GIST

Bloodchild Observations

Analysis of power between creatures and humans

Power within family, creatures and how it affected the role of the mother

relationships between beings; human, animal and Tlic (species)

Relationship between Gian and his brother, T’Gatoi, and his sister

Usage of eggs to carry on species and the desire for the humans to be breeders

Butler’s discussion of male pregnancy

The dependency of both species on each other and the rituals to preserve humans

How did the flesh eating bacteria originate?

T’Gatoi and the role of love/ care/ bonds because that was her second home, what happened to her first home?

The role of the eggs and the sedation/ desensitization of species in human life

Aspects of bloodchild that struck most to us were the ideas of unnaturalness, family and interdependence between both the T'lic and the Terran humans.

Observations:

rubikscube: it was disturbing but that made it interesting. I noticed that Lomas had brown flesh, which surprised me because that wasn't how I had pictured him. In thinking about what the Tlic and the Terran actually are, we assume the Tlic are bugs but we didn't have a clear picture of the "humans." This reminded me of Twilight because of the reaction to human blood. Right from the beginning I thought of Kafka's Metamorphosis: is he a bug, is he not a bug? I don't know how relevant this is. 

In this story, Human are treated as an incubator technology, which equalizes males and female roles because both now serve the same purpose and play the same role.

After watching the film Teknolust, I thought back to my first web paper that addressed the idea of humanizing technology. In this paper I discussed the cyborg and the future of gender in robotics; I looked at various types of robot technology and the attribution of gender/ human characteristics to these technologies. I claimed that, "the more we actively interact with technology, the more desire there seems to be to humanize it--to make it not only an extension of ourselves, but to recreate what it means to be 'human' altogether." Thinking about this paper and these technologies in relation to Teknolust, I began wondering what it is about humans that makes us want to create things that look like us.

  one of the more striking passages of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein seemed to me  particularly  meaningful in the context of everything we've been talking about this semester. But I then went a step beyond the story and found it relevant after reading the World Wide Mind excerpts and subsequent discussion. 

Following our conversation with Chorost,  I was very intrigued by the enhanced interaction and interconnection that seemed to be the goal of such a technological innovation (giving human brains constant access to the internet). Overall, I very much enjoyed listening to the aspects of the conversation revolving around the notion of communication. Admittedly, when I first read the sections of the book I was a bit wary of such close interconnection between minds. However, after hearing the advantages of modern technological innovations—email, instant messaging, facebook etc—I became more acclimated to the idea. Many people, mostly the older generation, are still adverse to these new practices of communication.

Teknolust had a lot of themes that are worth discussing. However, a couple of them stuck in my mind. One was the repeated comment about the dependency of women on men. Where is it true that the SRA's needed men's sperm to "re-charge", men also needed women to have intercourse with. I think this only shows the importance of both genders to the survival of humankind, one can't survive without the other, and this was shown through the virtual SRA's. The movie showed the binary of reality and virtuality.

One problem I've been having lately: If "technology" diminishes the quality of face-to-face communication, why haven't other (older) technologies done the same? How DOES technology diminish the quality of communication?

Factors:

- Types of technology used for communication