Jonathan Garfinkel, Canada
University of Alberta MLCS (Media and Cultural Studies)Presenter of 1 Presentation
MY LIFE AS A PRACTICAL CYBORG: A T1D’S REFLECTION ON LOOP AND THE DIY BIO-HACK MOVEMENT
Abstract
Background and Aims
In March 2017, after being a T1D for 34 years, I built the Loop app. Life on Loop has completely changed my life, marking significant improvements in diabetes care. In this paper, I wish to consider the philosophical and practical realities of life on Loop, drawing on my own experiences.
Methods
As an internationally published writer, the notion of “returning to the patient narrative”, as advocated by philosopher Havi Carel, is appealing. With this in mind, I set out to write a “Diabetes Diary”. For the past year, I have been writing about what it means to live as a T1D in 2019 on Loop. In my paper I will highlight and summarize results of this diary, a literary memoir project at the core of my PhD dissertation at University of Alberta.
Results
My journey has been, in many ways, a mediation and encounter with the uncanny. Borrowing from Heideigger’s concept of “unhomelikeness-in-the-world” (1996), my experience of the ‘unheimlisch’ is both a response to technological changes presented by the Loop phenomena, as well as a symptom of the day-to-day illness experience.
Conclusions
I hope this paper will open conversations into how medical professionals approach T1Ds. In listening to the diabetic’s story, it opens the possibility of a broader empathy, what Havi Carel calls “the second-person perspective”. Loop also challenges our very belief in a life-story. For as I grow into my own flesh, medical technology grows into my diabetic body, and with it, the question: Where does my body begin and end?