Abstract
Based on the case study of a series of Japanese chess matches between professional players and a number of computer programs known as “Syogi Den-ousen”, this paper explores the new model of agent which consists of human and nonhuman technological entities, and which can be widely found in the contemporary sports.
When we look at sports we can identify human and nonhuman hybrids, as in the case of runners with artificial limbs, or sports-loving people always with physical management apps in their smartphones, and top athletes who constantly try to modify their physical and mental parts through scientific observation and training. These human and nonhuman hybrids, however, are often comprehended by the way in which one is subjected to the other and therefore lost from our view, which maintains the proposition that only people take part in sports.
By referring to the approach of Symmetrical Anthropology advocated by Bruno Latour, I firstly investigate the reasons why we still accept such an anthropocentric view of the contemporary sports clearly penetrated by various technological nonhumans, and secondly focus on a reflexive form of self, which makes in itself the sharp distinction between passive parts objectified by scientific / technological methods and independent-minded human parts to control the former, or “the agent of monitoring” eclipsing human and nonhuman hybrids and re-empowering the proposition that only people take part in sports.
In contrast, my analyses of Syogi Den-ousen show that professionals and computer programs playing Syogi can be both recognized as human-nonhuman hybrids. Focusing on the processes in which they have transgressed the observational limits of monitoring and thus made fluid relations with various human / nonhuman entities, I finally suggest a non-anthropocentric form of agent that gives itself to these heterogeneous networks, which can be applied to the contemporary scenes of various sports.
