space, in which processes and formations of individuation as well as their integration into a technological, social, spatial and historical environment converge, besides the traditional dichotomy of creator and creation, selfcreation as a ‹figure of the third› ought to play an outstanding role, and furthermore it should be possible to find crucial ‹interfaces› here that are significant for its design, communication and perception. Before these again become the focus of attention, however, it is necessary to state in precise terms which expectations are attached to the «promises of monsters» of cyborg configurations.

Technologies of the subject and technologies of gender The examination of the traditional stories of creation showed that within the framework of the tales and images in which they are communicated, one ‹interface› is particularly prominent: the ‹interface gender.› On the one hand as an index that not only makes the relation between creator and creation identifiable in its contours as a relationship of desire and power, but also marks the success or failure of the act of creation. On the other hand, and in connection with this, as that place in which the monstrosity of an

‹artificial creation› becomes visible.

If this monstrosity on its part is closely coupled with the potential or the desire of the creations to themselves become subjects who are no longer subject to the laws of their creators, this is not only a general indication of the cultural fears associated with the ‹monstrous promises› of new technologies: They are promising and frightening in particular because they have to be regarded as «technologies of the subject.» [32] And as «technologies of gender» they are quite clearly particularly promising and frightening. [33]

This also no doubt appears where we encounter cyborg configurations as ‹figures of the third,› i.e. of self-creation. It is hardly coincidental that in the nineteen-nineties, in both popular culture and the arts we find countless examples for images and narrations that explicitly regard the «technologies of the self» as «technologies of gender» and question them as to their potentials and limitations. If one bears in mind films as different as Monika Treut's documentary «Gendernauts. A Journey Through Shifting Identities» (1999), Hans Scheirl's cyborg splatter science fiction «Dandy Dust» (1998), and Shu Lea Cheang's science