Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” an infographic series by Mary Franke
Mary Franke English 271 Spring 2015
This
project
Haraway’s
A
attempts
to
Cyborg
use
information
from
Donna
Manifesto,as
inspira-
way,
theories
tion for a series of infographics. In order to successfully present her arguments from
in
renowned
Edward
a
visually design
appealing
scholars
David
I
relied
on
McCandless
and
Tufte . McCandless relies on the form of data
that he is analyzing to inspire the type of infographic he will create and his art helps the reader to makes sense of the many different data sets that exist in our world. I followed his path and let the information from Haraway’s chapter guide my design. Tufte writes about how displaying information in a clear way makes it functional, due to its viewer’s ease of understanding. In order to present information clearly, Tufte writes about the “craft” of art vs. “chart junk”. Craftsmanship doesn’t include useless information, while chart junk involves elements that may obscure the information. One of his major rules of thumb is what he refers to as “layering and separation”. In order to accomplish this, the design elements should be of substantially different colors and weights in order to present information clearly to with these infographics is to show a
the
viewer.
My goal synthesis between
McCandless’ focus on creating visually stimulating work and Tufte’s focus
on
conveying
clear
ideas.
One
major
challenge
was
extracting data sets and statistics from Haraway’s arguments— in tackling this issue, I chose to zoom in on smaller concepts and zoom out on big picture themes. This allowed me to dig deeper into the essay’s elements, as well as look at the essay as a whole and recognize its materiality.
“combine the language of the eye with the language of the mind”
WORD
68
91
94
96
114
mary franke
153
FREQUENCY
To introduce A Cyborg Manifesto, I designed two separate infographics which both display the frequency of words used in Haraway’s essay. The graphics were designed to be able to stand on their own, as well as work together. They operate under the assumption that the viewer will be able to decipher the meaning of the different colors, shapes and sizes in both images. The graphic on the left is more inspired by Tufte’s thinking in its clarity and the graphic on the right by McCandless in its aesthetically pleasing design elements.
While brilliant, Haraway’s essay is long and has its moments of density. The metaphors and symbolism used in her writing is a lot to wrap one’s head around. Through displaying her key words in the easily digestable format of the infographic, her work takes on a new and less daunting life. Likewise, viewing her work on a macro level puts into focus the main ideas presented in A Cyborg Manifesto, allowing the reader to remember what is important.
innocence power community machine sex consciousness biology gender labor dualism white reproduction radical animal family class natural mother manidentity experience electronics black reproduction survival dream human social privilege western nature myth organic state marxist economy struggle fiction illegitimateboundary people industrial unityrace modern revolutionary body life wage war imagination man culture pleasure domination
politics cyborg woman feminist technology world science primitive
apocalypse
ideological
“see a pattern, shape a story” - Dave McCandless, “The Beauty of Data Visualization” Ted Talk 2010
(Haraway, 302).
FALSE DICHOTOMIES PROBLEMS&DANGERS BY MARY FRANKE
“The dichotomies between mind and body, animal and human, organism and machine, public and private, nature and culture, men and women, primitive and civilized are all in question ideologically”
LIBERAL OR CONSERVATIVE
16
NUMBER OF DAYS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN LASTED IN 2013
ANALYTICAL
LEFT BRAIN MATH & SCIENCE
classification makes students less am
In this infographic I attempted to zoom in on the concept of “dichotomies” and dualisms, in order to elaborate more on Haraway’s point. This infogrpahic contains common dichotomies that are not only perpetuated by society, but are also often found to have detrimental consequences on their subjects. I relied on Haraway’s style of using “comfortable old hierarchical dominations” when choosing the information to present.
Haraway’s feminism breaks down boundaries set forth by society in order to become a “Cyborg”. The cyborg banishes the constructions of race, gender, and class hierarchies in order to become her best a truest self.
S
DICHOTOMY:
I.E.
A DIVISION OR THE PROCESS OF DIVIDING INTO TWO ESPECIALLY MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE OR CONTRADICTORY GROUPS
"YOU'RE EITHER
with me
OR YOU'RE AGAINST ME "
logicallyfallacious.com theguardian.com huffingtonpost.com
CREATIVE
right brain MUSIC & ART
mbitious and less likely to try new things
F M A SURVEY FOUND THAT 48% OF TRANS PEOPLE UNDER 26 SAID THEY HAD ATTEMPTED SUICIDE, AND 30% SAID THEY HAD DONE SO IN THE PAST YEAR, WHILE 59% SAID THEY HAD AT LEAST CONSIDERED DOING SO
Haraway’s manifesto challenges its readers to break free from the oppressive dualisms of Western Society
Human + Machine average time spent on the internet per month
32.3 hrs
35.3 hrs
43.5 hrs
THE AVERAGE AMERICAN SPENDS
ONLY
93%
3.4 %
PERCENT OF THE YEAR INSIDE
87% INDOORS 6% IN AUTOMOBILES 96.4 mins/day texting TIME AMERICANS SPEND DAILY ON SMART PHONES
48.5 mins/day e-mailing 38.6 mins/day facebook-ing 34.4 mins/day internet browsing 26.9 mins/day listening to music
OF AMERICANS WALK OR BIKE TO WORK
12 hrs 5 mins AVERAGE TIME SPENT PER DAY WITH MAJOR MEDIA BY U.S. ADULTS IN 2013
For this infographic, I wanted to create something that was more like the classic infographics that I am familiar with. Inspired by Haraway’s desire to dissolve the barrier between organism and machine, I chose to convey how much time we spend with and truly rely on machines on a day-to-day basis. This infographic shows the stat that the average U.S. Adult engages with media for over half of their day-perhaps we are more machine than human?
“a cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social realations, our most important political construction, a world changing fiction.� - Haraway, 149
“I’d rather be a Cyborg than a goddess” -Donna Haraway My final infographic makes the difficult attempt to map out Donna Haraway’s conception of “Cyborg Feminism”. In the center of the infographic I chose to put a list of many different types of feminism in true Haraway style. Although the graphic contains sparse words and is smaller than the other ones, I believe that it works to convey the grand idea present in her essay.
“turn information in then provide maps”
RECOGNIZE THE CONTRADICTORY SOCIAL REALITIES...
...THAT CONSTRUCT OUR PERCEPTIONS OF
GENDER
PATRIARCHY
RACE
CAPTIALISM
BECOME A
CYBORG
COLONIALISM
CYBER FEMINISM DONNA HARAWAY Amazon Analytical Anarchist Atheist Black Chicana Christian Conservative Cultural Cyber Difference Eco Equality Equity Fat French Global Individualist Islamic Jewish Lesbian Liberal Lipstick Marxist Material Maternal Mormon Neo New Postcolonial Postmodern Poststructural Pro-life Proto Radical Separatist Sexpositive Social Socialist Standpoint Third world Trans Transnational Womanism
BREAK DOWN BOUNDARIES
CLASS
question hierarchies & power structures
REALIZE IDENTITY IS A MYTH
nto a landscape, -David McCandless
Sources: Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto” David McCandless, “The Visual Miscellaneum” Edward Tufte, “Envisioning Information”