David Tomas "Art, Psychasthenic Assimilation, and the Cybernetic Automaton" In The Cyborg Handbook; edited by Chris Hables Gray, Heidi Figueroa-Sarriera, and Steven Mentor; New York: Routledge, 1995 (pp. 255-66) Using his own camera lucida installations as a point of departure, Tomas examines the concept of 'the body' as a component within a specific 'economy of artifacts and environment.' Taking Callois' theory of psychasthenia (disorientation in space) as another point of comparison, Tomas argues that performance installations allow radical refashionings and potential explorations of physical dynamics. The cockpit of a military fighter plane displays one example of such highly technological space. According to Tomas, the cockpit provides a 'breeding ground for a new site-specific 'self,' a new subject position, and a new psychasthenic logic of assimilation (between pilot and cockpit). Historically, Tomas situates this composition within Jean-Claude Beaune's chronology of the automaton (ranging through the mythical, mechanistic, mechanical, cybernetic, and synthetic live matter) as a 'cybernetic automaton.' In this light, the art of the 'cybernetic automaton' explores the limits of western vision, promises post-human forms of intelligence, poses as a non-military possibility for speculative interpretation, and acts as a rebellious practice in the formation of new bodies. L.E. Fazen