Rehumanising the Machine: How Dariusz Zawadzki Visualizes the Everyday Cyborg
# Introduction
Dariusz Zawadzki’s fantasy paintings depict a vast dystopian narrative, where humans merge with technology in necessary and grotesque ways. Decaying organs and limbs are replaced with artificial ones, and medical devices are used to manage bodies that have been afflicted by a polluted landscape. Overtime, these humans become bricolages of machine parts and non-human animals—a configuration that is referred to as a cyborg.
In the public imagination, the cyborg has developed as a stereotype in both techno-pessimistic and techno-optimistic directions. From science fiction, we got the cyborg-as-monster, a cliché in which the human subject is negatively altered by their fusion with technology: as they adopt the cold, unfeeling logic of machines, they lose their humanity in the process. Later, the academics gave us the cyborg-as-liberator. This loosely defined human-machine fusion is fantasized as a way out of dualistic thinking, for the cyborg’s fluid configuration blurs the boundary between organic and artificial, nature and culture, internal and external.
But cyborgs exist beyond fiction and metaphor. In her book Embodiment and everyday cyborgs (2021), Haddow uses the prefix ‘everyday’ to distinguish from the ‘monster’ and ‘liberator’ cyborg, and to examine the nuanced experiences of those who live day-to-day with less attractive medical technologies, such as ICDs and artificial organs. The everyday cyborg’s fusion with technology does not turn them into monsters, nor does it necessarily liberate them from dualities. Instead, they are met with increased vulnerability: issues of autonomy, privacy, hacking, and alienation arise (Haddow, 2021).
For the everyday cyborg, the boundary between organic and artificial can become, at times, even sharper, as they learn to adjust to the stark presence of a medical device that has breached their skin’s barrier. Haddow (2021) reveals how the everyday cyborg can acclimatize to this foreign presence by rehumanising the machines they are integrated with. That is, by experiencing the machine as a beneficial and integral part of their self, the foreign becomes familiar, and the disrupted boundary is reconciled. And so, “It is not that the human recipient becomes machine, therefore, but the machine that is humanised.” (Haddow, 2021, p. 151).
In this paper, I explore how this process of rehumanisation is visually exemplified in the paintings of Polish artist Dariusz Zawadzki. First, I argue that his figures are not androids, but cyborgs, who have integrated with technological and non-human animal parts in order to survive a hostile landscape. Then, I analyze the way Zawadzki depicts these everyday cyborgs, who take great care to maintain their hybrid bodies, but privately yearn for organic ones. Lastly, I explain how these cyborgs face an identity crisis due to feelings of alienation, which they overcome by wrapping themselves in a gown of skin. This outer layer of skin rehumanises their mechanical viscera, and allows them to regain a stable and unified identity.
# The Pure-Hybrid Continuum
In Zawadzki’s apocalyptic paintings, the sky is cloaked in haze, the ground is covered in debris, and distant smokestacks release steady plumes of toxic air. It is unclear how this wasteland came to be, though many possibilities are hinted at. Military armor and scenes of rallied troops suggest a recent or ongoing war. The extensive use of gas masks, oxygen tanks, and other protective equipment imply heavy industrial pollution. Disease and contagion may also be involved, as the plague doctor mask appears from time to time. Whether it’s war, pollution, or sickness, the land has become hostile, and it is causing mayhem on the body of its dwellers.
At first glance, the figures in Zawadazki’s paintings appear to be androids (robots with a human appearance) given the mechanical nature of their viscera. However, the consistent visual narrative reveals that they all began as organic humans. When children and babies appear on the scene, they often appear with minimal body modifications, such as in the painting ‘Red Moon’ (2022). As they age into adults, they become increasingly modified. This is likely due to the effects of the hostile landscape—body parts become damaged and contaminated, and must therefore be replaced. Bolts, wires, scrap metal and mechanical devices are just a few examples of the materials used. Sometimes, non-human animal parts are also transplanted. In ‘Legion. Hatchery’ (2016), the figure’s decay has excelled to such a point that their hybridization has rendered them unidentifiable as a human.
Zawadzki consequently uses a continuum of age in parallel to a continuum of pure vs hybrid bodies—the older the figure, the more hybridized (or cyborgized) they are. This parallel is disrupted only a few times. For example, in ‘Homunculus’ (2019), a baby floats in fetal position within a mechanical womb. It is already highly modified, before even being born, alluding to the reality that sickness and modification have no minimum age.
# Becoming / Unbecoming
Cyborgization is an ongoing process of becoming, since medical devices can be removed, replaced, upgraded and damaged. One does not become a cyborg and remain fixed in that state—to be a cyborg requires constant upkeep. And so, Zawadzki’s cyborgs are not seen in acts of violence or liberation, but in acts of maintenance. In ‘Third’ (2019), a figure is shown without its outer layer of skin, engaging in an intimate moment of self-care as they adjust the mechanisms in their lower leg. In 'Cyclus' (2020), the figure sits in a nest of cables as their devices—and thus, their body—go through a cycle of recharge.
These everyday cyborgs pass their days navigating interfaces, analyzing results, recharging their bodies, and gathering resources; all whilst keeping a watchful eye for external threats. Their time is spent mostly towards self-preservation, but they can also be seen in acts of protection. In paintings such as 'Red Moon' (2022), ‘Species’ (2020), and ‘Untitled 3' (2019), children and babies are carried around, hidden from threats, and grieved over by the adults. This could be taken as nothing more than a natural depiction of adults caring for the young. But symbolically, it could represent the adults yearning for their lost body purity, and their wish to maintain it in those who have yet to hybridize as severely as they have. If so, their actions allude to a desire to go back in time—not necessarily to youth, but to an organic, unaltered body. Why?
# Recasting a Fractured Identity
Haddow (2021) argues that the increasing biomedical practice of body modification could lead to a deep identity crisis: what does it mean to be human, and where do we draw the boundaries between us, machines, and non-human animals? Technological modification in particular creates a threat that arises internally, not only because of the machine’s capacity for malfunction and harm, but for what it does to one’s sense of self—the presence of inorganic body parts can feel like “an alien intrusion” (Haddow, 2021, p. 151), which the everyday cyborg may struggle to recognize as a part of their own body and identity. Perhaps it is for this reason why Zawadzki’s cyborgs yearn for their organic bodies—what they really desire is a body that is not alienated, not fractured, not in a mode of crisis.
According to Haddow (2021), this alienation is remedied by viewing the device as a part of one’s body and identity; for example, by recognizing its benefits, or by constructing a narrative that rehumanises the device. One of the participants in her study constructs a narrative which “suggests that the ICD undergoes a physical transformation as it gradually becomes coated in the ‘gunk’ of the organic body and therefore becomes less ‘foreign’” (Haddow, 2021, p. 132). It is unclear what gunk refers to here, but I take it to mean organic materials such as blood, mucus, and tissue. When the device is visualized as being covered and assimilated with the organic body, it is seen as less alien.
A similar narrative of rehumanisation via biological gunk is exemplified in Zawadzki’s paintings. Many of his cyborgs have skin that droops over their bodies like loose clothes, and at times, appears like bandages or tape. It may seem like this is skin which has merely sagged and decayed off of their bodies, but its placement is too contrived, which suggests that the skin came from an external source and was intentionally cast over the body, pulled taut, and fastened down. The closeup portrait 'Mechanical Head' (2017) allows us to clearly see the skin being held down to the skull, just above the eyes, using nails. These flaps of skin don’t serve any obvious functional purpose, as they are too thin and gap-ridden to provide protection. They do, however, serve an emotional need.
Zawadzki’s cyborgs face an identity crisis, as their innards have become a cacophony of alien body parts. Their solution is to use skin (biological gunk) to cover up their fragmented internals, create a facade of unity, and remedy the alienation which has resulted from their body modification. Haddow says, “The everyday cyborg can reinterpret the technology as transitioning from an alien intrusion to becoming a part of them... In the case of device implantation, the transformation is through the device’s alienation being recast as human. (2021, p. 151). Zawadzki’s cyborgs literally recast their mechanical viscera—cast as in to cover; cast as in “a protective shell of fiberglass, plastic, or plaster, and bandage that is molded to protect broken or fractured limb(s) as it heals” (Stöppler, n.d.). Skin becomes a cast to heal a fractured identity.
# Conclusion
Cyborgization is a constant and fluid negotiation with one’s own sense of self. Where do my boundaries begin and end? Where is the human in me? Which one of us is in control? The presence of artificial and non-human body parts can result in feelings of alienation, and when left unresolved, can lead to an identity crisis. Zawadzki’s cyborgs deal with this crisis by doing the work of rehumanisation. They envelop their fragmented bodies in the stability of an organic gown. Their identity, which has fractured like a broken bone, is placed into a cast of skin, with the hope that their viscera will become unified and their sense of self will be healed. Unlike the classic cyborg which is wrapped in metal, Zawadzki’s cyborgs are wrapped in skin. And unlike Giger’s biomechanoids who are ‘protected by bone’ (Russell Leven & Andrew Abbott, 2001), Zawadzki’s cyborgs try to put the bones back inside.
For a fantasy artist, Dariusz Zawadzki’s vision of the everyday cyborg is ironically realistic. As Haddow says, “In contrast to the popular depiction of cyborgisation as being dehumanising, the everyday experience of cyborgisation is of vulnerability and rehumanisation.” (2021, pg. 22). Instead of resorting to the usual cyborg stereotypes of violence and domination, Zawadzki depicts the mundane day-to-day moments of maintenance, fear, and yearning.
One day, if xenotransplantation and 3-D bioprinting become successful practices, then “individuals may look forward to living their lives assisted internally with various montages of materials from origins as diverse as other humans, non-human animals or biomechanical” (Haddow, 2021, p. 4). If cyborgization is our future; if, in the end, there is no choice to be made, then we must all contend with the resulting identity crisis. Zawadzki’s cyborgs can at least offer us some advice: make sure you have your skin flaps and staples ready.
References:
Haddow, G. (2021). Embodiment and everyday cyborgs: Technologies that alter subjectivity. Manchester University press.
Russell Leven & Andrew Abbott (Directors). (2001). Alien Evolution. Nobles Gate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foYPPbc8mWU&t=2179s
Stöppler, M. C. (Ed.). (n.d.). Medical Definition of Cast. RxList. Retrieved August 29, 2023, from https://www.rxlist.com/cast/definition.htm
> Posted: August 29 2023