself as background music. The scene was shot in a modernized airport. The female cyborg of Mariko Mori came from a far future, her staring at the crystal ball became the subject of narration. When commenting on women’s position in the movie industry, Rey Chow suggested that, commonly, a woman’s place on the screen is passive and negative; it’s an objective position to provide “visual delight.” This kind of objective position may cause a crisis of confused-identity and identity-recognition to a female audience. “What did she identify with? Does she have to be a schizophrene?” (48)² Nonetheless, if we add in a “narrative” condition in the process of reading and watching, a female’s position on the screen would not be simply a visual “image”, but a

“narrative image”. It is the combination of the image and the storyline. Therefore, a female’s place in the movie “comes from the final (narrative result, and it’s a narrative-sealed character” (48).³ As a consequence, it became a cognitive-relation to have a quality of metonymy for it not only made up by staring and watching, but also, double-recognition on the narrative movement of people, that is, a narrative image. In the story, there is a narrative condition to contend with the emasculating stare, the symbol of order. It is the condition identifying a narration that confronts the castrating stare which symbolizes order. According to Chow, “We are so deeply in need of

2 The quotation is a Chinese version and is translated into English by the authors of this paper.

3. Please see note 3.

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suture that we can pay any price to gain it” (54).⁴ As, Gilles Deleuze once stated, in the experience of watching films, there is a disjunction between saying and looking, visible and describable. That is “the objects being watched never reside in the objects being narrated” (132).⁵ Generally, the leading female characters do not have the ultimate abilities, they are barely an object being watched, and never enter the line of subjects being narrated; thus, her character is disjointed by the story and the audience. However, the Shaman girl’s stare at that crystal ball “can be seen as forming multi-layers based on statement” (133).⁶ To stitch up this disjunction, the author thinks, when an audience recognizes this stare and say “yes, that is me,” the stitch is successful. As a result, the author thinks that the subjectivity of the female cyborg in The Shaman

Girl’s Prayer has made a breakthrough in comparison with the one in Birth of a Star. The stare at

the crystal ball became the narrative condition; similarly, wearing ice-blue contact lenses, attempting to construct a spiritual thought that penetrates the past and the present. The story within is the Japanese ballad, the background music; slowly, sung by Mariko Mori, the female cyborg.

The storyteller became this Shaman girl, who inherited the character of storyteller from an ancient tribe.

In order to explore deeper into the spiritual world, Mariko Mori further combined the topic of her work with Buddhism. Nirvana (1996-98) comprises four works, Burning Desire, Entropy of

Love, Mirror of Water, and Pure Land. These are the video works in which Mariko Mori fantasizes

herself as a Goddess. She applied a 3-dimensional presentational method to present the Goddess character played by herself or by female cybernetic organism, which combines with the natural surroundings. In Burning Desire, Mariko Mori is the Guanyin with a halo above her head, and beneath her seats are four fire-surrounded Doppelgängers of her. In Pure Land, she is still a goddess but descends to earth, with a group of extraterrestrials around her. In Entropy of Love, a couple is placed in a seemingly bubble capsule, under no influence from the external world, their love is well-protected. The scene of Mirror of Water plays off in a cave filled with water, and the cybernetic organism played by Mariko Mori is a replica of herself continuously seen in the cave, as a result of multiple images. Mariko Mori replicates her godlike images repeatedly; she seems to satirize the myth of the famous brand in the fashion industry. If there is a Queen, like Channel, in the fashion industry, there should also be such a privilege in the art industry. However, using oriental ideas, Buddhism, spirituality, and realizing the truth of philosophic theories, Mariko Mori attempted to cogitate over the relationship between her culture and technology, but she still fell into the trap of exotic and self-Orientalized, as many people do. According to Lisa Corrin, the topic based on Buddhism provided Mariko Mori with a Zen perspective toward globalization.

However, the Buddhism codes she applied made the meaning of her work vulgar, foreign and without any distinguishing feature. Peculating folk religion is the spirit of subvert of Postmodernism which is to transfer the environment and the space of a regional culture

4 Please see note 3.

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expressively so as to obtain a new meaning; creating a brand-new pleasure of reading. Mariko Mori combined the Buddhism totem with technological images, for examples, the extraterrestrials around the goddess, and the female cybernetic organism in the ancient cave which indeed creates shocks and gaps in the connection of knowledge. Nina Lykke stated that the goddess metaphor has been functional as a common landmark for the international wave of spiritual ecofeminism which directs us toward the return to ‘the natural’ (23). Mariko Mori seems to grasp the trend of the blurring boundaries between human and non-human from her art works here. However, this kind of folklore-and-technology-juxtaposition is merely an amusement of collage, and cannot offer a meaningful difference. Homi Bahaba mentioned that an effective dislocation can create a meaningful difference, a type of presentational method that is also known as “crosscutting,” it is an interlacing, yet creating a crevice in the meaning. These derange and shock the sensations, cognition and knowledge systems, and terror is derived from the shock, this is a form of the sublime concept (Liao 17)⁷. Furthermore, there is nothing good or unusual to report upon the fabrication of the Goddess image. Except for the manipulation of the costumes, the author failed to see the Oriental spirit that the Goddess fantasized by Mariko Mori manifests. As Schreiber commented, “Historically, the exoticization and generalization of eastern culture has borne itself out to be detrimental to a realistic understanding of constructions of difference.” Folk and local originally provided a strategy for cornered-discourse to confront the centered-recognition; or even, it is also a way of presenting self-empowerment. Nevertheless, if it merely re-transforms the oriental female, goddess image, in western perspective, Eastern female’s image can only remain in the stage of the “other,” and under inspection in the properties of Western technology.

Hsin-I Lin: self-contented body, shifting identities

Hsin-I Lin was born and grew up in the Generation X in Taiwan (born in 1967), Hsin-I Lin’s works are mainly concerned with the issue of “sovereignty of the body.” An-Yi Pan stated:

She notices the level differences between “watching” and “being watched” in the image-recording process because she documents her control over her own body. Further, she develops a value that tries to break the hedge of the male’s stare, but it turns out that it is merely an act of filling in for patriarchy. All she could do seems to be yielding obedience to this system for survival. Thus, she becomes more sensitive to the body, and she tries to make efforts to surmount, induces new object imagination, crosses the line, re-creates the body and the position. What can assist her to construct this project is the computer digital technology, which her generation is familiar with.

Hsin-I Lin holds the same concerns about genders as the other contemporary female artist does.

That is, how to struggle through the framework of the perspective under patriarchy; transfer women from an object being contemplated into a contemplate-controlling subject. Consequently, her works concentrate on the further-advancing of the female body; trying to rewrite the female’s

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perspective-position in history by tracing the trail of biological evolution and the creation of the universe. Hsin-I Lin achieves her demands by using computer digital technology, since cyberspace contains limitless possibilities. She can alter or falsify genders, omit or add organs, and be self-sufficient or self-satisfied with a single sex. These all confirm Donna Haraway’s statement,

“an original story in the ‘Western’ humanist sense depends on the myth of original unity, fullness, bliss and terror… The cyborg skips the step of its illegitimate promise that might lead to subversion of its teleology as star wars” (9). First of all, Hsin-I Lin intends to alter the myth of the creation of Eva. In the series of Cloning Eva (2002) Hsin-I Lin made herself the physical carrier of Eva. Through the computer digital technique, she connected her body ends with wires, as the birth of a female cyborg in the science-fiction film, so as to claim the birth of Eva has already discarded the myth devised under patriarchy. She can be entirely independent, electricity being her source of energy for living, and hence disconnected from her human father. Therewith, Hsin-I Lin again tried to challenge the issue of female’s eroticism. To break the dualism of eroticism and the subsidiary-position of the female in sex, Hsin-I Lin inputs her pictures with her tongue sticking out at different angles into a computer. She copied, and reversed the same tongue-sticking images, displaying pairs of teenage girls seemingly kissing themselves. These teenage girls are indulging in an erotic world of self-sufficient and self-satisfaction. Juin Shieh argued whether eroticism can be “created” or “replicated”? The mechanical tubes connected to the cyborg seem to symbolize—replicate/ self-reproduction, Petri dish/ manipulate/ birth-and-raise, flesh/ machine…

Hsin-I Lin develops self gender recognition and eroticism in the computer. She challenges the civil gender-view by continuously redeveloping and replicating herself “ (126). Also, Lin suggested in the self-account of her work, “When I brutally cut and reconstruct the flesh on the image, it is actually a silent protest against the body. When I constrain myself and do the portrait girls’ pose, it is in fact an eye-for-an-eye toward reification stare… to recognize myself by repeatedly protesting” (“Hsin-I Lin Cloning Eva”).

To continue this concept, Hsin-I Lin’s next experiment is a creation of a new species. The 8^th

Day Project, is a game combining media, interaction, and creation; through the opened cyber

experimenting-space, “netizens” are able to operate and play the role of God.

Hsin-I Lin adopted the concept of “hybrid-configuration.” First, she used her own body as the carriers of re-formation, combining four animal characteristics (wings, dorsal fins, cat’s eyes, and tail), applying digital software to create four human-like creature, and one hermaphroditic creature with both male’s and female’s characteristics. She therefore confuses the boundary of sex. She emphasizes that

“according to the myth, humans were hermaphrodites. Since sex split into two in the Garden of Eden, the incomplete evolution caused Adam’s eagerness to find Eve.

Perhaps the new generation should go back to middle-sex, where male and female co-exist, where both sexes win. Neither of the sexes needs the other. They are self-provided and self-contained” (Pan)

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The 8

^th

Day Project challenges God’s task of creating humans on the 7

^th day in the Genesis account of creation. Hsin-I Lin attempted to reveal that on the 8^th day, if there is a possibility that a new species can be created, then, here it is. Also, the audience participants can play God’s role simply by entering the cyber world, which will rewrite the history of evolution. Even though Hsin-I Lin intended to reverse the perspective positions of seeing a woman, there is something peculiar hidden about the usage of digital technology. As Shieh questioned, “Is her creating experience a necessarily common phenomenon under the popular thought of operation? Or is it a unique experience of individual exploration? Is it leading people’s thought down into male’s reverie again? This may be an area of chaos that needs to be clarified” (126). However, the artist is still the representative of her generation who encountered the power of digital art and cyber space for she employed the camera as the apparatus to advocate for new women in Taiwan. Hsin-I Lin’s concern is the objectivity of viewing, in other terms, the power of possessing the seeing and being seen. “Since the lens can be reversed and the photographer can also be photographed. Why can’t the power of seeing be reversed as well?” Lin credited the inspiration from the first time she took a digital camera. Since then the artist started her journey to explore self-subjectivity by employing her body, naked, in her works. Although Shieh stated that whether Lin’s employment of her body is a learned knowledge or strategy, she can not see the positive result of subverting the patriarchal system through her works. However, the author confirmed that Hsin-I Lin had the awareness to eliminate the dualism and break the boundaries of ethics. “The artist is the creator and therefore she can create her art work anytime, anywhere. Cyberspace provides a site without boundary toward the women.” Hsin-I Lin said.⁸ Therefore, Cloning Eva and The 8^th

Day Project are the

strategies of resisting patriarchy and resistance is constructed within the system which Lin tried to demonstrate through her body. As Haraway stated: “The imagined ‘they’ constitutes a kind of invisible conspiracy of masculinist scientists and philosophers replete with grants and laboratories;

and the imagined ‘we’ are the embodied others, who are not allowed to have a body” (1991, 183).

Thus, the embodiment of one’s own body can be an assault on this masculine-controlling world.

And that is exactly what Hsin-I Lin tried to do.

Lee Bul: Maimed body, fractured identity

Korean artist, Lee Bul’s female cyborg presents a broken, fantasying, and flinching female body of science fiction. The series “Cyborg” displays the female cyborg body with soft sculptures.

The dilapidated body raises a conflicting emotion of eroticism and fear within the audience⁹

Why does Lee indulge in the creation of massive female cyborg? How does Lee’s cyborg differ from the ones we have seen in the animated movies or science-fiction films? To begin with, all Lee Bul’s cyborgs have a defective body, they are either missing organs, or seen only with one hand, or one leg. In other words, their bodies are not well-formed, and incomplete or ruined.

8 This quotation is from the interview with Hsin-I Lin by the authors of this paper on 20^th Apr. 2010.

9 Even though they can all be called “cyborg,” in order to distinguish Lee Bul’s works, in Chinese translation, the authors of this paper use “robot” to emphasize the difference characteristics.

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“They are incomplete bodies in a sense, questioning the myth of technological perfection” (Obrist).

Take Cyborg W1-W4 as an example, they are hung from the ceiling in the exhibition, four white bodies just shown as a ghost-like image. As Yvonne Volkart argued:

These headless, one-armed and one-legged figures are not only abnormal, but deeply pornographic, forced into armor-like corsets that emphasize their waists, breasts and buttocks. This series refers visually to avant-garde western male fantasies of machine women and the femininity of machines as well as to the contemporaneous Japanese manga and Korean animes and the prevalence of young female cyborgs as sexy protagonists. (“Monstrosity”)

Lee Bul not only conveys the male’s erotic fantasy on these female cyborgs; the white body and the broken arms and legs also reflect the image of a monster and a female ghost, so there is the fear of being emasculated in the existence of male with the erotic fantasy. Andreas Huyssen pointed out, “man’s fear of the machine has turned into man’s fear of the (castrating) woman” (qtd.

in “Monstrosity”). Yvonne Volkart further inferred that: “The socio-political issue of capitalist use of technologies may be translated into the familiar narrative of the war of the sexes, or rather of the phallic woman threatening men, armed with a castrating vagina dentate. By giving birth to a machine woman, a puppet girl, man hopes to master the uncontrollable nature of femininity and the violence of technology” (“Monstrosity”). Lee Bul is fascinated by this male ideology.

According to her observation, most female cyborgs have an instructor, that is, a master controlling her. As a result female cyborgs carry an interlaced image of super-human power, the ritual of technology, and a girlish vulnerability. In order to overturn this puppet-manipulator relationship of master-servant, an archetype of monster can be found in the broken body of Lee Bul’s female cyborg. Defective limbs and missing heads, and seemingly-moving action of walking created an illusion that the female cyborg is coming from another unknown space. Lee Bul used resin to manifest the softness of female cyborg’s body, so her soft body evokes the good memories within males. Moreover, the creations of Lee Bul’s cyborg have a distinction between the former ones and the later ones, so we can see the conversion in the thinking of the artist. The series of white female cyborgs emphasizes the importance of body shape; and the armors demonstrated the function of female cyborgs in the war. Female cyborgs in this series have the vivid body shapes of women: slender yet curvy (hour-glass-liked), the ideal type for man’s desire. White body not only gives people the reflection of an unblemished ideal woman; but it also indicates that the position of a white female in technological world is the source of fantasy. In addition, the female cyborgs that are illustrated came without arms, legs, or head. On one hand, it is in an unthreatening stage;

but on the other hand, it showed the uncontrollable femininity of technology. Later, Lee Bul presents the body with red and blue in Cyborg Red (1997) and Cyborg Blue (1997). Under the lighting, the lines of body are smooth and the body has a transparent quality. The body of Lee Bul’s cyborg is hollow; we can see wires that are able to transmit electricity or some kind of life-maintaining system connecting the hips and chest, and connecting them between the hips and

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knees to emphasize the existence of the female cyborg. Either Red or Blue, the bodies created an

“uncanny” effect on the people. Although a female cyborg has a defective body, life-maintaining system seems to enable her to come back to life again and again, and make her a monstrous source of fear. Her power to be reborn repeatedly reinforces the female’s place of subjective-forming in the technology world. Yvonne Volkar suggested, “that fear has been transformed, transferred into the sexualization and feminization of the technological itself.” (“Monstrosity”)

The female body has become the metaphor of technological eroticism; or it can also be seen as a physical nostalgia, or even more as narcissism. To such extent in the meaning, the existence of these “post-humans” must base on the image of human body, and humans become the

“doppelganger” of them. A female cyborg came from an unknown world, and we can only make assumptions toward the unknown on the basis of our own experiences, returning to our body is thus the most direct way. As a result, the female cyborgs that come from the future are still represented by a female human body. In Lee’s self-account, “We now live in an age that is supposedly rationalist and technological. So today, our bestiary is filled with the fantasies and nightmares of biomechanical couplings, the fusion of flesh and polymers, but this too ultimately refers back to our preoccupations with the body we inhabit” (Kim). Therefore, Lee Bul attempted to eliminate the demarcation line between the human body and other creatures. Rosi Braidotti stated: “The disappearance of the body is the apex of the historical process of its de-naturalization… I would like to suggest as a consequence that it is more adequate to speak of our body in terms of embodiment, that is bodies with different layers or sets of embodies positions.

Embodiment means that we are situated subjects, capable of performing sets of (inter)actions which are discontinuous in space and time.” (531)¹⁰ Expect for the uncanny display of a female cyborg, cross-sexuality is also shown in the body of a female cyborg. Lee Bul’s cyborg indicates the possibility of hermaphroditism. The female cyborg with missing arms or legs provides a space for wonder, giving room for imagination as to whether they can grow a male’s arm, leg, or even head back under cyborg’s ability to proliferate. The missing organs imply the contact and eradication of the body boundaries. Female cyborgs can be combined with a man’s body or with other possible organisms, and transformed into a monoecious cyborg, or cyborg with a different creature’s body. Nonetheless, as Jian-Guang Lin pointed out: “The crossing and confusion of border could bring the crisis of identity and subjectivity” (95). This evolution of body, or genes, can result in the “other”. Only when the female cyborg finds the condition of self-accounting can her autonomous identity be accomplished. On the other hand, the image of broken bodies enhanced the narration of female cyborg’s experience of trauma. Our fear of the violence in the future world exists in the defected body. The fractured body of a female cyborg represents our broken hope of Utopian technology. ¹¹The female cyborg seems to wander alone in an extra space dimension. However, she’s always standing, or half-squatting, somehow indicating that she is a

10 See Braidotti (2003 : 531-3)

11 With regards to the authentication and discussion of Utopian and anti-Utopian, please see Da-Wei Chi (2003 : 30-40)

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survivor of a disaster, which justly indicts the error of Western technology or malfunction of machines.

Lee Bul’s cyborgs not only criticize the myth of technology, but also suggest the doubt of female’s images. She stated, “The other idea is to invoke archetypal images of a woman, art-historical representations of femininity, particularly in Western art history—the Pieta, Botticelli’s the Birth of Venus, or Manet’s Olympia—by rendering these cyborgs in those timeless, iconic, feminine poses” (Obrist). These cyborgs seem to overturn the female images on the History of Western Arts. Using sculpture, the traditional method of art, to display the existence of female cyborg is Lee Bul’s choice of connection to traditional Western art. Similar to Donna Haraway’s theory, besides challenging the conventional Western interpretations of the woman by using cyborgs, Lee Bul further tries to make a new interpretation on typical Asian woman, due to her own Asian background. After the white cyborg, in Cyborg Red and Cyborg Blue, the cyborg’s body changes into different colors; it seems to indicate the situation of woman from different races becoming cyborgs. She even named the work “The Monster Show.” It can be seen that colored woman and female cyborgs have been viewed as the body of “different species” or the “other.”

Nevertheless, even though it’s called “The Monster Show,” it creates a “beauty of horror” because of Lee Bul’s pursuit of delicacy and an atmosphere of sensitivity show in her work. We can see her attempts to reverse the image of the “other.”

Even though Mariko Mori intended to present the Orient and God’s-power of Asian Women under the atmosphere of technology, it takes much more wisdom for an artist to ponder and think further between presentation and re-presentation because the exoticism of Eastern woman’s image.

Hsin-I Lin’s cyborg is a subject with self-sovereign over eroticism. However, whether it can achieve an effect of reverse or overturn is still in much analysis and discussion. Lee Bul’s cyborg shows her criticism of western technology, especially in the image-molding of woman in the history of art. Additionally, the extreme perspectives of fantasy, fear, growth, and incompletion are found in the fractured body. It made Lee Bul’s work a possible discussion with alternated points of view. In Asia, it is clear that these three female leading artists put themselves as issue raisers to the culture of a modern, critical society, for we live in a society that has institutionalized critique and which does not cease asking questions about itself, about what is desirable, what is normal, and what is to be excluded. Thus, as for an artist’s responsibility to society and its sensibilities, any artist will then be a product of the society he/she is in and uses his/her art as a tool to give expressions to dreams and desires. One thing for certain is that, from the phenomenon of these three artists’ works being exhibited in the large-sized art museums in the western world and with participation in various biennale exhibitions; it’s obvious that Asian female artists have gained the public spotlight and positive feedback in their artistic creations and representations. Even though the development of cyborgs for Asian female artists is still under the experiments, we can see that Asian woman have thus inaugurated an opportunity for self-narrating for colored women in the

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field of internet-digital art.

Pictures

Mariko Mori Miko no Inori (The Shaman Girl’s Prayer) 1996

Mariko Mori Pure Land 1996-98

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Hsin-I Lin Cloning Eva 2002

Hsin-I Lin The 8^th

Day Project 2003

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Lee Bul Cyborg W1-W4 1997-1999

Lee Bul Cyborg Blue 1997

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國科會補助國科會補助國科會補助

國科會補助專題研究計畫項下出席國際學術會議心得報告專題研究計畫項下出席國際學術會議心得報告專題研究計畫項下出席國際學術會議心得報告專題研究計畫項下出席國際學術會議心得報告

日期： 99 年 10 月 24 日

一、參加會議經過

會議的首日由 Athens Institute for Education and Reasearch 的創辦人 Gregory T. Papanikos 致辭，

此次的會議共有二十八個場次,在同時段中有三至四個 section 同時進行,第一天的會議內容包括文學批評、詩體創作、古典文學、社會與歷史論述以及語言教育等，第二天的會議內容則有劇場分析、比較文學、翻譯、語言學等議題，此次會議的討論議題面向廣泛，除了最基本的文學、

語言學以及語言教學的議題外，很高興亦有包括劇場、比較文學、電影等與視覺藝術相關之討論。會議期間的午餐在飯店舉行，趁此機會我亦與參與發表的其他國家之學者交談，其中包括來自印度、伊朗、葡萄牙等國的學者，他們都非常樂意交換彼此的心得與意見，此行是一次認識國際學者的好機會。

計畫編號 NSC 98-2629-H-468-019-

計畫名稱

人機複合體的性別與族裔迷思：亞洲藝術家林欣怡, 森萬里子與李部作品之比較 (I)

出國人員

姓名陳淑娟服務機構

及職稱亞洲大學外國語文學系會議時間

99 年 07 月 12 日至

99 年 07 月 14 日

會議地點 Athens, Greece

會議名稱

(中文)

(英文)the 3

^rd

Annual International Conference on Philology, Literatures and Linguistics

發表論文題目

(中文)

(英文) Body Politics and Self- Identity on Cyborgs: Comparison among

Asian Women Artists

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二、與會心得

在此次的會議中，我觀察到兩個現象，其中是亞洲學者的興起，在參與發表的學者中，許多來自中東以及南亞的學者顯現了他們積極的學術企圖，甚至許多在學的亞洲博士生，他們來自澳洲、英國等西方學校，也都積極的參與發表，他們旺盛的學術能量，很值得學習。再者，針對此計劃而投稿的論文屬於新興的領域，科幻與後人類是一個未來的趨勢，在此次會議中，雖見與族裔或女性主義相關的文章，但還未見有結合科技與後人類思考的討論，敝人確信女性後人類科幻的議題將成為文學與視覺研究的後起之秀。

三、考察參觀活動(無是項活動者略)

無。

四、建議

因為與會者太多，也因此壓縮了各個發表人的時間，每個場次最後的意見交流只有短短的五分鐘，未能聽到更多的建議與回饋，是比較可惜的地方。建議大會下次應加強篩選制度，控制發表的人數。

五、攜回資料名稱及內容

會議大會手冊：所有會議行程以及各場次發表人與論文題目。

六、其他

附上本人發表之英文論文一份

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3

^rd

行政院國家科學委員會專題研究計畫 成果報告