cyborgs was inspired in particular by Donna Haraway's «Manifesto for Cyborgs», which was published in 1984. [4] In her manifesto, the American natural scientist, who teaches at the University of California at Santa Cruz, introduces a being that is neither female nor male, neither machine nor animal, but a cyborg. It is a girl who refuses to become a woman (in a classical, traditional sense), who rejects any specification whatsoever: Rather she produces her identity temporarily in permanently new alliances, in constantly varying interactions. With her cyborg figure, Haraway parts with models of society that are built on repression and discipline: Neither Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis nor Michel Foucault's «Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison» are suitable for comprehending post-modern realities (and virtual spaces). Rather, this postmodern state establishes itself according to the principle of control, a principle developed in particular by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. For Haraway, the fact that Deleuze and Guattari no longer define the subject as one of ‹truth› but as one that finds itself in a permanent state of ‹becoming› makes up the particular attraction of this

philosophy.

Life on and off the screen

Numerous films have been produced which show how media—the old as well as the new digital media—change our lives [5] : «Strange Days» (1995) by Kathryn Bigelow portrays humans who are linked via their brains. I can retrieve the thoughts and feelings of someone else via a «squid» in my brain. Stored on a chip, the wishes and desires, fears and moments of happiness of others enable me to experience someone else's emotional images as my own. In his films «Scanner» (1984), «Videodrome» (1986) and «EXistenZ» (1999), David Cronenberg also thematicized something similar: Humans linked up via communication wires (telephone lines and natural telepathic abilities), their assimilation by the media, as well as their inability to distinguish realities. What is real, and what is virtual? Who is a machine, and who is human? It is not by chance that Chris Cunningham's videoclip for Björks song «All is full of love » (1999) focuses on a cyborg whose loneliness and need for love causes it to turn to its clone. Artificial beings apparently also love/live better as a