Cyborg Hybrids - KC Adams
Cyborg Hybrids are Euro-Aboriginal artists who are forward thinkers and plugged in with technology. They follow the doctrine of Donna Harroway's Cyborg Manifesto[1], which states that a cyborg is a creature in a technological, post-gender world free of traditional western stereotypes towards race and gender.
About KC Adams
The main focus in KC Adams’ work has been investigating the relationship between nature (the living) and technology (progress). It is through the cyborg, a concept referenced in Donna Harroway’s socialist-feminist driven
Cyborg Manifesto that Adams explores this theme. According to Harroway, a cyborg is “a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality [lived social relations] as well as a creature of fiction. ”[1] Adams fuses organic and non-organic elements to create cyborgs, such as clay and moss with electrical wires and computer parts. She also creates cybernetic living spaces - interactive/kinetic living rooms or offices that reflect upon the human struggle to control our environment.
Adams questions the idea of mixed race in Cyborg Hybrids.
Cyborg Hybrids is a digitally altered photo series that attempts to challenge our views towards mixed race classifications by using humorous text and imagery from two cultures. The subjects are Euro-Aboriginal artists who are forward thinkers and plugged in with technology. Adams presents them wearing white chokers and beaded slogans on white t-shirts illustrating common stereotypes, such as “Authority on all Aboriginal Issues”, or “Spiritual by default.” The photos are air-brushed glamour shots, reflecting contemporary glamour magazines, while simultaneously mocking 19th and early 20th photography of Aboriginal people. The models are futuristic and almost androgynous looking, a visual interpretation of Harroway’s cyborgs, who exist in a technological world free of traditional western stereotypes towards race and gender. They hold defiant or proud expressions on their faces, daring viewers to culturally locate them as anything other than cyborg
hybrids. These artists do not allow the slogans on their t-shirts to
define them, and their captured strength exposes the absurdity of
common stereotypes.
[1] http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html