Download or read book Spectacular Posthumanism written by Drew Ayers and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-04-18 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spectacular Posthumanism examines the ways in which VFX imagery fantasizes about digital disembodiment while simultaneously reasserting the importance of the lived body. Analyzing a wide range of case studies-including the films of David Cronenberg and Stanley Kubrick, image technologies such as performance capture and crowd simulation, Game of Thrones, Terminator: Genisys, Planet Earth, and 300-Ayers builds on Miriam Hansen's concept of vernacular modernism to argue that the vernacular posthumanism of these media objects has a phenomenological impact on viewers. As classical Hollywood cinema initiated viewers into the experience of modernism, so too does the VFX image initiate viewers into digital, posthuman modes of thinking and being. Ayers's innovative close-reading of popular, mass-market media objects reveals the complex ways that these popular media struggle to make sense of humanity's place within the contemporary world. Spectacular Posthumanism argues that special and visual effects images produce a digital, posthuman vernacular, one which generates competing fantasies about the utopian and dystopian potential of a nonhuman future. As humanity grapples with such heady issues as catastrophic climate change, threats of anonymous cyber warfare, an increasing reliance on autonomous computing systems, genetic manipulation of both humans and nonhumans, and the promise of technologically enhanced bodies, the anxieties related to these issues register in popular culture. Through the process of compositing humans and nonhumans into a seemingly seamless whole, digital images visualize a utopian fantasy in which flesh and information might easily coexist and cohabitate with each other. These images, however, also exhibit the dystopic anxieties that develop around this fantasy. Relevant to our contemporary moment, Spectacular Posthumanism both diagnoses and offers a critique of this fantasy, arguing that this posthuman imagination overlooks the importance of embodiment and lived experience.
Download or read book Posthuman Architectures written by Mark Garcia and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2024-01-03 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Posthuman is the new paradigm of architecture. Encompassing related topics such as the post-Anthropocene, more-than-human, non-human, trans-human, anti-human and meta-human, this AD presents a synthesis of the architectural Posthuman. Proliferating and diversifying, the Posthuman is now as planetary as it is everyday, and as disruptive, contested and contradictory as it is sublime. From the detail to the interplanetary, and from real and fictional designs and spaces to more proleptic universe-building futures, the issue describes and speculates on these spectacular and shocking new species. It envisions the Posthuman through the array of emerging technologies, and features original contributions from academics, professionals, design studios and related disciplines and domains. These new spaces include the full electromagnetic spectrum and present new entanglements of Posthuman theories and technologies. Contributors: Mario Carpo; Paul Dobraszczyk; Alberto Fernandez; Ariane Harrison; Sandra Häuplik-Meusburger and Olga Bannova; Steven Hutt; Xavier de Kestelier, Levent Ozruh and Jonathan Irwan; Sylvia Lavin; Jacopo Leveratto; Tyson Hosmer, Roberto Bottazzi and Mollie Claypool; Colbey Reid and Dennis Weiss; Andrew Witt; and Brent Sherwood. Featured designers and architects: Blue Origin, Christian Rex van Minnen, Harrison Atelier, and Hassell.
Download or read book Posthumanism in Practice written by Christine Daigle and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-01-12 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Media Technologies and Posthuman Intimacy written by Jan Stasienko and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-12-16 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constructing a theory of intimacy describing processes occurring between a 'human' subject and information creations, Jan Stasienko shows in what way and in what phases that relationship is built and what its nature is. He discusses technologies and genres related to the construction of a new television message (teleprompter, interactive television forms appearing both in the analogue and digital eras), composition of the film image and specificity of cinematic technologies (peep show, hybrid animation, digital visual effects). Also new-media technologies and genres will be discussed (for example, aspects relating to computer games and Web portals making video materials available). This diversity is prompted by the desire to show that the building of intimacy protocols is not the domain of the digital era, and on the other hand, that the posthumanism of media apparatus is a wide-ranging problem, i.e. the area encompasses various vehicles findable throughout various historical periods.
Download or read book The Posthuman Pandemic written by Saul Newman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-30 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the COVID-19 crisis forcing us to reflect in a dramatic way on the limits of the human and the implications of the Anthropocene Age, this timely volume addresses these concerns through an exploration of post-humanism as represented in philosophy, politics and aesthetics. Global pandemics bring into sharp focus the bankruptcy of the neoliberal economic paradigm, the future of the arts sector in society, and our dependence upon political forces outside our control. In response to the recent state of emergency, The Posthuman Pandemic highlights the urgent need to rethink our anthropocentrism and develop new political models, aesthetic practices and ways of living. Central to these discussions is the idea of post-humanism, a philosophy that can help us grapple with the crisis, as it takes seriously the unstable ecosystems on which we depend and the precarious nature of our long-cherished notions of agency and sovereignty. Bringing together international philosophers, political theorists and media and art theorists, all of whom engage with the posthuman, this volume explores a range of vital subjects, from the inequality revealed by COVID-19 survival rates to museums' role in spreading human-centric understandings of a world struck by human fragility. Facing up to the realities that the coronavirus outbreak has uncovered, The Posthuman Pandemic combines both breadth and depth of analysis to take on the posthuman challenges confronting us today.
Download or read book What Is Posthumanism written by Cary Wolfe and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2013-11-30 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to think beyond humanism? Is it possible to craft a mode of philosophy, ethics, and interpretation that rejects the classic humanist divisions of self and other, mind and body, society and nature, human and animal, organic and technological? Can a new kind of humanities—posthumanities—respond to the redefinition of humanity’s place in the world by both the technological and the biological or “green” continuum in which the “human” is but one life form among many? Exploring how both critical thought along with cultural practice have reacted to this radical repositioning, Cary Wolfe—one of the founding figures in the field of animal studies and posthumanist theory—ranges across bioethics, cognitive science, animal ethics, gender, and disability to develop a theoretical and philosophical approach responsive to our changing understanding of ourselves and our world. Then, in performing posthumanist readings of such diverse works as Temple Grandin’s writings, Wallace Stevens’s poetry, Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark, the architecture of Diller+Scofidio, and David Byrne and Brian Eno’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, he shows how this philosophical sensibility can transform art and culture. For Wolfe, a vibrant, rigorous posthumanism is vital for addressing questions of ethics and justice, language and trans-species communication, social systems and their inclusions and exclusions, and the intellectual aspirations of interdisciplinarity. In What Is Posthumanism? he carefully distinguishes posthumanism from transhumanism (the biotechnological enhancement of human beings) and narrow definitions of the posthuman as the hoped-for transcendence of materiality. In doing so, Wolfe reveals that it is humanism, not the human in all its embodied and prosthetic complexity, that is left behind in posthumanist thought.
Download or read book Philosophical Posthumanism written by Francesca Ferrando and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-06-27 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Posthumanism written by Stefan Herbrechter and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-09-26 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an analysis of the main preconceptions and desires underlying past and current representations of posthumanist futures.
Download or read book Posthuman Life written by David Roden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-10 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We imagine posthumans as humans made superhumanly intelligent or resilient by future advances in nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science. Many argue that these enhanced people might live better lives; others fear that tinkering with our nature will undermine our sense of our own humanity. Whoever is right, it is assumed that our technological successor will be an upgraded or degraded version of us: Human 2.0. Posthuman Life argues that the enhancement debate projects a human face onto an empty screen. We do not know what will happen and, not being posthuman, cannot anticipate how posthumans will assess the world. If a posthuman future will not necessarily be informed by our kind of subjectivity or morality the limits of our current knowledge must inform any ethical or political assessment of that future. Posthuman Life develops a critical metaphysics of posthuman succession and argues that only a truly speculative posthumanism can support an ethics that meets the challenge of the transformative potential of technology.
Download or read book Transhumanism and Posthumanism in Twenty First Century Narrative written by Sonia Baelo-Allué and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-05 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transhumanism and Posthumanism in Twenty-First Century Narrative brings together fifteen scholars from five different countries to explore the different ways in which the posthuman has been addressed in contemporary culture and more specifically in key narratives, written in the second decade of the 21st century, by Dave Eggers, William Gibson, John Shirley, Tom McCarthy, Jeff Vandermeer, Don DeLillo, Margaret Atwood, Cixin Liu and Helen Marshall. Some of these works engage in the premises and perils of transhumanism, while others explore the qualities of the (post)human in a variety of dystopian futures marked by the planetary influence of human action. From a critical posthumanist perspective that questions anthropocentrism, human exceptionalism and the centrality of the ‘human’ subject in the era of the Anthropocene, the scholars in this collection analyse the aesthetic choices these authors make to depict the posthuman and its aftereffects.
Download or read book Audiovisual Posthumanism written by Evi D. Sampanikou and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2017-05-11 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Posthumanism in the Age of Humanism written by Edgar Landgraf and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-10-04 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The literary and scientific renaissance that struck Germany around 1800 is usually taken to be the cradle of contemporary humanism. Posthumanism in the Age of Humanism shows how figures like Immanuel Kant and Johann Wolfgang Goethe as well as scientists specializing in the emerging modern life and cognitive sciences not only established but also transgressed the boundaries of the “human.” This period so broadly painted as humanist by proponents and detractors alike also grappled with ways of challenging some of humanism's most cherished assumptions: the dualisms, for example, between freedom and nature, science and art, matter and spirit, mind and body, and thereby also between the human and the nonhuman. Posthumanism is older than we think, and the so-called “humanists” of the late Enlightenment have much to offer our contemporary re-thinking of the human.
Download or read book Posthumanism A Guide for the Perplexed written by Peter Mahon and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-02-23 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Peter Mahon goes beyond recent theoretical approaches to 'the posthuman' to argue for a concrete posthumanism, which arises as humans, animals and technology become entangled, in science, society and culture. Concrete posthumanism is rooted in cutting-edge advances in techno-science, and this book offers readers an exciting, fresh and innovative exploration of this undulating, and often unstable, terrain. With wide-ranging coverage, of cybernetics, information theory, medicine, genetics, machine learning, politics, science fiction, philosophy and futurology, Mahon examines how posthumanism played-and continues to play-a crucial role in shaping how we understand our world. This analysis of posthumanism centers on human interactions with tools and technology, the centrality of science, as well as an understanding of techno-science as a pharmakon-an ancient Greek word for a substance that is both poison and cure. Mahon argues that posthumanism must be approached with an interdisciplinary attitude: a concrete posthumanism is only graspable through knowledge derived from science and the humanities. He concludes by sketching a 'post-humanities' to help us meet the challenges of posthumanism, challenges to which we all must rise. Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed provides a concise, detailed and coherent exploration of posthumanism, introducing key approaches, concepts and themes. It is ideal for readers of all stripes who are interested in a concrete posthumanism and require more than just a simple introduction.
Download or read book Posthumanism written by Pramod K. Nayar and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely book examines the rise of posthumanism as both a material condition and a developing philosophical-ethical project in the age of cloning, gene engineering, organ transplants and implants. Nayar first maps the political and philosophical critiques of traditional humanism, revealing its exclusionary and ‘speciesist’ politics that position the human as a distinctive and dominant life form. He then contextualizes the posthumanist vision which, drawing upon biomedical, engineering and techno-scientific studies, concludes that human consciousness is shaped by its co-evolution with other life forms, and our human form inescapably influenced by tools and technology. Finally the book explores posthumanism’s roots in disability studies, animal studies and bioethics to underscore the constructed nature of ‘normalcy’ in bodies, and the singularity of species and life itself. As this book powerfully demonstrates, posthumanism marks a radical reassessment of the human as constituted by symbiosis, assimilation, difference and dependence upon and with other species. Mapping the terrain of these far-reaching debates, Posthumanism will be an invaluable companion to students of cultural studies and modern and contemporary literature.
Download or read book Humanesis written by David Cecchetto and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2013-06-01 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanesis critically examines central strains of posthumanism, searching out biases in the ways that human–technology coupling is explained. Specifically, it interrogates three approaches taken by posthumanist discourse: scientific, humanist, and organismic. David Cecchetto’s investigations reveal how each perspective continues to hold on to elements of the humanist tradition that it is ostensibly mobilized against. His study frontally desublimates the previously unseen presumptions that underlie each of the three thought lines and offers incisive appraisals of the work of three prominent thinkers: Ollivier Dyens, Katherine Hayles, and Mark Hansen. To materially ground the problematic of posthumanism, Humanesis interweaves its theoretical chapters with discussions of artworks. These highlight the topos of sound, demonstrating how aurality might produce new insights in a field that has been dominated by visualization. Cecchetto, a media artist, scrutinizes his own collaborative artistic practice in which he elucidates the variegated causal chains that compose human–technological coupling. Humanesis advances the posthumanist conversation in several important ways. It proposes the term “technological posthumanism” to focus on the discourse as it relates to technology without neglecting its other disciplinary histories. It suggests that deconstruction remains relevant to the enterprise, especially with respect to the performative dimension of language. It analyzes artworks not yet considered in the light of posthumanism, with a particular emphasis on the role of aurality. And the form of the text introduces a reflexive component that exemplifies how the dialogue of posthumanism might progress without resorting to the types of unilateral narratives that the book critiques.
Download or read book Posthumanism written by Alan Smart and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Designed to explain posthumanism to those outside of academia, this brief and accessible book makes an original argument about anthropology's legacy as a study of "more than human." Smart and Smart return to the holism of classic ethnographies where cattle, pigs, yams, and sorcerers were central to the lives that were narrated by anthropologists, but they extend the discussion to include contemporary issues like microbiomes, the Anthropocene, and nano-machines, which take holism beyond locally bounded spaces. They outline what a holism without boundaries could look like, and what anthropology could offer to the knowledge of more-than-human nature in the past, present, and future.
Download or read book Our Posthuman Past written by David Edward Rose and published by Schwabe Verlag (Basel). This book was released on 2021-06-09 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technological advances directly affect the human being's material existence and its self-understanding. The Enlightenment's intentional agent is, due to specific technologies, undergoing a fundamental transformation. Yet, if the ideological basis of this understanding, the justness of social luck, is not rejected, then a new understanding of the "subject" which would avoid unfreedom in the territorialization of the digital world is made impossible. This book offers a novel Hegelian reading of the posthuman discipline in order to propose a new subjectivity.