Bio Mimes Is

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Stealth Nature "

Bmm pz L

Charles Zerner

T [my b] mzg, b y. Ty mp, u gu .

Ty y. Ty . T b ,

w g uppm U Amy.

Ste ve Fe ath er ston e, T Cmg b Amy

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wg y yg. . . . T bbug

u w up, gu m g

g p bug u.

Ric k We iss, Dgfy I py?

mp gu

w u xg w ?

Friedr ic h von Schill er (. . . Cg),

Te Death of Wallenstein

What states u w m? g pw u w w gmz, mpw, ? gm, m, mw bww w p w g? u w w y gm p?Hw w m gmybg ub jug gu?

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[ 29 ]Stealth Nature

Can we begin to create an ethical, moral, and political language that lays thegroundwork or judging and critically assessing interventions in the struc ture o the organic world, while avoiding the pitalls o a antasized, green,sacralized pristine nature, on the one hand, or an uncritical celebration opolymorphous hybridity, on the other hand? Can we ashion a discoursethat does not elevate cyborgian creatures to the status o icon or etish? Ihope that this chapter provokes reection on these questions.

It is a truism in the world o environmental studies, and in the worldo conservation and environmental management programs, to observe thatnature is irremediably used with culture. Nevertheless, recent books withapocalyptic titles by inuential environmental pundits and conservation

biologists signal an alarmist and deeply nostalgic vision o the nature onature, including Bill McKibbens Te End of Nature (989) and John Ter borghsRequiem for Nature (999). In 2003 McKibben issued another shotacross the bow o contemporary developments in engineering and biologytitledEnough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. Underlying these con tinuing salvos against the extraordinary growth o knowledge and capac ity in the biological and engineering sciences is a undamental aith in themoral wisdom o leaving an imagined pristine state o naturewhetherembryos, human bodies, or whole landscapesuntouched.1

In dialogue with these proponents o an unchanged nature are the his torical counternarratives and critiques o William Cronon, Charles Mann,and Michael Pollan. Cronons (995) critique o the American wildernessetish, and his masterul historicization o the shiing boundaries and useso the idea o untouched nature, set of a seismic charge in the emergingeld o environmental history. Manns (2005) masterul documentation oa tableau o humanly induced, richly productive modications o habitatthroughout the Americas added empirical depth to Cronons history othe idea o nature. Pollans (99) witty accounts o natures indeterminacy,

on the one hand, and his comic ironic tales o the human urge to shape,improve, and master nature through gardening, on the other, injected anappreciation or humane, ethically inormed interventions (as well as hu man perversities in landscape and livestock management) in what might becalled the natural course o things.

In the late 980s and early 990s, Donna Haraway and her cyborg a cionado Chris Hables Gray argued persuasively or a deeper appreciationo the myriad orms o machine organism usions, to the point o considering the possibility o civil rights and liberties or cyborgian orms o lie.

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[ 292 ] Charles Zerner

Aguing o moe plul, geneous vision o kinship with n engineeentue, Hwy n Gy hve been, simultneously, moe cuious nmoe t pece with viegte vision o biologicl citizenship n being inthe wol. In this ctholic vision o lie oms, Gy n Hwy gestuetow ll mnne o cybog cetues, ofeing eligibility o some om ocitizenship in thei newly imgine bio cybe humn polity (see Hwy1991; n Gy 2001).

Tis chpte is witten within n ginst lnscpe o contentiousebte bout the pope plce o obotic cetues n obotic ntue onthis plnet, n the pope plce o humn, inee humne inteventionsin the stuctue o lie. Situte within lge, longe convestion bout

the ole o the mchine in the gen, to use Leo Mxs evoctive phse,neithe the etovision o n untouchble pistine ntue no n unciticlcelebtion o polymophous cybe cetues seems equte to the tsk omking useul istinctions o nlysis. Tis chpte ims to ticulte someo the socil implictions tht mility cybe cetues my hve o socie ties t w n t pece in the ely twenty st centuy.

A viety o ctos e engge in the cetion o obots n cybogs. Iocus hee on the govenmentl, public, n pivte sectos. Tis incluesthe mility s well s cemic eseches engge in mking obotic n

cybog cetues o suveillnce n possibly o ttck on the bttleel.Mny eseches e ocuse on the esign o obots o othe engineeemechnisms whose etues e moele on biochemicl pocesses, entities,n stuctues oun in ntue. Othe eseches e engge in esign ing n poucing tue cybogs: cetues tht involve, to gete o lesseegees, the integtion o cybenetic mechnisms with living ognisms.

Te Deense Avnce Resech Pogm Agency (dara) uns theevelopment o vivisystems n obots moele on living ognisms. Howwill these pogms inom, in wys subtle n not so subtle, ou ies o

ntue, lnscpe, n the ntul envionment? Ae thetsto humnity,to emoctic pocess in times o w n pece, n to the qulity o lien pivcy in civil societyt stke in the evelopments escibe hee?Will the existence o these mchinic ognismic inteventions shpe ou be hvio? How will the use o smt obots n vivisystems fect the eelo suveillnce, tgeting, n killing in w zones? How will these emeg ing oms fect ou behvio s citizens in pecetime? How might the m teil existence o these ognism tects, s well s thei pesence s cul

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tu mgy tm pt t, ft t pv bu pub pvt m? dara wbt mby mgg v w wt k, v tt bg t um t gtg w( u ) w t t v pg bt b t btt ( Ftt 200). dara t, bbt, b p v, w, t t t uy mg bgt t uvt t bt pvt pt tUt Stt, Jp, Eup, mby v mm t gv t t by mt uv, tgtg, gg. O mu, t t pt vmpt t ttut utu pt t put

utu w by mt t. T tu mby puuy u tv v wtm ptm gv tt p, , ty: w wtut b, b, um ufg.

W g qut but t pt, t, pt qu mb, bt mt um umvmt tt, tm w p, t mmt w ttp t m b m gy uu, I pt tub u but tzg t tu qu bt yb gm.

Stealth Nature: robotS iN the G ardeN of Civil SoCiety

aNd the laNdSCapeS of War

T w ytm t w w, upg t mgg

t bt Gmmpp mt y k t t t w C

Am. It w w t t t t y t bm t

pu t w t tt w uk t p pt

m.Rachel arson, Silent Spring

T t gt typ wp tt pg mpt tug

t u t g, t g u btw fv v :

wp btut (t, mpt, bt m t

t); wp tut (, bw, , m gu, m,

t.); y wp mmut (kut tw g,

mt tpt , pt tgp, w, tp,

tt, mg t).Pal Virilio,Desert Screen

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Lukng Lzads ofen odge, by Steath,

Wthn the Sububs, and puon the Weath.

ir i l (tans. John Dyden), Georgics IV

Te U.S. mtay s now engaged n stmuatng the conceptuazaton andceaton o smat nsectso cybugs, you wthat can see, hea,sense, and potentay attack n emote batteeds. Fo centues n Euo Amecan popua cutue and scence, nsects have been good to thnkwth, congued as mages o soca oganzaton chaged wth a mutpc ty o vaences angng om the utopan to dystopan (see Bown 200).In the entomoogca hapsodes o the nneteenth and eay twenteth -

centuy Fench entomoogst Jean Hen Fabe, nsects ae moa bengs,endowed wth the wsdom o nstnct and exqustey cabated motosks. In the md twenteth centuy, especay dung the Second Wod Wa and n the oowng decades oowng n the Unted States, nsectepesentatons wee econgued (Russe 2001). Edmund Russe tacksthe teatue o the Amecan amed oces as we as the popaganda oJapanese and Geman mastes o nomaton to show how nsects, ncud ng cockoaches and mosqutoes, became nahuman, nsectvoous aensthat meted extemnaton. Te md 1950s wtnessed the appeaance,

on m, sceen, and teevson, as the expesson goes, o ggantc nsectswhose Academy Awadwnnng appeaances and dmensons wee causedby adaton om nucea testng (see Masco 200). In E.O. Wsons scen tc wok dung the 190s and 190s, ant behavos povded a mode ocommuncaton and caste n compex, evovng socetes. In the ast decadeo the twenteth centuy, and especay snce the attacks o Septembe 11,2001, nsects as we as mcoogansms have been nceasngy epesented,n popua medatons, as objects o ea and contamnaton, on the onehand, and, on the othe, as we sha see beow, as nstuments o suve

ance, o seeng and emote vsbty, n andscapes o wa.

In the exampes beow, I consde how desgn and eseach suppotedby what Pesdent Dwght D. Esenhowe n hs aewe speech o 191peceptvey caed the mtay ndusta compex, and what we mght,n the wod snce Septembe 11, ca the mtay suveance compex,ae engaged n the desgn ostealth nature. Ancent meanngs o the wodstealth assocate the concept wth thef, wth takng o steang secety and wongy. Steath was, at east by the seventeenth centuy, assocated wth

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utive o unehne ctions, cts ccomplishe by eluing obsevtiono iscovey. Contempoy notions o stelth incopote these olemenings n to them the ie o stelth s bnch o technologyconcene with eneing icf n othe wepons elivey pltomsh to etect by . Te cetion o smt, vible usions o ogn isms n engineeing into mility vivisystemshybi cetions tht cnmove, y, hove, ceep, cwl, n scle veticl wlls tht only gecko lizmight negotite with impunity, e stelthy in both senses. Tese cetuese icult to etect, ue to thei scle, moe o opetion, o ppenceo stuctue in specic contexts. In this sense, stelthy vivisystems e un etectble in the sme wys tht chmeleons, butteies, n wlking sticks

e stelthy. At the sme time, these vivisystems n obotic ognisms estelthy cetues in the ole sense o stelth s steling: vivisystems ninsectlike obots e steling in plin view: they e sensing n bsobinginomtion n imges o pesons, pocesses, n teitoies in the twenty st centuy bttlespce. Te t gthee by these cybe cetues etnsome n elye to specilize, esticte uiences t emote loc tions: plces whee opetos e mking el time bttleel ecisions.

Te concept o stelth ntue, s I use it in escibing daras enev os, hs two senses. Te pimy sense o stelth ntue I inten e those

ttibutes o ognisms, evelope though evolutiony pocesses, thtie in mking n ognism less etectble o invisible, lthough in plinsight. Stelth ntue in this sense ees to those built in evolutiony po cesses tht esult in n ognisms cpcity, in eltion to othe ognisms inits envionmentits signicnt public, i you willo concelment oisguise o eception by vying its ppence, om, o behvio. da ra,in this sense o stelth ntue, is involve in mimetic moe o, moe pe cisely, biomimetic moe, imitting not only the stuctue o ppenceo specic ognisms but the evolutiony sttegy o stelth ntue. Te

secon sense o stelth ntue ises though the iscepncy in scle be tween insects n humns: it is n ttibute tht meges only when the scleo the insect is put longsie the scle o the humn. daras pogmsun n shion stelth ntue though both biomimetic evolutionyn eltionl sttegies (see Whyte 1951).

Inteventions in ntue involving the esign n weponiztion o in sects n micoognisms le us to question whethe it is useul to speko the militiztion o ntue o wht I cll the weponiztion o lie. Is

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the use o ntul stuctues, electochemicl pocesses, o the cetiono tue cybugscybenetic ognisms tht integte living oms nhumn me electo chemo mechnicl stuctues o mility suveillncepuposesifeent om the ppopition o othe ntul stuctues opocesses o mility inustil puposes? How might the weponiztiono ntue fect the wys scientists, enginees, mility ocils, n scien tic elites, s well s ntue consevtionists n envionmentl ethicists,view the ntue o ntue?

At the level o meition, we nee to sk how these evelopments, oensponsoe by dara n execute by pivte copotions n univesitylite scientists, e escibe, imgine, n imge in emegent he

toicl omtions, Web sites, vetisements, the popul pess, n thescientic litetue. Tee e lso questions o public esponse n mobi liztion: Wht ccounts o the stiking bsence o envionmentl n so cil esistnce, o even esponse(s), to these pogms o ntue shioningo hybi entities n thet cetion? Wht ccounts o the bsence ocitique, countetctics, n esistnce to the use o living ognisms, p pene to silicon cicuits, o mility puposes?

We know tht insect societies hve long n vie histoy s socilimginies. Insect epublics, whethe totlitin o emoctic, ec

tiony o le wing, hve been imgine s moels o eciency, societieschcteize by elbote hiechies n uthlessly pecise socil ivision.Wht kin o epublic o insects ws Jonthn Schell imgining in 1982,when his blek ssessments o the sttes o postnucle holocust ntuen society ppee in 1982? Aguing eloquently in Te Fate of the Earthginst the polietion o nucle ms, Schells epublic o insects ws poounly ystopin vision o n ecologiclly evstte plnet. On ege plnet contminte by ition, isoiente insects, incpbleo eceiving n intepeting ultviolet spectum, wee isble. Tey wee

enee incpble o locting n pollinting plnts. An the ilue oplnts to be etilize by insects esulte in the eth o ou ecologiclly in teconnecte geen n blue plnet. A ition stute plnet esulte,o Schell, in tl uptues in the ecologicl web.

It ws not imges o postpoclyptic insect epublic, howeve, tht p pee in Mch 200 on daras Web pges. Wht ppee ws e quest o poposls to cete cybogs o vivisystems, tht coul y, hop,move, cy pylos n see on the bttleel: vivisystems tht coul

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unctn nncuu nbtnt t ntul wl. Snc 200 dara bn pnng c pgm n t u blgcl ytm mlty pup. t, t pgm nvt but $12 ml ln n pjct t MI, t Unvty Mcgn, t Byc TmpnInttut Plnt Rc, t Unvty Azn, n WngtnUnvty n St. Lu, mng t t t unvt n pvt ctcptn c t Unt Stt. Jp Mc (200: 53) cbt tptt cct t pgm:

T dod (Dptmnt Dn) c n cntll blgclytm cuntly tk t m t nvl plymnt ntu:(1) vvytm, t u nct (b n mt) n t nml

nvnmntl ntnl (cuntly tckng cmcl wpn, x plv, n ctv mtl n t nvnmnt); (2) yb b ytm, n ft t ct cybg bug n nml uvllnc , t pjct put t, t ntgt lvng n nnlvng cmpnnt nvl vc pplctn; n (3) bmmntc, bulng mcnclvc tt mmc t blt n tuctu lvng bng, ptcu lly nct.

Mc f cgnt ctn n dara vvytm, yb by

tm, n bmmtc pgm: Cmbnng nct n nntcnl gy uvllnc pm wl nw kn cybg ctu, mtcntll n plybl uvllnc n t ltl m t y nt wll (b.).

T cpt ngg wt t nng nct n t lvng c tu n tw m: (1) t ctn vvytm, n wc mcytm ntgt wtn t b lvng nct t ugmnt, cvng, mply n xtn t cpct (tu cybug), n (2) t nng mt bt w ntmy n ccuty, t ntmcl lctcl

bcmcl pct, t uc ngnng tt bt bly c pct. I cu blw n n m dara c n lvng ytm, tft t ct cybg nct knwn Hyb MclctmcnclSytm (hi es; Ll 200b). In Mc 200 dara publ plcttn b hi es wc tt:

dara k nnvtv ppl t vlp tcnlgy t ct nctcybg, pbly nbl by ntmtly ntgtng mcytm wtn

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nct, ung t ly tg o mtmopo. T lng po c om on mtmopc tg to t nxt tg xpct to ylmo lbl bo lctomcncl ntc to nct, comp tovly bon ytm to ult nct. Onc t pltom n tgt, vou microsystem payloads can be mounted on the platformswith the goal of controlling insect locomotion, sense local environment, and

to scaenge power. (dara 200: my mp)

Snc t qut o popol o hi es, dara gnt vbn wokng wt lvng om o nctpclly wt nct n tpupl tgn o on wc govnmntl n wll b ntng cpn no. T nct mcn yb now only wt w mgt cll

nct mt pton o mlty cuty pptu ocuon gntng mot om o ltvly mobl uvllnc vc ttcn n n wt low pobblty tt ty (t nct cybog) wll bn o nt povbl fy on t wll.

Accong to dara, t von unlyng t pogm t ctono tcnology to lbly ntgt mcoytm pylo on nct to n bl nct cybog (Ll 200). T objctv o t hi es pogm to vlop tcnology to nbl gly coupl lcto mcnclntc to nct ntomy n to montt MEMS pltom olctonc locomoton, contol pow vtng om nct, n lmntxtnou bologcl uncton (b.).

Conll Unvty c v ucc n mplntng lctoncccut pob nto tobcco onwom ly pup. T onwomp toug t cyl tg to mtu nto mot wo mucl cnb contoll wt t mplnt lctonc.

T pupl nton tt own n nt n t pctu n bov.

T uccul mgnc o mcoytm contoll nct own nnt ; t mcoytm pltom own l wt twz. T X y mg (A) ow t pob nt nto t oovntl noolongtunl fgt mucl. C mg (B) ow componnt og bobnc nctng tu gowt oun t pob. (Ctn on 2008)

T dara cou lucly tcult t b o hi es n ct by kng toclly: Wy not u nct ctly? Inct wu n ttmpt t bvo mocton n b tnng n n t u

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nnugclly lt nct wt nct bckpck ttc. Ntu l ctu w nt ucntly pctbl n cntllbl t t g. dara xpln: In pvu xplty c t m npult nct, t w un tt t ntnctv bv ng nmtngn l pnng t tmptu cng, pvnt tm [tb] m pmng lbly.

W wtnng nt nly mutnt clgy, t u Jp Mc(200) pt p, but l nw, ntumntlz, nutlz, nmngl cncptn pc, t bv, n cytmc unctn ng. Hw wll t hi es cybg b vlut? dara tll u: Tnl mnttn gl t hi es pgm t lvy n

nct wtn v mt pcc tgt lct t un mt wy,ung lctnc mt cntl n/ glbl ptnng ytm (s)(Ll 200).

T pmnc pcctn t nct mcn gn cl.T ptcl cnnng n tlmtc cpct t , ucculhi es ctu l ut cply: T nct mut b bl t tn mt t t nntly untl otherwise instructed. T nct cy bg mut l b bl t tnmt t m dod [Dptmnt D n] lvnt n , yielding information about the local environment.

T n cn nclu g n, mcpn, v, tc. (b.; mymp).

Ntu, t lt ntu n t m dara m tcncnc nct cybg, t b mtng ntuct. A publctn cuntngdara un c llutt, ntu lvng b l t bjct ncn, nvn, n ntn t ctn ctcl mmnt n tl cycl ( Alp Bzkut t l. 2009). T dara cybg nct wllby mt cmmn n mut cmplntly yl nmtn butt lcl nvnmnt. . . . Altug fyng nct gt ntt (.g.

mt n gnf), ppng n wmmng nct cul l mtnl mnttn gl (Ll 200).

On ptn t dara ppctu nct cybg mpzt utmtn lk ccttc: n cnjunctn wt lvy, tnct mut mn ttny nntly untl tw ntuct(b.). Ot ptn t dara cumnt mpz t blg cl vntg, uggtng t vmp lk cct mcncl ytmpnnt n t t n mcncl pw lvng nct. In p g wty Aliens!, t dara wt tll u tt hi es pltm

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mut montt tcnolog to scavenge power fom insects. Dung lo comoton, nct tox (sic) gnt t n mcncl pow, wcmy b n to pow t mcoytm pylo. T cpblty mylmnt t n o btt, n mk t hi es l pow(b.: my mp).

In t pg, dara mploy t ml mg n untnngo pt lvng ctu tt v utnnc om not lv ng ctu, t ot ognm. In t dara von o ntu, mltymgn popo t cton o mcolctonc mcnm tt n,lk ln pt, t ngy om lvng ytm. In t von, t m colctonc mcncl componnt bcom t pt vtng o,

mo kly, cvngng ngy om lvng ognm. A tnct vono t ln nvon ntv ktc: Ntu n o t l gvng ngy by mcnm.

How t mgn om o nct cybog ntu concptul z n vlu? Wt om o t conttunt vlu tt nom mltz ln on ntu? dara Wb t pov nw: T nct vntg on t bttll. dara tll u tt nct cybogof lnt gt n bult n tlt. T monc butty, oxmpl, of vntg o z, p, tnc, n gt [lttu].

Lk pv Mk l, t ntu gu o t 950 ynct comctp, gnlly povng nttnng ncot wlk t wootl, dara nom u tt monc cn tvl o 3000 ml wtoutng o 5 y, to cybog monc butty woul of tpoblty o long tnc mon. 1 dara mpz t p ogon not mlty t: Dgon cn tvl t 5 mp o23 ou, tu ofng t mlty vtu o t mon. A ptculpc o butty ngnou to Bzl, Tysania Agrippina, of t ml ty vntg o bng bl to cy ug pylo. Anot butty,

Cocytius duponchel, collct t t lttu o lvn toun t, oft poblty o g lttu bon mon (Ll 200b).

dara ocumnt vl wol n wc nw kn o lcto cmcl mcncl ntvnton m n t tuctu o ntu, n t, tc, o ncb wtn nvul ognm. Ty lo vl n t wy mmb o t mlty, t ttgc polcy communty,n om cntc xpt gz on ntu n t potntlt. T mo hi es ntumnt o w, n bologcl w, con

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ttut concptulzton n boy o nvonmntlly ntvntontpctc tt clly fnt om l ttmpt t ung bolog cl ytm n poc wpon, uc t u o ml tutblnkt ploy gnt Ntv Amcn n t gtnt cntuyo t l u o cop, ung ov t mpt o mvl ctl.11dara mltz ntu obotc yt lvng, ponv to o, vu lly n lctonclly wll now, pyclly mobl, n ocl, ntuponv to govnmnt o.

the NatioNal GeoGraphiC tour:

iN the laNd of NatureS WarriorS

In n o mlty tumplm tt nttn nty o k uc,mot contoll bttll mt n pt by cybog nct, t notupng to ln tt lvng pc n potntl mlty t. Int pg o tNational Geographic, pgon o ntum o t con vton o ptn ntu, w cn n ntonlm u wt clb toy vw o t hi es nct wol n t cyb bttll. In ttlvon tl o t Ntonl Gogpc Explo pcl ttl S ct Wpon, ntu congu n m c: Fo mllon o y,

kn oarms race has been raging under our noses. It ol cn wlk on wt, y gvty, n tmlv nvbl to nmy y, n tct t gntu vl ml wy. T natures warriorsanimalsand plants that hae suried in a harsh world by eolving an arsenal of re-

markable abilities and weapons (Ntonl Gogpc 2005: my mp).Tom Hobb notoou omulton Ntu n toot n clw upplnt wt n mg o t ntul wol n m cmp, lncp o ntncn t n wc nml n plnt congu ntu wo, qupp wt n nl o mkbl blt n

wpon n ngg n n m c. Bly c go, cntt, pclly convton bologt n nvonmntl nongovnmntl vo ccy goup, w kng t ctzny o globl cvl octy to conv tnot bcu t mgt of t nxt oun o ntbotc o cu ocnc.1 Dung t mntton o Gog W. Bu, Amcn w nntumntlt von o ntu opton o potctng n Amcn myncngly ttc co t glob by povng tm o tlty cyb nct n ncng numb o motly plot on c. Engg

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in wht ministtin cils cst s the lng w, ntue, t lest insme qutes, ws nw cst s n inspitin n esuce vn tge t the U.S. mility: Nw the U.S. mility is tking inspitin mntue t gin vntge n the men bttlent. Scientists e hness ing the stength n exibility spie silk t evelp n ultlight bym tht my incese ptectin m bullets n shpnel. Othes elking t buttey wings s they design sophisticated camoufage that willallow troops and vehicles to blend imperceptibly into a changing landscape and

be undetectable to heat-seeking sensors (ibi.: my emphsis). Te humblebeetle bseve by Fbe t LHms, his vegwn, wee ineste g en in suthwesten Fnce, hs becme n bject the entmlgicl

mility sublime U.S. ces n dod/dara gntees: Even tinybeetle hs smething t feits ntul het seeking bility is helping sci entists evelp lightweight ine etects tht my ne y chnge theshpe nighttime we (ibi.).

Duing the Obm ministtin, the use uninhbite eil nes,incluing the Pet, hs incese signicntly. Jne Mye (2009)epts:

Te numbe ne stikes hs isen mticlly since Obm becmePesient. Duing his st nine n hl mnths in ce, he hs u thize s mny C.I.A. eil ttcks in Pkistn s Gege W. Bushi in his nl thee yes in ce. Te stuys uths, Pete Begenn Ktheine ieemnn, ept tht the Obm Aministtin hssnctine t lest ty ne C.I.A. missile stikes in Pkistn since tk ing ce te ppximtely ne bmbing week. S this ye,vius estimtes suggest, the C.I.A. ttcks hve kille between 32 n538 peple. Citics sy tht mny the victims hve been inncent by stnes, incluing chilen.1

F theNational Geographic, hly llince U.S. ces n innv tive scientists n enginees e llie t ventue int bttle znes ncutting ege lbs, lng with the Gegphic Exple stf, t see hwemeging technlgies inspie by sme ntues mst mzing esignsmy ne y help ptect tps n civilins (Ntinl Gegphic 2005).Whees bilgists like E. O. Wilsn (99) nce wnee in stte ne eligius tnspt in the tpicl inests Innesi, tnsxen inspie by ntues cmplexity, beuty, n esthetic viety, ntue

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rapdly bcomng a ourc o tcncal npraton or t mltary ndutral complx. Natur capacty or bologcal and cmcal nvntv n wll now b tappd or t u valu on t battlfld. A nw pc ot romantc von? Natur a a ourc o mltary aw.

Donna Haraway artculaton o t fgur o t cyborg, tat uon omacn and organm catapultd to acadmc notorty n a txtual r on o pra, aw, and rony, bot clbratory and ambguou, a HugGutron rmnd u:

Haraway tougt bult around t cntral fgur o t cyborg , wc dploy a anambiguously utopian fgurethat dramatizes the dangers and possibilities o lie in a globalizing technoscientifc age. . . . Haraway

mbrac t ybrd fgur o t cyborg a r con and, to u r own word, a r kn. For r, a cyborg not jut a combnaton o u man and macn, but, mor luvly, any ybrd ntty tat rewritesour sense o the possible, by reworking relationships between any combina-

tion o animal, human, vegetable, and machine. (Gutron 2005: 121, mympa)

SeNSeS of SiGh t aNd Stealth:

CamouflaGe, SubterfuGe, SurveillaNCe

How do t quton o vblty and nvblty ft nto t tal o n ct and macn? Altoug t ar cratur tat can b n, ty arunobtruv. hi es nct ar dcult to not only bcau ty armall but bcau ty ar look a ty ar part o t abrc o natur.

Tr , owvr, anotr n n wc vual prcpton and trat g o vblty (or nvblty) ar ky dmnon o t hi es:hi es vvytm ar orm o l tat ar dgnd to , can, and

urvy a landcap and to rlay atur o t landcap dmd gnf cant back to rmotly tuatd uman bng. T cybug ar concptu alzd a part o an mrgng landcap o natur, urvllanc, and globalgovrnanc troug montorng. Wat t magnd landcap? Poplttng at crn, pobly alway around t world, at rmot trmnal,cannng t vual normaton bng tranmttd and makng dconabout wtr to attack or cang t trajctory, pd, and alttud o trconnotrng cyborg cratur. T cratur y and otr nory

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organs are relaying visions and inormation that may become part o abattle plan or actual strike. Whether with natural eyes, humanly createdeyes, or cyborgian hybrid eyes, these creatures are patrolling landscapes(and seascapes) where it is too dangerous or dicult or a human being towalk or swim (see g. 1).

While nongovernmental environmental organizations, artists, and writ ers are working on strategies o visibility, technologies o exposure o threatsto the public, the gaze o these cyborg creatures set loose in the air, in thewater, and on the ground o the potential battleeld is to be invisible and,at the same time, to surveil: to be the eye above that looks down on thescene, and to expose the alien, the enemy, the threat, to the remote humanscanner.

Tese cyborg bees, swarms o hornets, wasps, dragonies, and butter ies, moreover, will not be sending signals back to a remote yet poten

1 Lobster inspired robot, mine sweeper. Invented by Don Massa and Joseph Ayers. RoboLobster, a lb., 2 f. long crustacean made o industrial strength plastic, has a bigger jobto do: detecting and destroying mines buried in the sur zone. At least, thats how the U.S.Navy plans to use the robot once developers at Massa Products deliver their nal versionnext year. Te current prototype mimics a real lobsters movements to negotiate all types

o coastal terrain. Te plastic antennas sense obstacles; the eight legs can propel it in anydirection; the two claws and tail keep it stable in turbulent water (Time.com N.d.). Photocourtesy o Don Massa and Joseph Ayers.

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tally normou ctznry tr bongnr uccd. T not an acto publc communcaton. Tr tlmtry or a rtrctd vwng au dncprap a group o uman montor workng n crt, ddn,a nvronmnt, n contrat to t mbodd tactc o trt prorm r and nvronmntal mdator. hi es nct may wll bcom parto a mltary ntllgnc apparatu tat wa broadly xpandd n t yarollowng t attack o Sptmbr , 200.

On Novmbr , 200, t Sydney Morning Heraldpubld a toryabout an nct lk robot undr t adln Iral Dvlopng Kllr B onc Hornt (Rutr 200). T artcl uggtd t mrgng capac t o warbot: Iral ung nanotcnology to try to crat a robot no

bggr tan a ornt tat would b abl to ca, potograp and kll ttargt, an Iral nwpapr rportd. T fyng robot, ncknamd t b onc ornt, would b abl to navgat t way down narrow allyway totargt otrw unracabl nm uc a rockt launcr, t dalyYedioth Ahronoth ad.

Dcrpton o t fyng macn blur mcancal and bologcalralm, producng a n o t uncanny.1 Wl t Rutr tory d crb a robot, t mrg cyborg capact wt bologcal magry, conjur ng up a marvl or a montr o ort: t bonc ornt. About a yar latr,

n Octobr 200, a tory n t Washington Postcarrd rcountd a gt ng o fyng cyborg nct on a urvllanc mon n t publc quar:

Vana Alarcon aw tm wl workng at an antwar rally n LaayttSquar lat mont. I ar omon ay, O my god, look at to, tcollg nor rom Nw York rcalld. I look up and Im lk, Watt ll tat? Ty lookd knd o lk dragonf or lttl lcoptr.But I man, to ar notnct. T jut on o t quton ovr ng ovr a andul o mlar gtng at poltcal vnt n Wangton

and Nw York. Som upct t nct lk dron ar g tc urvl lanc tool, prap dployd by t Dpartmnt o Homland Scurty.Otr tnk ty ar, wll dragonfan ancnt ordr o nct tatvn bologt concd look about a robotc a lvng cratur can look.(W 200)

A o t wrtng, t ard to pn down t tatu o t rport. Art tor ntntonal rla o normaton organzd by govrnmntpr agnc, dn bun updat, or gtng o vvytm bngttd? Wl many robotc nct, marn crutacan, and brd ar n

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vary stages o easibility, no controllable insect vivisystems are yet viable. It

is possible, i not probable, that many o these sightings represent an emerg

ing cultural imaginary rather than an already existent empirical reality. It

is a truism about American society since September that images o po

tential terror as well as pervasive surveillance in governmental discourse,

programs, and unding ows have dominated popular culture, news, and

ction.1 Bioterror eature lms and novels have prolierated, augmenting

and ampliying political rhetoric. Sightings o cyberbugs may constitute a

phenomenon parallel to the sightings o UFOs during the 950s and 90s,

when ulminating anxieties about the Cold War and allout rom nuclear

testing spread across the nation.

In another vein, we might ask whether citizens are about to be acedin public spaces, alleys, streets, doorways, or hovering over whole land

scapeswith the specter o a potentially lethal gaze o the cyber insect or

the pure drone, a remotely operated orm o emerging lie mechanism

whose eye in the sky scans the terrain or targets.1 What will a human

being, viewing her computer or television screen on the other side o the

world, see, think, or eel when viewing images transmitted rom a bionic

hornet or the cyborg buttery hovering in an alley in the Middle East,

or in a ghetto district o Los Angeles? How will the mediation o killing

through point and click technologies, linked to hovering cyborgs or war bots, afect the act o killing other human beings? Given the speed at which

these technologies are developing, the expression a lethal gaze may no

longer be a metaphor.1

Are the questions posed here are an indictment o robots? Are they a

bill o particulars against cyborgs? I argue, rather, that questions o human

intentions, context, and agency in evaluating robotic and cybernetic inter

ventions are critical. In the nal section o this chapter we turn to the story

o an ur cyborg, the Golem.

eNGiNeeriNG eN viroNmeNtal viS ibility: artS of

reSiStaNCe iN aN era of bioCyberNetiC reproduCtioN

In times o shock resulting rom massive technological change, Walter Ben

jamin asserts, the human sensory system reverses its historic role and, in

stead o enabling the body to receive and respond to new stimuli, its goal

becomes aesthesis, a numbing o the organism, an deadening o the senses

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and repression o memory. Reecting on the technologically induced inca pacity to register sensory stimuli, the environmental ethnographer JosephMasco (200: 12) ofers this question: What might be the social conse quences o living in a world where the everyday has been so thoroughlycolonized by the possibility o annihilation that, or most, it has becomesimply banal? . . . I in act people can be so anesthetized by the possibilityo extinction that it no longer seems to register, how do we now regain oursenses in order to ever begin to answer such questions?

Te invisibility o lethal environmental riskswhether mutagenic ra dioactivity or toxic compounds in air, water, soil, or our own bodieshasbedeviled environmentalists since the inception o global and local activist

movements. In a world o toxic, invisible realities, the problem becomeshow concerned artists, scientists, and groups o lay persons, organized inlocal, national, as well as transnational nongovernmental networks, cancreate strategies o visibility, orms o mediation that embody and renderaccessible to the senses the environmental substances and orms o energythat cross ecological boundaries and penetrate human bodies with impu nity, causing multigenerational harm.

Many o the lethal compounds produced by contemporary industry andgovernment sponsored acilities are not accessible to the senses. Human be

ings are not biologically equipped to sense the hazards o radioactivity; nordo they perceive, under normal circumstances and levels o contamination,the presence o chemical compounds or radioactive materials that are sig nicant causes o disease, debility, and mortality in human and nonhumanpopulations. Tese risks are not visible literallythey cannot be seenandin a broader metaphoric sense they are not accessible to any o our senses.Our bodies are, in some proound sense, not equipped to perceive and re spond to these emerging dangers (Beck 1992). At the same time, our bodiesregister, concentrate, and eventually constitute a tangible record o envi

ronmental toxicity. Many chemical and radiological threats, moreover, onlybecome visible beyond normal human temporal scales: certain mutationsonly become perceptible on a multigenerational scale.

Te problem and the challenge or a variety o diferently situated citi zensartists, local residents, writers, scientists, and public policy experts,as well as a panoply o local, regional, and nongovernmental environmen tal advocacy organizations, is how to render visible, or accessible to oursensory apparatus in its broadest sense, the nature and immanence o these

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toxic and radiological threats: How are regional and transnational soli

darities creating and deploying strategies o visibility and tactics o sensi

bilitytechniques o translation and mediation that engage our capaci

ties to perceive and respond to sensory stimuliin order to create more

ully inormed, alert, and engaged publics? An archaic meaning osensibil-

ity is readiness to respond to sufering or to the pathetic. How do strate

gies o visibility create possibilities or awareness, empathy, and inormed

interventions?

Designers o strategies o visibility ace a second problem: Contempo

rary environmental risks are not only inaccessible to normal sensory per

ception. Strategists o visibility must reckon with the nature o an image

saturated society. Marketing and advertising bombard citizens with images.We are immersed in the world o the simulacrum, the imitation. Te pro

lieration o imageryon Web sites, advertisements, on all communicative

networkscreates the prospect o an anaesthetized public, stupeed, sated,

and incapable o signicant response. Since September 11, 2001, moreover,

society is actively reorganizing politics and imagery circulated in the public

sphere: to the extent the state can manipulate citizens, the themes o terror

and state security dominate the imagination, dwarng prior concerns or

human and planetary health. In addition, decades o apocalyptic imagery

in environmental campaigns complicate the eforts o strategists o envi ronmental visibility. Current attempts to render environmental risks vis

ible are thus compounded by histories o inammatory rhetoric generated

by environmentalists, Hollywood, and, more recently, the state security

apparatus.

In the preceding section I examined the ways actors rom the govern

mental, public, and private sectors make visible the hazards, targets, and

environmental risks to our soldiers operating on remote battleelds. Ro

botics, cybernetics, and telemetry are also being deployed by artists, engi

neers, writers, lmmakers, video and perormance artists, and nongovern mental activists who are making invisible environmental threats accessible,

as sensuous phenomena, to varied publics. Teir inventive restructuring

and deployments o robotic, cybernetic, and biological mediations o en

vironmental threats to public well being are oen ingenious, provocative

uses o the same technologies being developed and deployed by the mili

tary. While the military robots and vivisystems are being deployed in simu

lations and battle space, contemporary artist engineers are intervening in

contemporary equivalents o the agora, the public sphere par excellence,

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on and wtn t bods, n vad mda and toug vad oms omdaton (Catts and Zu 2002, 2005; Hs 2005).1 Wat bdgsmtay and atst uss o obots and booga ogansms? How aatsts and ngns usng obots as toos o suvan, dsovy, and sstan to tats gnatd by ndusty and govnmnt? How a atstsusng mgng dsgn and abaton tnqus and tnoogs, atuaogansms and uman bods, ybnts and tmty to om statgso vsbty? In w ontxts a ts tnoogs dpoyd, at wpubs a ty amd, and o wat puposs s t nomaton tansmt td? T anmatd nvntons o on atst ngn, Nata Jmjno,povd on ustaton o us o obots, mot snsng, and ybnt

tnoogs n t sv o t pub and t pub sp.

StrateGieS aNd taCtiCS of viS ibility: the ar tS aNd

mobile teChNoloGieS of Natalie JeremiJeN ko

Wat woud appn adoatvty td? Nua poy, as w as dangs

wt modn mga azads n gna, woud onont a ompty angd

stuaton: t objt bng dsputd and ngotatd woud b utuay pp

tb.Ulrich Beck,Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity

Amost a a ntuy ago, Ra Cason, a mtuous man boogst,atd a vouton n pub onsousnssand, to a ss xtnt, n t pats o ndusty and govnmnta ovsgtby pubsngSilentSpring(99 [92]).1 H boo was a tqu o t onsquns o nvs b, undttd ass o t mo ndusta ompx on t at ouman and nonuman . At t sam tm, t boo was an ntoxatngpaan to t ntonntdnss o vng systms, uman and nonuman,and t ooga substat on w a vng systms dpnd. How a

w to undstand t wodwd povoaton and subsqunt mobzatontat Silent Springpptatd? Casons boo angd ndusty wt tsastdous and, wtn t mtatons o tm, ompnsv ompa ton o a massv sntf tatu, ud om jounas, nwspaps, andt tstmony o sntf oagus. It was aso song baus sntfvdn was wovn nto and mdatd toug pos tat was atnatyapsod, moast, and satuatd wt dstubng and dvastatngy tv tops. Imags o nvsb posons, nd to nua adaton, ytpntatng ou sos and stod bow t tn sn, stmuatd a sns

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the degree that we imagine, write, and draw this dichotomy in our environ mental plans, we create pure sanctuaries o untouched nature and pureurban spaces devoid o oxygen, islands o pure garbage, and rivers saturated

with invisible, toxic pollutants. Jeremijenkos projects, includingAmphibi-ous Architecture, are directed at reinvigorating the living edge o our humaninteractions with the natural world. While her interventions have a wonder ully ludic, perormative quality that suggests mime, political theater, andenvironmental happenings, her work is linked to the earlier, prooundlydestabilizing work o Rachel Carson. Jeremijenkos robotic dogs are cyber netic instruments intentionally structured to sense, track, and locate siteso environmental dangerradioactivity or chemical toxicityin rural andurban environments.

Jeremijenkos Toxic Feral Dog Release interventions are about makingthe rightening explicit, about locating danger in the landscape, and aboutspeciying, rendering accessible to public view and investigation, the toxicthreats o the industrial and postindustrial chemo nuclear industrialtechno complex (see fg. 2). Like a court jester in Shakespearean playtheone person permitted to point, in the play within a play, toward the poison,or the maleactorJeremijenkosFeral Robotic Dog Pack constitutes an an tic and deadly serious drama about nature and its corruption. Rather than

2 Dog tag or a eral robot named Chuzi. Photo courtesy o Natalie Jeremijenko.

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handing out tired, moralistic environmental placards with slogans paintedonto boards, Jeremijenko works with young collaborators, children in the

Bronx and in the American Southwest, as well as their teachers, to repro gram the dogs so they unction in new ways attuned to their locally pol luted, toxied, or irradiated sites. Commercial, mass produced, robotictoysexpensive automata perorming banal actionsare thus elevated toenvironmental tools: mobilized, environmentally smart prostheses.

Jeremijenko sets the hounds running. She and the kids that live in theneighborhood o toxic sites release the pink and yellow eral robotic dogpack, each wired canine outtted with sensors capable o detecting andtracking the trajectory o particular, toxic chemical signatures. Te dog

pack has detected military waste when roaming over regions o Florida. Insouth Phoenix the pack has located chemical hazards in the American des ert outback and reared up on its hind legs (see g. 3).

At the ofending source point, the mechano hounds are programmedto bay, rear, and gesture with their bodies. Rather than cornering the pro verbial raccoon up the tree, children rom the Bronx and their mechanopack have treed the ofending polluter. Te dogs rear up and point in thedirection o environmental (in)justice. As director, Jeremijenko releases the

3 Jeremijenkos students releasing eral dogs in Arizona. Photo courtesy o Natalie Jeremi jenko.

0

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management o the robotic dog pack into the hands o the youngwhoare not typically included in public processes o environmental assessmentand monitoring, or the discovery o health afecting environmental acts.Arican American and Hispanic children, the historic victims, or the chil dren o victims o toxic releases, become environmental investigators. Terelease o the toxic dog pack joins uturistic robotics with a version o thesouthern hunt with hounds. But in Jeremijenkos hands the event may in clude the great granddaughters o ormer slaves, or the children o Carib bean migrants whose ancestors once labored and died in the cane elds, orthe grandchildren o Mexican braceros, in holding, managing, and releas ing the dogs to snif out the traces o poisons designed, manuactured, and

releaseddumped, spilled, leaked, or leached into the soils o the Bronx,the wetlands o New Jersey, or the bombed and mined landscape o theAmerican Southwest, which Valerie Kuletz (1998) has called a landscapeo national sacrice. While her techno dogs are temporarily kenneledin art museums throughout the country, Jeremijenko releases them into thehands o the dispossessed, the marginal, the inormation poor in the inor mation agethose whose bodies have carried the burden, since the SecondWorld War, o the American environmentwaters, air, soil, ood, and com munities that have been irradiated and saturated with toxins, transmogri

ed through Better Living through Chemistry and a Walt Disney antasyworld o Our Friend the Atom. Rather than the Environmental Protec tion Agency, it is the local children who, in Jeremijenkos artul, irreverentenvironmental dramas, are releasing important inormation about toxinsand their sites in our neighborhoods. Although these dogs cannot bite,Jeremijenko asserts, they can bark! Tey can begin to expose the problemand insist on media attention to it.

On her roller skates in New York City, or wheeling around her high technology lab at the University o Caliornia, San Diego, with her engi

neering students, Jeremijenko is oen likened to the gure o the mimeand the court jester, covered in sparkles while her children and graduatestudents play. Pleasure and play are indeed part o her perormative strate gies and political calculus. Te ludic is disarming. But Jeremijenkos en vironmental interventions are, at the same moment, deadly serious. Tisengineerenvironmental directorartist is ashioning novel orms o social interaction, in collaboration with marginal communities, engineeringcultures, nonhuman engineered creatures, as well as the media world, at the

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vb, pu w b g y b.P Jmjk pw cpcy uc pyu, m g v. C m kc u mpju wk y. W Jmjk cp m wfc pubc ccu gc wy p qu. D m w w p , m m, pcy pmy pmc g? T c? Pmc ? Impc? c pvcu? Ewk? Evm ? I p C w, wc vm , m y pcc v , ubwy p, mv ckgy cmmpc, Jmjk vm gg

m v c, mug, upg mp mk vb, m mp m, mbz pub c cy mvg wy. O p m, m y mk ccb w pubc, my bcm, Jm cw, guy fcv wp wk.

refleCtioNS

I Jw g, [ Gm ] gu m cy, c., upuy

bug ; x u, um, b.Oxford English Dictionary

c cv w x; g c w v

w.he od or e Vo n Ka ra n, hi es Pp Dy, Mc 1, 200

w um um m w m bu yc

c (yc)cmc mccuc, um , yg pu

ymp w v c m c cmpu w g

vy, b m.Stani sl a e , Te Upside-Down Evolution

T B m m w w c v Golem

wk pcm cc w cu by b gg, wc

k pp y bug.Hen r l ioi i ,In the Pale:

Stories and Legends of the Russian Jews

I upmc gk pk U.. my, Ub Dmc

Ly ym w cmp g v ppu ym, mu

cm k, m mc vc, m

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o ll wds, uoomous d m i loop cool lgoims, d

sog ic wi blspc iomio wok. Eily oboic ck

ic o domios ldy ud dvlopm by U.. Ai Foc. As

blub om o mucu pus i, s domios will b cpbl o

complig i kill ci wi miiml um ivolvm.

Ste h en r ah a, Ciis d W o o

lmudic lo, Hlmic (1998: 5) cous, lls us o RbbiLow o Pgu wo, i 1580, siod cu o cly clld Golm,wic boug o li by big io is mou ifbl m oGod, c ppopid divi civ pow o wod. T

soy o Golm c b d s soy bou um ogc, igu iy, d c i sioig icil big, m o cly wo will doms biddig: cu ud gim o commd d cool. Tl o Golm my lso b d s soy o cology o u goou o cool: pbl o limis o um cpciis o cool wold o ic o wold o u.

My lm vsios o Golm l coi cu is ugly,ugily, d cud: mos us mok d mus b dsoyd.I compoy lboois coss couy, owv, mo xld

viw o biologicl wold, d o um iguiy i sioig igsom olivig subscs s wll s livig cus, modlig complxmcisms o ul sucus d pocsss, is widspd. YospB Co (200: v), pysicis wo s spcilizd i usig lcocivmils d mcisms o mimic ul pocsss d sucus, po cdu kow s biomimsis, sss: Ov 3.8 billio ys sic li issimd o v bgu o pp o E, voluio s solvd my ous cllgs ldig o lsig soluios wi mximl pomcusig miiml soucs. Nus ivios v lwys ispid um

civm d v ld o fciv lgoims, mods, mils, po csss, sucus, ools, mcisms, d sysms.

B Cos vc o biologicl sucus d pocsss cs c bc i log glogy o sciic ispiio om u l sucu d opios (s B Co 200). I is likd o Fbsmdiiv gz sucu d bvios o spids, wsps, d m iss. I is ld o Lodo d Vicis obsvios o d dwigs o ig o bids: w wold igiously cosucd d pulsig

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with the quickening contct o lie. Te exquisitely shione cmougeo butteys wings. Te mosic ome o gonys eye. Te billintlyclibte gce o wlking sticks slene legs.

In the eighteenth centuy Romntic poets sought out mniesttionso the wol o wil ntue. Fo Willim Woswoth n Smuel yloColeige, mong othes, the expeience o being in the pesence o wilntue povoke poweul, istubing sense o something lien, pooun,n even teiying. In the lte twentieth centuy, wil ntue ws still sight n site o the sublime. In his utobiogphy, the biologist E. O. Wilson (1999) testie to the tnspots he expeience in wht he be lieve to be the pistine wileness o topicl inoests. In n inteview

with Dvi kcs (199), n envionmentl histoin who hs tcke theevelopment o the ie o biologicl ivesity, Wilson ofee ew eec tions: When I pick up nothe species oPheidole[n nt genus], o meits like seeing the cetion: Im the st to see this species. Im the st tosee why its ifeent, whts unique bout it, n so on. An tht gives meimmense plesue in just eling with the ne etil. Go is in the etils:thts elly wht it comes own to. So Ive lwys h tht eeling.

Willim Conon (1995) tells us, howeve, tht until the beginning o theeighteenth centuy it ws ntue, n not the wol o cleve, humnly me

tice, which povoke nxiety, e, even teo. In the ely twenty stcentuy, nothe tun is being me in the histoy o the gze on the ntulwol n on the humn lnscpe: A wol o oboies n obots thtmy esemble (o be) wlking sticks, gonies, beetles, o bis, wheemicoies ech o the skies n Iseli bionic honets nvigte . . .own now lleywys to tget othewise unechble enemies ndara solicits bis o insect cybogs, whee esting butteies sensoycpcities my be ugmente by unetectble bckpcks cying mico electomechnicl components (Ll 200b). When the insect vntges

o esilient ight, built in stelth, n ecient ctutos, e instlleinto mico obots o vivisystems tht look like, ct, n seem like el insects, wht eelings my be ouse s we wlk long the shoe n py ing mntis lights on neby bybey bnch? (ibi.). When the darapogm using object insetion bility into buttey pups to elibly in set micosystems o insect contol cetes micoyes tht e successulcybog micosystems, how will we eg ntue? With we o suspicion?With n instumentl eye o wht we cn gne, hvest, o, in dara

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spek, scvenge? With n eye o wepony? With n e o the giningo ges? Will citizens eyebll the meest bug o signs o telemety?

It is not only ourgze tht is impotnt hee. When tht exquisitely cm ouge monch buttey lights on bnch besie ou pk bench inthe cente o Mnhttn, its gze is eqully impotnt. Wht inomtionis it sening by telemetic o othe oms o electonic signling, n wheen to whom is this inomtion being sent? Wht e the politicl npcticl implictions o these sttegies o invisibility? In this emegingbiotechnologicl envionment, the bounies between mechnism nognism e incesingly n intentionlly blue.

I cll the newly constitute species o cybog ntue n the lnscpe

in which they e situte stelth ntue: ntue tht suveils, tht itselis hien in plin sight. Stelth ntue is cmouge by n though itseveyy om. Suveillnce, s schols o the public sphee n politicsincesingly inom us, hs multiplie in the cities, centes o popultionn teo. Ntue, whethe in the county o the city, cn no longe bethought o s n unmbiguous site o epose, clm, n the tme estheticso the sublime. In the lte eighteenth centuy n thoughout the nine teenth, contct with the wil, beoe intense stoms n ntstic moun tins, stimulte sense o the sublime, the lien, n n nxiety so intense

s to sometimes ise to the level o teo. In the twenty st centuy nbeyon, will cetin geogphic egions become sites o ppehension? Will species o cetin kin stimulte nxiety? In moment o ince ible cetivity in the biologicl n engineeing sciences, well known speciesthe blck wiow spie o the col snkemy not be the only h binges o nge. Given daras enthusism o vin n insectoi omso stelth ntue, chni n vin nxieties my poliete. I the emso daras bioenginees come tue, stelth ntue will be equippe withsensos n linke to commn n contol centes ne n istnt. On

the bttleel, stelth ntue my sve lives but my lso bing the eye omility intelligence, nge, n even eth (Chistenson 2009).

Suveillnce n spying e not new in the histoy o civiliztion o inthe histoy o mility opetions. Afe Septembe 11, 2001, suveillnceinstuments bistle on the suces o govenmentl n pivte builings(Penti 2003). Tese instuments poliete in subwy systems n onpublic os, wlls, entnces, n exits. Like the ntul cmouge on butteys wings, stelth ntue vivisystems povie thei own ntul cove.

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Unlike stationary camera eyes axed to subways entrances, vivisystemeyes in the sky will ollow us. Will there be creatures looking at us in thealley, on the street, in the subway, in Grand Central Station, in the greatoutdoor public park near the wondrous public library? Will they ollowus? Nature, aer all, is everywhere.

And so is humanity. I the realm o the human is made, in part, by di erentiation rom the animal, then how does and how will the constitutiono a weaponized other afect our idea o the human? How will these neworms o nature remake the social? What happens when the other (the ani mal), against which the human is continually dened, is radically remadethrough weaponization and cyborgization? As eforts are undertaken to

borg the human soldier body (Shachtman 2003), on the one hand, andto dissolve rigidly maintained boundaries, afective and cognitive, betweenthe human and the animal (Pepperberg 1999, 2008), on the other hand, it istime to examine redenitions o the idea o humanity and the social.

Might the weaponization o the insect other acilitate a new normalor the idea o humanity? It is commonplace to assert that we are alreadycyborgs: pacemakers, psychotropic drugs, and cybernetic limbs constitutepart o a new bodily and psychological normal (Gray, Mentor, and Figuroa Sarriera 1995). Alterations in the body o the diminutive alien, the six

legged insect, may ease the transition to a norm o weaponized personhood:not the erminator whose innards are steel and circuitry but a weaponizedBorg whose ayed skin may reveal the pulsing heart and viscera o a humanbeing. What i the experiments to create weaponized stealth nature, as wellas ongoing eforts to engineer ully integrated cyborgian soldiers, consti tute a technosocial trajectory leading to a ully roboticized armed orce?How will these material changes in the soldiers body afect thinking aboutthe body, sel, personhood, or human agency? Te question What happensto the social in an era of weaponized life?becomes more concrete when we

ask: What happens to the idea and practice o a representative democracywhen the price o war is no longer paid in bodily termsthe blood, limbs,and lives o citizens?

Are shis in the ways we imagine stealth nature afecting the ways sol diers in Aghanistan and Iraq, in the theater o operations, think aboutand model the enemy? Is the enemy still being conceptualized in insectoidterms, as it was imagined and imaged during the Second World War (Rus sell 2001)? How is the prolieration o entomological analogies like swarm

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ing, or example, afecting images o the political and the human as well asthe reconceptualization o military tactics?

Whether we are observing swarms o mechanical looking dragonieshovering over protests in the public square or tracking the manic move ments o Jeremijenkos eral robotic dogs honing in on toxic vapor trailsin the south Bronx, we are situated in what the art critic and philosopher W. . J. Mitchell calls the age o biocybernetic reproduction. On thepower o the biocybernetic gure, Mitchell (2005: 31) observes: FilmslikeBlade Runner,Alien, Te Matrix, Videodrome, Te Fly, Te Sixth Day,AI, andJurassic Park have made clear the host o antasies and phobias thatcluster around biocybernetics: the specter o the living machine, the reani

mation o dead matter and extinct organisms, the destabilizing o speciesidentity and diference, the prolieration o prosthetic organs and percep tual apparatuses, and the innite malleability o the human mind and bodyhave become commonplaces o popular culture.

Hugh Gusterson (2005: 122) reminds us in his meditation on the poeticsand politics o the rhetoric o Frankenoodgenetically modied ormso agricultural cropsthat we cannot aford the luxury o being techno undamentalists, cyberphobes who unilaterally reject these amazing, as tonishing lie orms: Te natural, then, is a ction, a word that reezes

the world around us, unnaturally, at a moment in time, aeror maybebeorethe last set o changes we made, a way o erasing the traces o ourown agency in our environment. Te insect cyborg we reject may be thevery creature that, by ascending the walls o a nuclear reactor with gecko like eet, may prevent another Chernobyl like nuclear meltdown rom hap pening. Cyborg cell orms may constitute the next technoscience wave ointerventions in cardiology or oncology. Like the Golem, an ambiguous,polyvalent gure, threatening to go out o control, cyborgs are also deeplyambiguous, structured in ever more complex ways, deployed in a bewilder

ing variety o contexts, made to unction on many scales. While we cannotaford to be phobic or paranoid about these boundary rupturing creatures,we should not be sanguine about their existence, either.

Perhaps it would be more prudent to ask, case by case, in situ and invivo, what kinds o insects we wish to create, and to impregnate with themetaphor, with the technical embryos o our civilization. Hybrid creaturesdeserve mixed metaphors and provoke mixed eelings. What intentionsanimate our insertions o the machinic in the most intricate structures

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o liewhether at microbiological levels o organization, at the level o

the human body, or within entire ecosystems? Neither the rabbi nor the

Golem, neither the engineer nor the microbiologist, neither the artist, the

activist, the anthropologist, nor the Pentagon planner should be immune

rom scrutiny. Tese are questions about the co constitution o humanity

and nature. Tese are questions as much about the social world we will in

habit as the idea o the animal. Tese are questions concerning the media

tion and manipulation o lie and the choice o technologies o war: how

we observe, track, target, and kill human beings. Tese are questions about

the intentions which animate our gaze on nature and the nature that, in

turn, gazes on us: the nature we create.

What human interventions in the structure o the worldin the body onature and within our own bodies, in the body social and within the body

politicat war and at peace, in public and in private, will we recognize

as humane or inhumane? As welcome additions to species being? Tese

are questions implicating culture and technology, politics and biology, en

gineering and design, as well as ethics, which cut across these domains o

knowledge. As military unded biologists and engineers engage in that ex

traordinary process we call biomimesis, gazing thoughtully at the natural

world, we might ask, with Coleridge: What import these silent nods and

gestures / Which stealthwise thou exchangest with her? Te existence othese insects as antasy, and their potential materialization, provokes cu

riosity, awe, and repulsion. At the same time, they jolt us with a risson

o the uncanny. Vivisystems and biomimetic robots will not only inhabit

a new nature. Tey constitute elements in new ecologies and bio cyber

mechanical landscapes.

Te existence and continuing development and deployment o vivi

systems or military, civilian governmental, and commercial purposes, will

afect ideas about reedom o expression in the public sphere and the

boundaries between the public and private. As biomimetic and robotictechnologies develop, they will be increasingly deployed, accelerating the

roboticization o combat. Te use o these biocybernetic technologies will

alter the dynamics o assault, complicating the sequence o decision making

links in what military technocrats call the kill chain. Te use o these bio

cybernetic devices will alter practices o surveillance and crowd control on

the home ront as well as combat in remote theaters o operation. What

happens i the algorithms governing the biomimetic robot, or the armed

vivisystem, ail to efectively distinguish between combatant and noncom

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batant, committing, i one may appropriately use the vocabulary o agency,a massacre? Who is responsible? Is anyone responsible? Can one even speako responsibility? Would this be a violation o the Geneva Convention ora product liability case? Is it any kind o case at all? Te near term realityo vivisystems and their biomimetic robotic kin, in scenes o combat andhomeland security operations, is a specterunsettling how we imagineand wage war, how we ashion nature and the social.

NoteS

Several colleagues generously ofered insightul comments on earlier dras o this chap

ter, including ania Munz, Jake Kosek, Stean Helmreich, Bob Desjarlais, Joseph Masco,

Elizabeth Hartmann, and oby Volkman. I grateully acknowledge their contributions.

Tanks also to research assistants Angela Galli and Sharlane Charlie Prasad or help

in preparing this manuscript. I am grateul to Miriam icktin and Ilana Feldman, who

invited me to participate in the workshop On Government and Humanity at New

York University and to contribute to this volume. Earlier versions o this chapter were

presented at the 200 Annual Meetings o the Society or the Social Study o Science in

Montreal, at the panel War and Weapons and at the 2008 meetings o the American

Anthropology Association in San Francisco. A earlier version o the section on Natalie

Jeremijenko appeared as Engineering the Arts o Environmental Seduction: Te Arts

and echnologies o Natalie Jeremijenko,New Media Caucus 2(3) (200): 383.1 In 19, Leo Marx painted a portrait o American ambivalence toward the machine and

industrialism in his masterwork, Te Machine in the Garden: echnology and the Pas-

toral Ideal in America. Marxs reections were merely a mid twentieth century compte

rendu in a conversation that can be traced back to VirgilsEclogues.

2 For a view o the landscape o cyborg scholarship in the mid 1990s, see Gray, Mentor,

and Figuroa Sarreira 1995.

3 On cybernetically mediated war, see der Derian 2001; and Gray 2001. See also Gray,

Mentor, and Figuroa Sarreira 1995. For a useul description o recent eforts to ashion

combat ready robots, and the questions raised about responsibility or killing by robot

in the battlespace o the twenty rst century, see Featherstone 200. On the efort o the

Bush administrations war on terror to rework imaginative geographies separatingthe urban places o the U.S. homeland and those Arab cities purported to be sources o

terrorist threats against U.S. national interest see Graham 200.

On Fabres Souvenirs entomologiques: Etudes sur linstinct et les moeurs des insectes , see

also Fabre and Miall 191. Fabres portraiture o insects and their behaviors was ar more

various than might be inerred rom this assertion. While his characterizations o insect

personalities and behaviors were deeply romantic, his portraiture runs the gamut rom

the demonic (c. his essay on the praying mantis) to the pastoral, humble domestic, and

amilial (c. his portrait o the dung beetle). See Pressly 193; and Caillois, Frank, and

Naish 2003 or analyses o gure o the preying mantis in art and literature.

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5 I am indebted to ania Munz or bringing my attention to this issue. See E. O. Wilson

191; see also Wilson and Orster 199; as well as the corpus o Wilsons earlier work on

ants.

6 Both Tem!(Douglas 195),in which irradiated, giant ants pose a dire threat to human ity (and sugar actories), and Mimic(del oro 199), in which human size, morphing

insects, are enhanced by genetic engineering as well as natural processes o mutation,

embody ears o the outcomes o technoscience interventions in natural bodies and

processes. In Manhattan, cockroaches are spreading a deadly disease that is claiming

hundreds o the citys children. Entomologist Susan yler (Mira Sorvino) uses genetic

engineering to create what she and her colleague (and husband) Peter Mann (Jeremy

Northam) call the Judas Breed, a large insect (looking like a cross between a termite

and a praying mantis) that releases an enzyme that kills of the disease carrying roaches

by speeding up their metabolism. Te Judas Breed work spectacularly and the crisis is

abated. Since the Judas Breed have also been designed to only produce one male ableto breed, and they keep it in their care, the hybrid species should die out in a matter o

months. Some years later, people begin to go missing in the subways and tunnels under

the city. Susan, Peter, and their staf learn that they severely underestimated the Judas

Breeds ability to adapt to its conditions. Te Judas Breed has ound a way to reproduce

and has evolved in order to better hunt a new ood source. o everyones horror, they

discover that the Judas new ood source is humans, and now the insects have grown

to be as big as people and can mimic the appearance and behavior o humans with un

canny accuracy. Susan and Peter have learned that huge swarms o the Judas Breed are

living beneath the city in the subway system, and with the help o Leonard (Charles S.

Dutton), a transit system police ocer, they search out the insects, whose quick evolu tion (one ertile male and hordes o emales) also made them humanoid, beore they can

take over the city and rom there the world (Wikipedia 2009).

7 In contrast to the absence o a critical scholarly literature or social movements linked

to stealth nature, the literature as well as public comment on genetic engineering in

the nongovernmental sector is vast and oen intemperate. In the United States and in

Europe, the transnational literature o genetically modied organisms oen ocuses on

their unnatural, hybrid nature. See Gusterson 2005, and Haraway 1991. On Haraways

views on genetic engineering, see Myerson 2000.

8 One cannot help but wonder what extraneous biological unctions are and what con

ception o nature this phrase means to suggest.

9 Te term imagineers was coined by the Walt Disney Corporation to describe its employ

ees who imagine and engineer theme parks and other projects. Walt Disney Imagineers

come in all orms; artists, writers, architects, landscape architects, engineers, model

builders, construction managers, technicians, designers and a whole range o others

(Wikipedia 200).

10 Apparently Mark rail was a tougher character than I remembered: Mark railwas a

daily newspaper comic strip created by the American cartoonist Ed Dodd. Introduced

on April 15, 19, the strip centers on environmental and ecological themes. Mark rail,

the main character, was a photojournalist and magazine writer whose assignments

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l m nto ng n vntu. H gnmnt nvtbly l m to cov

nvonmntl m, mot on olv wt cung gt co (Wkp

2008).

11 On t toy o bologcl w, Mll, Englbg, n Bo 2001; n Gul lmn 2005.

12 S Gn 2003 o n onc ccount o t tzng o topcl ot n t u

o ttonl mcnl knowlg. Fo l ctcl ccount, Blck, Elbtky,

n L 199.

13 On t k o ung on, n t Pntgon pln to ct n ncngly obot

cz my, P. W. Sng (2009) n Nol Sky (2008, 2008b, 2008c).

14 Amt Ll, t cto o t dara hi es pojct, ct Sparrowhawk(1990),

cnc cton novl by t bology poo Tom Eton, npton o dara

hi es. Eton novl cb nml nlg by gntc ngnng n outt -

t wt mplnt contol ytm. S Ctnon 2009.15 On t mgnc o to tlk n t to mgny, O 2005. On t pouc

ton n polton o boto, Sn 200.

16 On t ncng ol o uvllnc tcnolog, ntwok, n obotc componnt

n t voluton n mlty f, t wok o Stpn Gm (200, 200b)

ptcully lvnt.

17 On p n t ltonp to w ngng octl cng, Vlo 200;

lo Vlo 1989.

18 S W. J. T. Mtcll 2005 o n tut tou o mgng om o t tt ngg bo

logcl n cybntc mtl, tcnolog, n poc. Fo vgnt vw on t

tc o contmpoy u o bologcl mtl n ognm n t t, Lync2003; lo Bk 2005.

19 S Con 199. On t ogn n ccy o Con top, n t ltonp

to t lg tcnocnc n nvonmntl contxt, Lutt 1985. S lo McCy

1993.

20 On t ccblty n ntllgblty o nvonmntl nomton n Wb b m

ton, Fotun 200. S lo eri 200, wc k to n Envonmntl

Potcton Agncy t mo untnbl n uul to mmb o t ly publc

kng to untn mon lvl om nutl t n t .

21 On t nvonmntl t o Ntl Jmjnko, Gtz 200; C 200; n

KQED TV 2003. S lo Mk Auozn 2005. Fo mo tl cpton o

t Ampbou Actctu Pojct, ttp://www.nyu.u/pojct/xgn/ (c

c Fbuy 18, 2010).

22 On t nucl lncp o t Amcn Soutwt, lo Mco 200.

23 Auto ntvw wt Ntl Jmjnko, Jun 1, 2008.

24 By t ly twntt cntuy, Wllm Conon (1995) t, t tyng cct

o t wl bn tm, mng, n ly boun wt ytm o Ntonl

Pk. Fo m twntt cntuy Amcn, t lt, ntu w no long wl n toot

n clw, but t, t objct o potc, uto tou, n pnom vw om

obck.

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25 See lso Lewis 2003. See kcs 199 or ull scle expositio o the philosophies

imtig ssumptios o severl prime movers i the history o the ie vlue o

biologicl iversity.

26 Altertely regre s utomto, s ser or servt o hum itetio, or s hum gure brought to lie through the ivie itervetio o Go or the esoteric

kowlege o me, Golems Golem rrtives revel itese mbivlece. See

Wieer 19 or ccout o the myth o the Golem its reltioship to the evel

opmet o cyberetics i the 190s.

27 See M, Nol, Wellm 2003; Preti 2003 or iscussios o surveillce, civilliberties, coutersurveillce.

28 Eugee Tcker (2009) cotrsts the cpcities o MEMS with bio BioMEMS i the

ollowig terms: While MEMS hve geerlly ou pplictio i everythig rom

irbgs i crs to igitl processig, oe o the leig els o MEMS reserch hs

bee i biotech evelopmet iclue: i vivo bloo pressure sesors (with wireless te lemetry), oligoucleotie microrrys (dna chips), microfuiics sttios (lbs o

chip). O the possibilities o otechology, see Feym 1992; or lter ressess

met o Feyms views o otechologicl possibilities, see Roukes 2001.

29 For oe o the erliest , ow, clssic refectios o the mbiguous ture o the cy

borg, see Wieer 19.

30 Pul Virilios commets o techicl essetilism or cybercult re cute: Just s

there is religious essetilism, there is techicl essetilism through techicl u

metlism, just s righteig s religious umetlism (i er Deri N..).

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Documents

Bio Mimes Is