Sordid Sites - The Internal Organs of A CyborgThe Internal Organs of a Cyborg is a CDROM artwork by Jane Prophet which offers cyborg bodies for the voyeuristic gaze. It presents the user with a photostory narrative that combines the visual approaches of the photo love magazine with the science fiction graphic novel or comic (Fig 1). A text narrative is fused onto scrolling pages of full colour photographs using ready-made images from Photodisc's stock photography CD-ROMs. The stock photographs are largely taken from Photodisc's "Health and Medicine" and "Modern Technologies" archives. The material has been cropped, distorted and montaged to tell the story of virtual lovers from different sides of the tracks whose paths cross in the emergency room.

CDROM-Narrative
The photostory describes a young woman from south London. She earns money by participating in drug trials and surgical implant research. She also buys additional implants on the black market to satisfy her interest in augmenting her body. Having been discharged from a private clinic following surgery (which involved the insertion of nanotechnological devices) she goes out drinking with friends. Across the bar she sees the repo man and she flees. He pursues her to take possession of the item that she has bought on credit. During the chase she is shot as the repo man tries to stop her escaping with the PCID (a microchip which has had her personality downloaded onto it). She is airlifted to an emergency room. Across town the successful director of a chemical bank collapses during the marathon with a heart attack. He is rushed to the same emergency room. Once inside the medical institution their experiences are very different. She has no medical insurance and is therefore offered pain relief but denied expensive life-saving surgery. Meanwhile, in the plush surroundings of a private room, the city gent learns that he needs a heart transplant. The young woman dies as a result of not having surgery and her heart is donated to the head of the chemical bank. But he gets more than he bargains for - inside the donated heart is the PCID implant that she bought on credit and which ultimately cost her her life. The chip contains her downloaded personality and it activates once inside the man's body. His dreams become filled with images of a stranger - a young dark haired woman. When he returns to work after convalescing he starts to receive email from an unknown woman and a love affair begins...
What follows is a hypothetic Lacanian analysis of our main protagonist in the CDROM. We begin by exploring the Lacanian definition of perversion in relation to the woman. Analysis of this area will discuss issues of voyeurism, the gaze, and identification, the drives and the Mirror Stage. The aim of this article is to question and explore the concept of needs of the human psyche focussing on perversion in the face of possible future transhumanisation.

Voyeurism
The Oxford Dictionary defines a voyeur as "a person who derives gratification from surreptitiously watching sexual acts or objects; a peeping Tom; a person who takes a morbid interest in sordid sights". For Lacan, voyeurism is defined through scopophilia which includes both exhibitionism and voyeurism. Scopophilic individuals for Lacanians are classified as clinical perverts. Within this school of thought it is also believed that the structure of perversion is predominately male. Only in exceptional cases could a female be classified as a true pervert. Voyeuristic behavior however can be experienced and enjoyed by all of us to differing degrees. *1

The pervert is the person who attempts to take sexual pleasure to the limit in order to achieve the ultimate jouissance. The French term volonte-de-jouissance meaning 'will to enjoy' is often used to describe perversion. This is based on the premise that the individual's enjoyment is derived from the fantasy of a supposed 'other' watching. This is then coupled with the fantasy that they are the instrument of the 'other's' supposed enjoyment. The ‘other’ is the reflection of the projected self, the ego. *2
Returning to the CDROM, the female protagonist, Chrissy Hastings, takes the notion of the voyeurism to the extreme. She leaves the confines of the 'meat' or flesh body and exists within a microchip that holds her downloaded personality. This chip, complete with the latest high tech cloaking device (which renders it invisible to scanning technologies) has been inserted into her heart prior to her death. Once inside the city gent, her silicon personality is activated with interesting repercussions as 'she' starts to send biochemical messages to the host organism (Fig2).

Her death is not prevented by the minute technological device, the nano surgeon, that she has recently had implanted as part of a medical technology trial. The failure of this technology is essential to the subsequent narrative and gender slippage, and reminds us of the fallability of the new. The nano surgeon is also a third voyeur in the scenario. This bio medical technology holds Chrissy in its gaze, constantly monitoring her and primed to intercept in any event which it interprets as a medical emergency. The nano surgeon is embodied surevillance, it takes a step further the notion that an awareness of surveillance cameras prevents crime, that the individual monitors their own behaviour as a result of being aware of the surveillance camera's gaze. In Chrissy's case the nano surgeon symbolises an internalisation of the panoptican, it resides at the centre of an individual, and is armed with devices to gauge, record and intercept bodily function on an intricate scale.

The Gaze
Voyeurism involves the eyes and the gaze, which for Lacan operate in distinct ways. Looking is from the individual's subjective position, while the gaze is that which looks back at us. *3 We are who we are through identifications with others, such as mother, father, brother or lover. An individual's identity is formed in relation to the 'other'. We look with our eyes at another but the gaze is not owned by us. It becomes the exclusive property of the ‘other’; we imagine and fantasize how the ‘other’ might gaze at us. The gaze becomes the object of the act of looking, the property of the other. It watches the subject from a position that is rooted in the individual's fantasy.

In this narrative we could apply the Lacanian notion of the gaze. By capitalising on the science fiction cliche of being able to transfer human personality onto a microchip, the narrative produces a scenario in which the female character becomes the ultimate unseen watcher. From within the male character she 'watches' his every move. It is absolute; she can 'feel' her subject, monitor his cellular changes and chemical shifts, access his thoughts and brain waves. The microchip could represent the look without the distortion of the eyes. The gaze of the ‘other’ we could say is being experienced directly from the bodily sensations of the host’s body. Our protagonist is literally 'seeing blind'.

The voyeur is focussed in sexualising the act of watching the external body. In the CDROM we replace the typical 20:20 vision of the voyeur's gaze with one that takes them inside the body, offering the interior of the 'meat' as the sexualised landscape rather than the exterior. This 'interior' encompasses not only the internal organs but also the innermost thoughts of the character. As the narrative of the CDROM progresses she begins to explore this prime voyeuristic position and gains sexual satisfaction from her internal position. Her 'eyes', supplied via the microchip, are the only area through which she can receive sexual gratification. The ‘eyes’ are thus eroginised, producing in Lacanian terms the pervert's dream par excellence.

Returning to the CDROM the narrative further unfolds; she now begins to communicate with the city gent via email. The female character reinstates the danger of discovery as she toys with him (see Fig3). Users can follow the online love affair between the city gent and his mysterious email correspondent. It emerges that these messages to him are none other than the female 'voice within', sent by the silicon personality of the ghetto girl. As their love affair develops the city gent embarks on a series of clandestine meetings in the virtual spaces of online chat groups. Here he discovers the joys of MUD sex and text based foreplay.

Who might we ask does the female character fantasize is watching her? What 'other' is she becoming an instrument of enjoyment for? What is the core of her fantasy? Is she trying to find answer to a question? Or is there a lack of a question? These last two questions are highly significant for Lacanians in the definition of perversion. Neurosis is characterized by a question that the individual is trying to answer, while perversion is characterized by a lack of a question. *4 The pervert does not question their sexual position in relation to the other, they ‘know’ they are the means of the others jouissance. *5Drives
The female protagonist in the CD-ROM has been engaged in surgical intervention and enhancement from an early age. She was perpetually the object of incision, addition and intrusion by medical staff. She is surveyed and invaded by magnetic resonance imaging, x-ray, endoscopy and surgery. Her last operation involved her swallowing a minute robot, a nanosurgeon, which was programmed to respond to physiological trauma and to repair internal injury and perform microscopic surgery (Fig4).

For Lacan the drives are one of the cores of sexuality.*6 They are based on the premise of never being satisfied. The purpose of the drive is to never reach its goal. Enjoyment is derived from constantly circling and repeating this endless journey. *7 The narrative of the CDROM tells us that she has been involved in drug trials for many years to the point of being addicted. She has numerous bio-technological devices implanted in her body. The character's attempts to exceed and control the limits of her biological boundaries while 'with flesh' become evident as the narrative exposes her use of performance enhancing drugs. We discover areas of the CDROM where we hear her answer phone messages, telling of her experiences of, surgery; we read her autopsy report which logs the devices found inside her and lists the scars which mark areas of her body which have been cut open. These are just a few examples of ways in which the body's flesh boundary - skin and muscle - is broken. Audio and animations are used to map a corresponding transgression of gender and social boundaries.

Could it be said that this addiction to technological implants represents an attempt by the drives to realise partial aspects of her desire? If this is true the position that the pervert takes in relation to this journey is very particular. As mentioned at the beginning of the article the position of the pervert is to become the instrument of the others enjoyment as opposed to the will of oneself in the case of the neurotic. Our protagonist would not be trying to find answers to her own desire but would be facilitating the enjoyment of the other. This perverse position means the individual will go to extremes to venture beyond the pleasure principle.*8

The Viewer
As well as mapping the voyeurism and exhibitionism of fictitious characters, the interactive qualities of the CDROM invite the user to satisfy their own voyeuristic urges almost at will. Once they have located links to the email correspondence or other personal effects, they can return to view them whenever they like. In addition the CDROM links to a website which functions in part as a collection of homepages for the female character. Via the homepages we begin to discover more intimate details about her life, we see the clothes she used to wear, the brands she liked, the places she used to drink, the clubs she used to frequent. We see her as an individual, not as the cyborg without ‘meat’, which is exemplified in the second interface, made of medical images (see Fig5). For those of us that have them, our homepages are a means of expressing our innate exhibitionism, and the female character's site is no exception. The website also plays on the user's voyeuristic drive by offering them an arena in which, not only to watch unseen, but to express their exhibitionism. They can engage in exhibitionism by adding to the email correspondence or by sending in self-portraits and stories, thus displaying themselves to the voyeuristic view of future users.

The Interview
The physical fragmentation, the literal breaking of the body through injury is shown in the CDROM in the operating room scenes. Here the surgeon functions as a kind of 'agent' for the ego, putting the body back together again. In the process of so-called 'invasive' surgery the surgical team breaches the boundary of the patient's body. Part of the research undertaken as part of the production of The Internal Organs of a Cyborg involved audio interviews with surgeons, some of whom were engaged in medical research for implant technologies. One surgeon described a rite of passage which he felt was essential to his exemplary performance as a surgeon. The process of scrubbing up and ‘gowning’ translated him from the location of consultant (conversing with the patient in a office and discussing medical procedures in an atmosphere that was often emotionally charged) to the location of the operating theatre. Once in the theatre he described the necessity of seeing the patient "as metal, or stone, or wood. The body like a mechanical device that needs repair". This doctor drew attention to the importance of the surgical sheet as a framing or screening device that obscured the defining features of the patient, making it easier for him to see them as 'other'. He described regular moments of slippage when he looked down in the middle of a mastectomy and recalled a previous conversation in the consulting room, in that moment the patient's body ceased to be meat, stone or wood and they were no longer fragmented. His description of these slippages are reminiscent of the mirror stage - it is as if the surgeon deliberately employed alienation in order to be able to surgically invade the body, but that his ego struggled against this fragmentation and succeeded in making him see the patient as whole and complete. *9 When this happened he saw the patent as an individual and he felt he "was mutilating some poor woman's body". At these times he literally took a step away from the operating table, for a brief moment, and distanced himself in order to be able to carry out his surgery. The slippage described by the surgeon draws attention to the intimacy between a medical team and a patient and the way in which alienation and fragmentation can be an essential element of surgical performance. In the CDROM scenes allude to the strangely intimate touching that occurs between doctor and patient, in particular the sanctioned and 'bounded' touching between strangers in the operating theatre, where the surgeon becomes the medical voyeur (see Fig6). The surgeon is the watcher that the patient cannot see as they are under anaesthetic (see Fig7).

The Fragmented Body
In reference to contemporary western medicine, many argue that technology is harnessed in response to our paranoia and fractured self. Medicalization could be seen as an attempt to control the fragmented and decaying body and make it whole again. *10 However the process that the body has to go through in an attempt to find this wholeness can be extremely traumatic for the patient and at times the medical staff.
Imaging technologies take the medical-expert-as-voyeur a step further. Body scanners and heart monitors survey and capture images of the body's most intimate zones and display them for the gaze of the laboratory technicians. These technicians watch the scans, x-rays and microscopic slides unseen by the patient. Numbers classify images of fragments of patients’ bodies rather than names, depersonalization becoming synonymous with patient confidentiality. The patient (especially as described anonymously in medical trials) is reduced to their disease and subsequent physiological and psychological response to drugs and surgery. The medical industry forms a voyeuristic circuit in which the depersonalised body is central. This depersonalised representation of the cyborg body forms the basis of a second scrolling image on the CDROM. A whole female body is laid out, both complete, and sliced, for our perusal (Fig8) but less than 5% of it can be seen at any one time as we scroll around it constrained by the parameters of the computer screen (Fig5). The CDROM depends on our egocentric need to see the whole body, we are almost guaranteed to want to scroll around and explore the distributed body, represented via scans, x-rays and slices, in an attempt to make the body complete. *11

The idea of the fragmented body was one of the earliest concepts developed by Lacan in association with the mirror stage. This is the moment in the child’s development when they see their body as a whole in the specular register, but their own perception is one of disunity with the image. This time produces great trauma for the child as it is trying to gain mastery over its body. This stage is quickly passed but the trauma of it can reemerge in later life. The child moves through this period by the formation of the ego. This is achieved by a process of identification with the specular image outside of the body. When this happens the individual's ego is formed, based on the alienation process. However, the individual is left 'covering' a lack of completeness in themselves through the conception of the ego. In other words the ego functions as an agency of deception by telling the individual that they are whole and complete. The experience of the Fragmented Body can result in great anxiety and aggression. For Lacan the human continues through their life constantly oscillating between their image, which is alien to themselves, and their real body which is uncoordinated and in pieces. Many symptoms are in response to the oscillation between these two camps. This sense of fragmentation expresses itself in images of castration, mutilation, dismemberment and combustion of the body, which can be expressed in dreams, ones analysis and in the way we might lead our lives. *12

In regard to our female protagonist in the CDROM, could we interpret her obsession with technological implants as an attempt to unite the image, which is alienating, and the real body, which is in pieces? If we were to do so, would she still be perverse in some way? If she is, then in what way? In Lacanian analysis the attempt to unite the body in this way could be read as a typical response by the hysteric, whose symptoms are bodily. The hysteric is the classification of neurosis based around the subject’s sexual position. The eternal question posed by the hysteric being, ‘Am I a man or a woman?’ and ‘What is a woman'. *13

References
1. The distinction between clinical structures and overt behaviour is crucial to the Lacanian approach. Just because someone engages in voyeuristic behaviour does not necessarily mean that they have a perverse structure. See Dylan Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, London, USA and Canada: Routledge, 1996 p.192
2. Jacques Lacan, 'Subversion de sujet et dialectique de desir dans l'inconscient freudien', in Jacques Lacan, Ecrits, Paris: Seuil, 1960 ['The subversion of the subject and the dialectic od desire in the Freudian unconscious', trans. Alan Sheridan, in Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection, London: Tavistock, 1977 p.320
3. Jacques Lacan, Le Seminaire. Livre XI. Les quatre concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse, 1964, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, Paris: Seuil, 1973 [The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, trans. Alan Sheridan, London: Hogarth Press and The Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1977
4. Jean Clavreul, The Perverse Couple, trans. Stuart Schneiderman, in Stuart Schneiderman (ed.), Returning to Freud: Clinical Psychoanalysis in the School of Lacan, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967
5. Dylan Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, London, USA and Canada: Routledge, 1996 p.138
6. See Part 3 General Theory of the Neurosis in Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis,(1916-[1915]), London: Penguin Books, 1962
7. Jacques Lacan, Le Seminaire. Livre XI. Les quatre concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse,1964, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, Paris: Seuil, 1973 [The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, trans. Alan Sheridan, London: Hogarth Press and The Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1977
8. Jacques Lacan, Le Seminaire. Livre VII. L'ethique de la psychanalyse, 1959-60, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, Paris: Seuil, 1986 [The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60 trans. Dennis Potter, with notes by Dennis Potter, London: Routledge, 1992]
9. Jacques Lacan, 'Le Stade du miroir comme formateur de la fonction du Je', in Jacques Lacan, Ecrits, Paris: Seuil, 1966 ['The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I'], trans. Alan Sheridan, in Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection, London: Tavistock, 1977, p.93-100
10. Lacan explores the notion of the fragmented body and its relationship to the mirror stage in 'L'agressivite en psychanalyse', in Jacques Lacan, Ecrits, Paris: Seuil, 1966 ['Aggressivity in psychoanalysis', trans. Alan Sheridan, in Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection, London: Tavistock, 1977
11. For some General Remarks on Hysterical Attacks see Sigmund Freud, On Psychopathology, (1895- [1926[), London: Penguin Books, 1993, p.95
12. See 7.
13. Jacques Lacan, Le Seminaire. Livre III. Les psychoses, 1955-56, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, Paris: Seuil, 1981 [The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-56, trans. Russell Grigg, with notes by Russell Grigg, London: Routledge, 1993] p.170-5
To be added to general bibliography:
Dylan Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, London, USA and Canada: Routledge, 1996 p.192