Cyborg Urbanization: Complexity and Monstrosity in the Contemporary City

Since the term 'cyborg' first emerged in the early 1960s it has gradually evolved to encompass an ever wider array of fields ranging from in vitro fertilization to science fiction cinema. In this article the idea of the cyborg will be explored in relation to the physical infrastructure of the city. It is suggested that the cyborg metaphor usefully challenges dualistic conceptions of urban space that revolve around antinomies such as nature/culture, body/technology, real/unreal and concrete/abstract. A cyborg perspective highlights complexity, hybridity and indeterminacy and emphasizes facets of the urban experience that remain extensively hidden in conventional accounts. Yet the cyborg concept also extends to functionalist, neo-orgamcist and technologically determinist approaches in which the role of flows, networks or biomorphic patterns takes precedence over the political dynamics of urban space. This article develops an alternative reading of the cyborg based around the need to rethink relations between the corporeality of the urban experience and the continuing political salience of the public realm.