Psychosomasys (2021)
Psychosomasys critically comprehends the transhumanist drive to reassemble the imperfect human corporeality through technological transformations and scientific advancements.
Expanding the scope of physical limitations, a new level of hybrid existence relieves the technobiological subject from the suffering and death that affect the initially defective corporeality.
Psychosomasys critically comprehends the transhumanist drive to reassemble the imperfect human corporeality through technological transformations and scientific advancements.
Expanding the scope of physical limitations, a new level of hybrid existence relieves the technobiological subject from the suffering and death that affect the initially defective corporeality.
But can the pervasion of technology into the material basis of our life also affect the ephemeral sphere of the sensual? Does technological expansion transform mental processes — the autonomous realm of the human?
Reacting to the sound environment and movements of visitors, the transhumanistic body loses its physical integrity, revealing its own imperfection and asserting the leading role of the senses.
The "body" was melted with a heating element, the "head" was cut with blades, and the "leg" was ground with metal tips when someone approached:
Modern technology ultimately offers humans the chance to live for aeons, unshackled – as they would be – from the frailties of the human body. Failing organs would be replaced by longer-lasting high-tech versions just as carbon-fibre blades could replace the flesh, blood and bone of natural limbs. Thus we would end humanity's reliance on our frail version 1.0 human bodies into a far more durable and capable 2.0 counterpart. But even the most durable person with robotic organs remains a person who strives for eternity, but who will never reach it. Because to be human means to succumb to emotions, which can be both a pleasant component and destroy yourself.
The question is not whether attaching artificial limbs or enhancing particular traits or capacities would dehumanize or undignify persons but whether nonbiological entities are introduced into or attached to the human body are contribute to the "augmentation" of human dignity. Would the robotic organs working, however, according to the same principle as biological ones, become subject to the same psychosomatic disorders, thus leaving the main center of the human body without artificial improvements, we do not change the essence of the work of any parts of the human body.
Authors: Julia Gryoza, Milena Bashkatova, Dariia Purvina
Engineers: Rostislav Shtennikov, Alexey Feskov
Photo: Julia Gryoza, ITMO Art & Science Center
Special thanks to ITMO University.
May 2021
Engineers: Rostislav Shtennikov, Alexey Feskov
Photo: Julia Gryoza, ITMO Art & Science Center
Special thanks to ITMO University.
May 2021
