Philosophy Of Posthuman Art

Aesthetic reflections by various members of the Frankfurt school have dominated the art world for many decades. Sorgner shows that they introduced a paternalistic logic in the field of aesthetics while attempting to overcome paternalism. His art philosophical alternative reveals the option of creating non-totalitarian total works of art. The wide spectrum of posthuman artworks reveals the immense diversity of nontotalitarian total works of art. "A deeply considered survey of the posthuman future of art. Sorgner's philosophy of posthumanism provides a path away from the dominant 20th-century aesthetics that still inform our conception of art today. Through the innovative concept of the 'twist,' Sorgner's encyclopedic text frames posthumanism as the foundation of an anti-totalitarian future of art." Eduardo Kac "Philosophy of Posthuman Art impressively examines the aesthetics of the monstrous, of hybridity, of smoothness and of the amorphous, to name a few. It is an articulate and informed analysis not only of particular artworks but also their philosophical underpinnings of Critical Posthumanism, Transhumanism and Metahumanism. It not only includes examples of bioart, body art, performance art and cryptoart, but also techno, digital and cyborg music. It is a time when we transition from the ontology of Being to the ontology of Becoming. We are now in a liminal age of the hybrid and the chimera. And as Stefan Lorenz Sorgner reminds us, with a twist, we have always been cyborgs." Stelarc

Posthumanism in Art and Science is an anthology of indispensable statements and artworks featuring a diverse sampling of major thinkers as well as acclaimed artists and curators. Their provocative and compelling works speak to the ongoing conceptual and political challenge of posthuman theories in a time of cultural and environmental crises.

A sustained engagement between contemporary art and philosophy relating to our place in, and responsibility to, the nonhuman world How do contemporary art and theory contemplate the problem of the “bio” of biopolitics and bioart? How do they understand the question of “life” that binds human and nonhuman worlds in their shared travail? In Art and Posthumanism, Cary Wolfe argues for the reconceptualization of nature in art and theory to turn the idea of the relationship between the human and the planet upside down. Wolfe explores a wide range of contemporary artworks—from Sue Coe’s illustrations of animals in factory farms and Eduardo Kac’s bioart to the famous performance pieces of Joseph Bueys and the video installations of Eija-Liisa Ahtila, among others—examining how posthumanist theory can illuminate, and be illuminated by, artists’ engagement with the more-than-human world. Looking at biological and social systems, the question of the animal, and biopolitics, Art and Posthumanism explores how contemporary art rivets our attention on the empirically thick, emotionally charged questions of “life” and the “living” amid ecological catastrophe. One of the foremost theorists of posthumanism, Wolfe pushes that philosophy out of the realm of the purely theoretical to show how a posthumanist engagement with particular works and their conceptual underpinnings help to develop more potent ethical and political commitments.

The notion of 'the human' is in need of urgent redefinition. At a time of radical bio-technological developments, and in light of the political and environmental imperatives of our age, the term 'posthuman' provides an alternative. The philosophical landscape which has developed as a response to the crisis of the human, includes several movements, such as: Posthumanism, Transhumanism, Antihumanism and Object Oriented Ontology. This book explains the similarities and differences between these currents and offers a detailed examination of a number of topics that fall under the “posthuman” umbrella, including the anthropocene, artificial intelligence and the deconstruction of the human. Francesca Ferrando affords particular focus to Philosophical Posthumanism, defined as a philosophy of mediation which addresses the meaning of humanity not in separation, but in relation to technology and ecology. The posthuman shift thus emerges in the global call for social change, responsible science and multispecies coexistence.

The new reader presents an up-to-date collection of seminal texts dedicated to all branches of debates on Posthuman Studies: Transhumanism, Critical Posthumanism and Metahumanism. It includes classical as well as cutting-edge contributions to these debates. The Posthuman Studies Reader is an indispensable resource for studying as well as teaching key concepts, central claims and main arguments of contemporary debates in the field of Posthuman Studies. The reader includes texts by: Neil Badmington, Karen Barad, Nick Bostrom, Rosi Braidotti, Claire Colebrook, Jaime del Val, FM-2030, Francis Fukuyama, Elaine Graham, Donna Haraway, Ihab Habib Hassan, N. Katherine Hayles, James Hughes, Julian Huxley, Brian Massumi, Max More, David Pearce, Anders Sandberg, Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Stelarc, Natasha Vita-More and Cary Wolfe. "This Reader is a perfect guide to get into bleeding-edge philosophy."Nicolás Rojas Cortés, Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities, University of Chile "The Reader can be used not only as a textbook in higher education, but also by all researchers and students in these fields as reference. [...] I highly recommend it to everyone who is interested in these movements and those works from which excerpts are included in it."Yunus Tuncel, The New School, New York "Since Sorgner, Sampanikou, Stasienko and their colleagues, almost singlehandedly, are crafting and advancing this discipline through its forming stages, when they publish a book with handpicked canonic texts, it should be treated as a landmark."Carmel Vaisman, The Cohn Institute and The Multidisciplinary Program in the Humanities, Tel Aviv University "What makes the Posthuman Studies Reader interesting and exciting is the facility to have in one volume the basic ideas and essentials of transhumanism, critical posthumanism and metahumanism. The reader provides in a condensed version an introduction to posthuman studies for both academic and nonacademic audiences."Leo Igwe, Department of Religious Studies, University of Cape Town "The Posthuman Studies Reader serves as a comprehensive guide and/or manual of an evolving and expanding Post/Trans/Meta Humanism discourse. [...] because of the clarity of organization by the editors and the highest scholarship of the writers, the collection was able to drive the interest of readers a notch or two higher."Joseph Reylan B. Viray, Polytechnic University of the Philippines

Problematic assumptions which see humans as special and easily defined as standing apart from animals, plants, and microbiota, both consciously and unconsciously underpin scientific investigation, arts practice, curation, education, and research across the social sciences and humanities. This is the case particularly in those traditions emerging from European and Enlightenment philosophies. Posthumanism disrupts these traditional humanist outlooks and interrogates their profound shaping of how we see ourselves, our place in the world, and our role in its protection. In Posthumanism in Practice, artists, researchers, educators, and curators set out how they have developed and responded to posthumanist ideas across their work in the arts, sciences, and humanities, and provide examples and insights to support the exploration of posthumanism in how we can think, create, and live. In capturing these ideas, Posthumanism in Practice shows how posthumanist thought can move beyond theory, inform action, and produce new artefacts, effects, and methods that are more relevant and more useful for the incoming realities for all life in the 21st century.

Recent technological and scientific developments have demonstrated a condition that has already long been upon us. We have entered a posthuman era, an assertion shared by an increasing number of thinkers such as N. Katherine Hayles, Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Richard Grusin, and Bernard Stiegler. The performing arts have reacted to these developments by increasingly opening up their traditionally human domain to non-human others. Both philosophy and performing arts thus question what it means to be human from a posthumanist point of view and how the agency of non-humans be they technology, objects, animals, or other forms of being works on both an ontological and performative level. The contributions in this volume brings together scholars, dramaturgs, and artists, uniting their reflections on the consequences of the posthuman condition for creative practices, spectatorship, and knowledge.

This volume deals with the challenges posthumanism meets as a successor to postmodernism in the field of artistic, literary and aesthetic expression. It also explores the ways social sciences and humanities are affected by posthumanism, and it asks how posthumanism can be an expansion of humanism in the contemporary world, rather than a transcendence of humanism. The chapters’ authors come from different countries, cultural backgrounds and study areas to present a varied perspective on posthumanism.