Repository logo

Article:
From Cyberfeminism to Code Control- Cyborg Fashion under the Technological Gaze

Abstract

In the late 20th century, Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto (1985) introduced the “cyborg” as a hybrid figure of disruption, blurring boundaries between human and machine, nature and culture, body and code. Today, ‘cyborg fashion’, characterized by prosthetics, coded materials, and speculative aes­the­­tics, is more visible than ever, largely due to its circulation within digital media ecosystems and the rise of AI-driven design. Yet this visibility is shaped by a new kind of control: the technological gaze of algorithmic moderation, platform standards, and commercial optimization. This paper explores how this platform culture has affected the identity and creation of the cyborg. Drawing from my own artistic practice and theoretical frameworks rooted in feminist and posthumanist thought, I examine how digital infrastructures reshape not only the aesthetics of cyborg fashion, but also the very conditions under which it is conceived, made, and shared. Rather than offering a single definition or solution, this text explores alternative spaces of creation and thinking. It proposes that cyborg fashion’s relevance today lies in reimagining how we make, relate, and remain critically attuned to the systems in which we work. By expanding its possibilities through interrogating the conditions of its creation and circulation, the cy­borg identity becomes not a static icon, but a living methodology.

Download icon

Published in:

Related Dataset

Wagemans, Esmay: From Cyberfeminism to Code Control- Cyborg Fashion under the Technological Gaze. In: IMAGE. Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Bildwissenschaft, Jg. 21 (2025), Nr. 42, S. 274-292.http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/24322
license icon

The item has been published with the following license: Unter Urheberrechtsschutz