Romanticism with the Machine (2): Cyberromanticism, Uncanny Robots, Romantic Cyborgs, and Spooky Science

Abstract

Chapter 5 continues constructing the “hybridity” and “fusion” narrative, but now focused on contemporary electronic ICTs. For the purpose of trying to understand the relation between romanticism and these ICTs, it constructs the working thesis that contemporary use and development of ICTs can meaningfully be interpreted as contributing to, if not completing, material romanticism’s project to marry Enlightenment and Romanticism: rather than creating new “machines”, there is an attempt to reach a synthesis of rationalism and romanticism by fusing humans and machines. The chapter reveals romanticism in the development and use of smartphones, social media, games, surveillance technology, algorithmic art, robots, transhumanist human enhancement, and other technological practices and phenomena. It is also shown how romanticism and even gothic is present in contemporary science and scientific-technological practice. It seems that with these new hybrids, technology and romanticism merge to an unprecedented extent.