ABSTRACT
One of the most popularised academic discourses surrounding the role of new technologies and their relation to subjectivity is one which Cubitt1 terms the ‘antinatural’. This discourse presumes that new technologies have transformative potential and are credited with the capability to alter ‘what it means to be human’. Its transformative ability is usually linked to its interactive potential, enabling it to break down traditional distinctions within the communication process, between the sender and the receiver.2 The user then takes up a position where they are ‘free to choose’ from the range of cultural options on offer.3 Despite the obvious criticism that the choices on offer are themselves highly regulated, the user is seen to take up a position of choice, fluidity and flexibility. This choice gives the user a feeling of control whereby they are able to choose an identity and play away from the material constraints of society. Cubitt4 terms this a ‘cybernatural’ discourse, where virtual space is viewed as a ‘third space’ - a space existing beyond those divisions and limits that currently position subjects in the social world. Virtual identities are those that are fluid, flexible and multiple, heralded by many as a consequence or effect of the greater freedom and autonomy created within the virtual world. It is argued that technology is forcing us to re-evaluate and reconsider the very ways we are formed as human subjects. Gender, race, class and age are now positionings that we are free to choose, play with and discard at will. Play within these accounts is seen to have radical consequences, allowing the user to engage in a non-hierarchical space, where women can be men, men can be women, where anything is possible. Choice, fluidity and flexibility are viewed as part of the process of subject reconstitution, which shows up the constructedness of all those categories and terms through which we are defined.
