Final Critical Breakdown 1

Donna Haraway in her “A cyborg manifesto science, technology and social-feminism in the late twentieth century”(1991) comments on  three critical breakdowns in history that demonstrates that we are moving towards a cyborg era. This piece comments on the first critical breakdown: the boundary separating humans and animals is narrowed as animals are observed to be creatures of knowledge. However instead of commenting on the rise of intelligence in animals which would require a piece made for animals I have commented on the revision of humans being as more like animals. Thus in this piece a human can sprout physical feathers, as the barb-like pin frame sits underneath one’s clothing to allow the fine silver feather to sit otherwise unaided on top of the wearer’s clothing. The use of fine silver created a clear impression of a real feather on either side of the silver feather. Furthermore the use of fine silver created a good contrast between the feather impression and highly polished background created by the discrepancies between the different feather patterns. Despite these qualities I feel the use of real feathers would have conveyed more directly the message of one growing feathers, however I felt metal was a more suitable material as it would resist the damage that comes from wearing an object more, than delicate feathers. In the future I would like to examine the possibility of setting real feathers in resin or silicone in a way that would not hinder their natural form but still be wearable.