Introduction: “Cyborgs, New Technology, and the Body: The Changing Nature of Garments” by Anne Farren & Andrew Hutchison
“Cyborgs, New Technology, and the Body: The Changing Nature of Garments” by Anne Farren & Andrew Hutchison first appeared in 2004 in the journal Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture (Volume 8, Issue 4, pp. 461-475). This speculative article explores the integration of bio, nano, and digital technologies into garments, redefining them as “cybernetic garments” that extend the body’s functions and challenge traditional fashion boundaries. Drawing on collaborations with the Tissue Culture and Art collective and Symbiotica, the authors highlight the potential for garments to respond to environmental stimuli, incorporate living tissues, and serve as information media, echoing McLuhan’s idea of technology as an extension of man. Its importance lies in shifting literary and theoretical discourse toward the “post-human” condition, influencing discussions on identity, technology, and fashion by citing only two articles, yet it has garnered 39 views and 2 citations, underscoring its niche but growing relevance in academic circles.
Summary of “Cyborgs, New Technology, and the Body: The Changing Nature of Garments” by Anne Farren & Andrew Hutchison
Introduction to Cybernetic Garments
- Explores the concept of clothes evolving with technology, reacting to stimuli like sound, light, and biometric data 🌟.
- Introduces speculative ideas: “Imagine clothes that change color, display changing patterns, react to sound, light, heat, and the closeness of other people” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 461).
- Highlights collaboration with Tissue Culture and Art and Symbiotica in Western Australia, focusing on living tissue in fashion 🎨.
- Suggests a shift from stylistic choice to practicality and comfort in fashion due to smart clothing 💡.
Redefining Garments and Cybernetics
- Proposes “cybernetic garments” as a new term to reflect technology’s intimate role with the body 🛠️.
- Notes historical technological shifts: “The impact of the industrial revolution on textiles… may in retrospect seem to have been quite slow compared to changes now predicted” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 463).
- Defines cybernetics as “the study of control and communication in self-regulating systems” (Tofts & McKeich, 1997, p. 19), linking it to the cyborg concept 📡.
- Argues clothes are a central technology: “Clothes are, arguably, the most central technology to articulating human attributes” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 463) 🌍.
Expanding the Definition of Garments
- Extends “garment” beyond clothing to include accessories and makeup, rooted in “garner,” meaning “to equip” (American Heritage® Dictionary, 2000) 👗.
- Includes items like hats and jewelry for their protective and communicative roles 🌂.
- Highlights makeup’s versatility: “the nature of cosmetics being temporary and variable is a key to its versatility and significance” (Lok, 2003) 💄.
Information Devices as Garments
- Considers keys, cell phones, and credit cards as garments due to their identity-defining roles 🔑.
- References McLuhan: “extensions of man” includes both physical items like clothes and sensory extensions like cameras (McLuhan, 1964) 📱.
- Notes personalization: “Keys are held together in bunches by key rings, that are personalized to reflect some sense of cultural identity” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 465) 🎨.
Future of Cyborg Garments
- Predicts digital variability in garments: “Variability is one of the key attributes of the digital aesthetic” (Manovich, 1999, p. 36) 🌈.
- Discusses bio-technology potential: “super-strong spiderweb silk produced in mass quantities from goat’s milk” (Newman, 2003) 🕸️.
- Envisions living garments like skin masks and fur grown in bioreactors, addressing ethical and practical challenges 🌱.
Body as Garment and Nanotechnology
- Suggests the body as a fashion site: “the human body can be described ‘as the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate’” (Hayles, 1999, p. 3) 💪.
- Proposes nano-bots for slow, trauma-free body modifications: “a face-lift… would progress at a rate so slow… that a person would suffer no trauma” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 470) 🧬.
- Links to gene therapy and dynamic body sculpture as future fashion trends 🌟.
From Flesh to Garment Cyborgs
- Distinguishes “flesh cyborgs” (embedded technology) from “garment cyborgs” (close-to-body tech) 🤖.
- Argues wearable devices like cell phones are sophisticated cyborg interfaces: “a vastly more sophisticated arrangement than surgical embedment” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 471) 📞.
- Warns of risks: “The potential for discomfort, disfiguration and death to occur if self-replicating ‘nano-bots’ turn into a runaway mechanical virus” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 471) ⚠️.
Conclusion and Fashion’s Evolution
- Emphasizes garments as part of the “media/information-scape” enhancing designer-consumer dynamics 🎥.
- Calls for designers to rethink craft: “changing the way they think about one of the world’s oldest and most fundamental crafts” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 473) ✂️.
- Predicts a new phase of “cyborg dress” fulfilling desires for variability and novelty in fashion 🌐.
Theoretical Terms/Concepts in “Cyborgs, New Technology, and the Body: The Changing Nature of Garments” by Anne Farren & Andrew Hutchison
| Term/Concept | Reference | Explanation of Usage |
| Cyborg 🤖 | “We have adopted the term ‘cybernetic garments’… Cybernetics is the study of control and communication in self-regulating systems… Clynes and Kline joined the terms ‘cybernetic’ and ‘organism’ into ‘cyborg’” (p. 463). | Used to describe the merging of human and technological systems; garments become extensions of the body, making wearers “garment cyborgs.” |
| Post-Human 🧬 | “Hayles (1999) uses the term ‘post-human’ to describe an individual and societal dependence upon not only technology, but on digital information and telecommunications” (p. 466). | Frames the transformation of humans into beings whose identities are inseparable from technology, including digital garments and communication devices. |
| Garment as Technology 👕 | “Clothes are a much more important technology to modern life than cell phones… Clothes are, arguably, the most central technology to articulating human attributes” (p. 463). | Clothes are reconceptualized as essential technologies that extend the body’s functions (protection, communication, identity). |
| Cybernetic Garments 🔄 | “We have adopted the term ‘cybernetic garments’ to signal the shift in perspective that is needed to account for emergent dress technologies” (p. 463). | Garments integrated with cybernetic principles (feedback, control, responsiveness) blur the line between clothing and interactive technology. |
| Invisibility of Technology 👁️ | “Postman’s argument that technologies that have become naturalized to the point of invisibility is critical to our argument… Clothes are visible but their ‘invisible’ is often obscured” (p. 463). | Suggests that clothing, though visible, operates as an invisible naturalized technology, shaping identity without being perceived as “technical.” |
| Extension of the Skin 🩸 | “The garment becomes an information medium that extends the function of the skin” (p. 462). | Draws on McLuhan’s “extensions of man”; clothes function as a communicative and protective second skin. |
| Variability (Digital Aesthetic) 🔀 | “Variability is one of the key attributes of the digital aesthetic, according to media theorist Lev Manovich” (p. 466). | Highlights fashion’s embrace of variability through digital technologies—garments that change color, texture, or form in real time. |
| Living Garments / Biotechnology 🌱 | “Biotechnology is about the manipulation of living tissue into artificial combinations, forms and situations” (p. 468). | Explores futuristic “living garments” grown from tissue cultures, raising ethical, practical, and fashion-industry implications. |
| Flesh Cyborg 🧍♂️ | “This is what we call a ‘flesh cyborg’” (p. 470). | Refers to direct bodily modifications (plastic surgery, nanotech, gene therapy) that turn the body itself into a mutable, fashionable “garment.” |
| Garment Cyborg 👜 | “Currently, people are ‘garment cyborgs’… Since clothes-as-garments redefine the body’s boundaries” (p. 471). | Differentiates between body-embedded technologies (“flesh cyborgs”) and garment-based technologies (clothes, accessories, devices). |
| Information Devices as Garments 📱 | “Cell phones, credit cards, cameras… their role in altering and maintaining our identity, and their functional and communicative effect, means they can be considered as garments” (p. 466). | Reframes modern personal devices as garments since they function close to the body and extend identity and communication. |
| Fashion as Media/Information 📰 | “Everyday garments [become] part of the media/information-scape of modern life” (p. 473). | Fashion is theorized as part of the broader information environment, with garments serving as communicative media. |
Contribution of “Cyborgs, New Technology, and the Body: The Changing Nature of Garments” by Anne Farren & Andrew Hutchison to Literary Theory/Theories
Post-Humanism
- Introduces the “post-human” condition where technology blurs boundaries between body and garment, influencing literary theory by redefining human identity 🌐.
- Cites Katherine Hayles: “the human body can be described ‘as the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate’” (Hayles, 1999, p. 3), suggesting a shift in narrative focus to technological augmentation 📖.
- Expands this through cybernetic garments, proposing a narrative evolution: “distinctions between knowledge and physical artifacts would disappear” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 473) 🔧.
Cyborg Theory
- Builds on Donna Haraway’s cyborg metaphor, integrating it into fashion narratives: “used the term ‘cyborg’ to invoke the science-fiction/cyberpunk image of the robot/flesh creation” (Haraway, 1985, p. 26) 🤖.
- Applies cyborgization to everyday life: “The few of us who are not already ‘borged’… are embedded nonetheless in countless machinic/organic cybernetic systems” (Grey, 2001, p. 19), enriching character development in literature 🌌.
- Distinguishes “garment cyborgs” from “flesh cyborgs,” offering a new lens for analyzing human-machine symbiosis (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 471) 🔗.
Media Ecology
- Aligns with Marshall McLuhan’s idea of media as extensions: “extensions of man” includes clothes and digital devices (McLuhan, 1964, p. 119), impacting narrative structures 📡.
- Proposes garments as information media: “the garment becomes an information medium that extends the function of the skin” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 462), influencing how stories convey meaning 🎥.
- Highlights cultural normalization: “technologies that have become naturalized to the point of invisibility” (Postman, 1992, p. 142), shaping literary themes of technology’s invisibility 🌫️.
Feminist Literary Theory
- Engages with Haraway’s feminist perspective, linking cyborgs to gender and technology: “science, technology, and socialist feminism” (Haraway, 1985, p. 26), offering a critique of gendered fashion narratives 👩🎓.
- Explores body modification as fashion, reflecting on societal pressures: “change is the very essence of fashion” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 470), relevant to feminist analyses of body politics 💃.
- Suggests variable identities through technology, challenging fixed gender roles in literature 🌸.
Examples of Critiques Through “Cyborgs, New Technology, and the Body: The Changing Nature of Garments” by Anne Farren & Andrew Hutchison
| Literary Work | Example of Critique Using Farren & Hutchison’s Framework |
| Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) 🧟♂️ | Shelley’s “creature” can be read as an early “flesh cyborg,” embodying the anxieties Farren & Hutchison discuss about biotechnology and the manipulation of living tissue (p. 468). Just as garments become “extensions of the skin” (p. 462), Frankenstein’s stitched body is literally an assemblage of technological extensions, raising ethical questions about the boundaries of human identity. |
| William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984) 💻 | Gibson’s cyberpunk world anticipates “cybernetic garments” (p. 463) and “information devices as garments” (p. 466), as characters wear technologies (neural jacks, goggles, dermal implants) that extend cognition and communication. Farren & Hutchison’s idea of garments as part of the media/information-scape (p. 473) aligns with Gibson’s depiction of fashion and body-tech as inseparable from identity in cyberspace. |
| Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) 👩🦰 | The uniforms of Handmaids can be seen as “garment cyborg” technologies (p. 471): clothing becomes a medium of social control, extending the skin into a disciplinary surface. Farren & Hutchison argue garments define identity and regulate behavior (p. 463), which mirrors Atwood’s use of costume to police sexuality, visibility, and subjectivity. |
| Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto (1985) 🤖 | Though a theoretical essay, it is often treated as a literary-political text. Haraway’s “cyborg” metaphor resonates directly with Farren & Hutchison’s expansion of garments into “technological-human evolution” (p. 473). Their idea of “garment cyborgs” (p. 471) exemplifies Haraway’s claim that the human is always hybrid with technology — even in mundane forms like clothing and cosmetics. |
Criticism Against “Cyborgs, New Technology, and the Body: The Changing Nature of Garments” by Anne Farren & Andrew Hutchison
Speculative Nature and Lack of Empirical Evidence 🌫️
- Relies heavily on hypothetical scenarios, such as “Imagine clothes that change color… or that your clothes were actually alive” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 461), without substantial empirical support, weakening its scientific credibility ⚠️.
- Fails to provide concrete data or case studies to validate claims about bio, nano, and digital technologies in fashion, limiting practical applicability 📉.
Overemphasis on Western Perspectives 🌍
- Centers on Western Australian collaborations (e.g., Symbiotica, Tissue Culture and Art), potentially overlooking global fashion contexts: “ideas coming out of artistic and academic work being done in Western Australia” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 462) 🌐.
- Neglects diverse cultural attitudes toward technology and clothing, reducing the article’s universal relevance 🎭.
Ethical Oversights and Risks Minimized ⚠️
- Downplays potential dangers of nanotechnology and gene therapy: “The potential for discomfort, disfiguration and death to occur if self-replicating ‘nano-bots’ turn into a runaway mechanical virus” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 471) is acknowledged but not deeply explored 💥.
- Lacks a robust ethical framework for living garments, such as tissue-grown masks, ignoring consent and ecological impact 🌱.
Limited Engagement with Existing Literature 📚
- Cites only a narrow range of sources (e.g., McLuhan, 1964; Haraway, 1985), missing broader fashion or technology scholarship: “extensions of man” (McLuhan, 1964, p. 119) is referenced but not contextualized widely 📖.
- With only 2 citing articles and 39 views (as of December 2015), its impact on academic discourse appears limited, suggesting underutilization of prior work 🔍.
Practicality and Industry Feasibility Doubts 🛠️
- Raises concerns about implementation: “significant issues still to overcome with washability, cut, construction, cost, and comfort” (Farren & Hutchison, 2004, p. 467) are noted but not resolved, questioning real-world adoption 📉.
- Speculative living garments (e.g., fur in bioreactors) lack discussion on scalability or economic viability, distancing it from industry needs 💸.
Representative Quotations from “Cyborgs, New Technology, and the Body: The Changing Nature of Garments” by Anne Farren & Andrew Hutchison with Explanation
| Quotation | Explanation |
| “Imagine clothes that change color, display changing patterns, react to sound, light, heat, and the closeness of other people.” 🌈 | Opens the article with speculative imagery; introduces the concept of garments as interactive, living technologies rather than passive clothing. |
| “The garment becomes an information medium that extends the function of the skin.” 🩸 | Expands McLuhan’s “extensions of man” to clothing, framing garments as technological organs that mediate identity and communication. |
| “We have adopted the term ‘cybernetic garments’ to signal the shift in perspective that is needed to account for emergent dress technologies.” 🔄 | Introduces the central concept of cybernetic garments—clothes integrated with self-regulating, responsive technologies. |
| “Clothes are, arguably, the most central technology to articulating human attributes.” 👕 | Reframes fashion as not merely aesthetic, but as the fundamental human technology shaping social existence. |
| “The few of us who are not already ‘borged’ through immunisations, interfaces, or prosthetics are embedded nonetheless in countless machinic/organic cybernetic systems.” 🤖 | Quoting Grey (2001), they argue that humans are always-already cyborgs, reliant on invisible or naturalized technologies—including clothes. |
| “An understanding of garment as technology, and then of humans as cyborg due to their dependence upon clothes, leads to a reconsideration of all of the other artifacts and devices with which we are in close contact.” 👜 | Positions garments as the model for expanding “cyborg” thinking—beyond clothes to devices, accessories, and media tools. |
| “Variability is one of the key attributes of the digital aesthetic.” 🔀 | Draws from Manovich to connect fashion with digital culture; garments embody cultural desire for changeability, customization, and novelty. |
| “Growing a wearable, living garment from tissue samples is currently not practical… However, there are good reasons to imagine these problems being solved in the near future.” 🌱 | Demonstrates speculative biotech possibilities; envisions living garments, blending tissue culture with fashion. |
| “This is what we call a ‘flesh cyborg.’” 🧍 | Defines direct bodily modification (surgery, nanotech, biotech) as creating the flesh cyborg, in contrast to garment cyborgs. |
| “Currently, people are ‘garment cyborgs.’” 🧥 | Concludes that humans today already live as cyborgs through their intimate, daily integration with clothing and wearable technologies. |
Suggested Readings: “Cyborgs, New Technology, and the Body: The Changing Nature of Garments” by Anne Farren & Andrew Hutchison
- Kline, Ronald. “Where Are the Cyborgs in Cybernetics?” Social Studies of Science, vol. 39, no. 3, 2009, pp. 331–62. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27793297. Accessed 17 Aug. 2025.
- Penley, Constance, et al. “Cyborgs at Large: Interview with Donna Haraway.” Social Text, no. 25/26, 1990, pp. 8–23. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/466237. Accessed 17 Aug. 2025.
- Orr, Jackie. “Materializing a Cyborg’s Manifesto.” Women’s Studies Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 1/2, 2012, pp. 273–80. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23333457. Accessed 17 Aug. 2025.
- Paul Sunday. Cyborgs. JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.28262607. Accessed 17 Aug. 2025.