Chris Oakes wrote an interesting feature for Wired News about state-of-the-art bionics and individuals who are itching to upgrade their own bodies whether they “need” it or not. The article, titled “What if Bionics Were Better” is the final part in Wired News’s excellent series on artificial limbs and neuroprosthetics. From Oakes’s article:
Phillipa Garner is a self-described “gender-hacker.”
In 1993 at the age of 51, she underwent sex reassignment surgery. That was just the beginning of her quest for self-improvement. She followed the sex change with more modification: vaginoplasty, brow reduction, cheek implants, breast implants, lip augmentation and a face-lift. And she’d happily sign up for more, she says.
“I would be inclined to go through with some pretty radical conceptual self-improvement procedures,” Garner said. “I think of cosmetic surgery as collaborative art…. And when I next have disposable income, I’ll be back in the O.R…”
To Garner, surgical enhancements fall right in line with her vocation. A freelance illustrator whose work includes monthly satire in Car & Driver magazine based on cheekily modified car concepts, she has also produced a stream of personal vehicle designs for more efficient transport of the human body.
Whether she’s modifiying vehicles or her own body, it’s all part of the same quest for improvement.
“I felt that my situation in general was screaming out for a monkey wrench in the works,” she said.