Steve Mann is the world's first real cyborg, a man who exists in harmony
with technology. With the help of a computer that he developed to serve as
an extension of his own senses, he is able to absorb reality electronically,
... able to confront issues of privacy and the manipulation.
... Cyberman is a brilliant exploration of obsession, the nature of genius,
and mass media.
-- Canadian Film Institute, 2001.
"If we think of technology as a runaway monster, we can think of this
as a way to tame the beast with a piece of itself." -- Steve Mann,
inventor of wearable computers, in Cyberman.
... the first human cyborg, and
that's the subject of Cyberman, a documentary film that had its
U.S. premičre at Austin's South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival.
The film traces Mann's gut-wrenching and charming 30-year path to
merge humans with technology.
Cyberman, is about a genius computer geek at the U of T who created the world's
first wearable computer.
-- Globe and Mail
Director: Peter Lynch
Country: Canada - 2001 (87 min.).
Cast: Steve Mann, William Gibson, Richard Mann
Rated: Parental Guidance.
Synopsis: Steve Mann is the worlds first real cyborg, a man who exists
in harmony with technology. With the help of a computer that he
developed to serve as an extension of his own senses, he is able to
absorb reality electronically, and through the use of a net-ready
camera fitted to his glasses, People cannot just see me, but also be
me. Thanks to this interpretive medium, Mann is able to confront
issues of privacy and the manipulation. Lynch makes excellent use of
Manns medium by splicing together both his own 16mm footage, video and
photography with Manns digital film and photo material. Through this
synthesis of sources Lynch is able to foreground some of Manns ideas
about manipulation: sometimes you cant tell through whose eyes we
witness reality. Cyberman is a brilliant exploration of obsession, the
nature of genius, and mass media.
Review: "Appropriately, Cyberman is a high-gloss, technically
accomplished piece; Lynch integrates several experimental photographic
and editing techniques into the documentary structure, the better to
do justice to Mann's uniquely high-tech perception. He may not be the
Terminator yet -- for a cyborg, he's quite unassuming -- but, as this
film makes abundantly clear, there seems little in this field that he
cannot accomplish, alone and on his own terms. The rest of us, lagging
behind, can only shake our heads in humbled wonderment."
--Eye Weekly
It may sound like a Saturday morning cartoon but Cyberman is actually
a fascinating and often funny documentary about Steve Mann, scientist,
inventor, social activist, performance artist and the world's first
cyborg. The ultimate techno-geek, he sports sunglasses equipped with
cameras and a wearable computer linked to the Internet. His goal is to
have people not only see his world, but live it with him.
--National Post (review for Jan 25
opening at Royal Cinema, followed by
Jan26 article)
CYBERMAN
The life and ideas of University of Toronto professor Steve Mann.
Directed by PETER LYNCH
Starring Steve Mann
-- TheMovieTimes
scenario: Peter Lynch
cast: Steve Mann
camera: Rudolph Blahacek
sound and music: Ken Myhr
editing: Caroline Christie
--IFFR (See gzipped PostScript version.)
It's a visually intricate look into the head of the world's
first cyborg: inventor, performance artist, privacy advocate, and
University of Toronto professor Steve Mann. Shot on a melange of
formats, including Mann's "Eyetap" Digital Betacam that's "constructed
from laser light," "Cyberman" is portraiture as hacking, getting
"under the hood" and trying to find out what makes a machine run.
Here, humor and naiveté meet social agitprop activism: it's a "Roger
and Me" for the William Gibson generation.
--indieWIRE
Artist, inventor, University of Toronto professor, ...
For decades he has lived his life "connected" to
his self-invented machinery, including a one-hand keyboard, an eye-tap
that allows him to view the world through a small TV screen, and a
camera that that feeds to his website so that visitors can "be me
rather than see me." As an artist, Mann's cybernetic photography,
known as "dusting", is a beautiful process to watch. Meanwhile, he
raises issues about public surveillance and private space, about body
and machine, and the vision of reality in a logo-saturated world.
Cyberman is an enthralling, sometimes hilarious look at a truly
original thinker ...
... Steve Mann, the fascinating subject of Peter
Lynch's documentary, lives his life broadcasting what he sees over a
live Internet feed. But unlike other Web-cam mavens, University of
Toronto professor Mann invented the technology he utilizes and has
been wearing such gear for 20 years. His "eyetap" technology, for
instance, can be worn as a pair of sunglasses; it traces the motion of
the human eye, allowing the eye itself to function as a kind of
camera. Mann uses this technology to start dialogues about privacy,
especially as it pertains to government and corporate surveillance.
Cyberman captures Mann inconspicuously documenting police brutality
with eyetap cameras; ...
The film could occasionally
use more information and less Errol Morris-derived visual flair, but
Mann is so compelling that any minor aesthetic qualms are soon
forgiven. (Eric Allen Hatch)
.
Cyberman had its European premiere at the Rotterdam International Film
Festival, where Globe and Mail correspondent Mark Peranson wrote, "the
most excitement comes with today's world premiere of Cyberman -
ambitious, compelling..." It was also recently previewed in the film
magazine P.O.V., where filmmaker and critic Peter Wintonnick
commented, "the most important Canadian film this year - a film that
stands at the crossroads of form at the intersection of old and new."
The poster made for the movie theatres; a smaller version
appears to have been created for promotion (we saw these up
on various lamp posts and bill board posting places around the city):
Link to high-resolution version of above poster.
Tattered remnants of old Cyberman movie posters are still turning up
around the city, e.g. on pieces of plywood used at construction sites...
FILM TITLE: Cyberman
Year: 2001
Time: 87 minutes
Film Types: Colour/35mm
Director: Peter Lynch
Producer: Michael Allder
Cinematography: Rudolf Blahacek
Editor: Caroline Christie
Sound: Sanjay Mehta
Music: Ken Myhr
Principal Cast: Steve Mann
Ratings:
rated by Globe and Mail (2001 Thurs. Sept. 6th, page R6)
as third best movie out of 350 movies submitted to Toronto
International Film Festival (considered by Variety second only to
Cannes among international film festivals).
Rating of "***1/2" (read as
"three and a half stars" out of a maximum of "****" (four stars).
opens the hood of the world's first cyborg -- inventor, performance artist,
privacy advocate and University of Toronto professor Steve Mann ...
lived in an electronic world for 20 years... Lynch follows Mann
to Times Square, the shores of Georgian Bay and, to most comic effect,
Wal-Mart and Nike stores.
Cyberman was rated "****" (four stars) by "Eye", 2001 September 6th:
CYBERMAN****
Starring Steve Mann, Directed by Peter Lynch. 87 min.
...
a fascinating and often funny
documentary about ... Steve Mann ...
social activist and world's first cyborg.
Cyberman considered the best movie in the Toronto Film Festival
(4+1/2 stars rating) by Toronto Life. The ratings are .gif images
(this one being "star4half.gif") that don't show up in all browsers,
so here is a
gzipped PostScript
version of the review.
Steve Mann has been living for the past 20 years as a cyborg.
Using wearable EyeTap technology he developed and built himself, one
of Manns eyes functions as a digital recording device. ...
Cyberman chronicles this living experiment and examines the philosophy
behind it. ...
Mann envisions a future where
his own grandchildren might re-view this Andy-Warhol-like
representation of his life, using a more evolved device
...
Mann's work can be perceived as pure visual art. Witness his
beautifully enhanced night imagery of New York icons such as Times
Square, or the traffic flow coursing across the Brooklyn Bridge in a
polychromatic blur of lights. Yet it is also social experiment, as
when he deliberately challenges a Walmart employee to prove his
authority to photograph and broadcast his own image on the store's
surveillance system in its entranceway.
Manns film explodes not only the notion of objective space, but also
the traditionally antithetical relationship of art, mathematics,
physics, and technology. ...
We are left
to reflect on the degree to which our own glimpse of the world is
altered by our perception: by what we choose to see, and to edit out.
Mann sums up his approach as a challenge of boundaries. This suggests
first and foremost that cyberspace is not some nebulous geography
disconnected from our daily lives, but directly accessible and
directly connected to the world as we see it around us.
Cyberman also deepens and deconstructs traditions of cinéma vérité...
The following pictures of the subject were taken on the roof
of the CBC building and are distributed under the
Subjectright License:
cyberman_cbc_roof1.jpg
cyberman_tilting_at_the_information_age_cbc_roof_picture.jpg
cyberman_cbc_roof2.jpg
cyberman_cbc_roof4.jpg
cyberman_superimposed1.jpg
cyberman_superimposed5.jpg
Corresponding book:
Cyborg:
Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer
Steve Mann,
ISBN: 0385658257
Corresponding textbook:
Intelligent Imaging Processing
(published by John Wiley and Sons, November 2, 2001)
Corresponding course:
ECE1766,
offered by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
at the University of Toronto