This multi-media performance piece was inspired, in part, by Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Published in 1991, Haraway creates an “ironic political myth” centering around the image of a cyborg, which she describes as “a hybrid of machine and organism.”
Haraway writes,
In my performance, documented above, I imagined I was Cyborg Alice, living somewhere in a frightening near-future, fighting against a world destroyed by technology. Defiantly anti-parent and anti-government, Alice desperately wants to keep herself and her body safe from the systems she believes want to take away her individuality. She pins her hopes and models herself on a androgynous rock star named Johnny Longjohn, who she thinks can save the planet with flowing rock star hair, tight jeans, and a top-ten hook.
With this performance, I asked, among other questions: What are some of the dangers of technological advancement? How might it monotonize our daily lives? What happens when it used to control women’s bodies? When it is wielded by a war-crazed government? Can we escape the pressures of continuous technological progress? Should we want to?
Also embedded in the performance is a critique of popular culture; Alice’s obsession with Johnny Longjohn is a commentary on the image-making of major record labels and the vocal political convictions of many pop icons today. With the Johnny Longjohn character, I am once again exploring a young female’s identification with a masculine (although in his case, a more androgynous kind of masculine) role model. Her desire is not only for Johnny Longjohn, but to be him, not in terms of gender identity, but to achieve his level of success and power.
Cyborg Alice
“The Pop Icon Saves the Planet”
written and performed
by
Johnny Longjohn/Cyborg Alice
