Transhumanism, Nietzsche and Politics: A Commentary on Their Relationship

The aim of this commentary is to highlight the relationship between Nietzsche and Transhumanism on the occasion of the publication of the Posthuman Studies Reader in 2021, which is edited by Evi D. Sampanikou and Jan Stasienko. More specifically, this commentary focuses on the fact that the Reader promotes Nietzsche as the official forerunner of Transhumanism, since it places humans at a transition point between animal and Overhuman.The analysis of the ten transhumanist texts in the Reader shows that, in essence, Transhumanism is not a transition but an overcoming of the human and, from this point of view, it is not in line with Nietzsche's conception. Moreover, this commentary focuses on the relationship between Transhumanism and politics and shows that the political dimension is entirely absent from most of the Transhumanist texts in the Reader. Thus, transhumanism should re-evaluate its epistemological foundations and its relation to politics.

Surreal Femininity: Nature and “Woman” in the Art of Marguerite Humeau

This paper focuses on the work of contemporary French artist Marguerite Humeau, specifically her 2018-19 exhibition “Birth Canal” and her 2016-17 exhibition “FOXP2.” Building on Surrealism’s interest in subverting the viewer’s notion of the real, the two exhibitions expand and reimagine the relationship between Woman, Nature, and the automaton. Humeau’s work makes the viewer question their understanding of gender, particularly whether behaviours that are codified as “female” in humans can easily be transposed onto the mechanical and the natural worlds. While the physical sculptures push the boundary between living and non, organic and mechanical, sound also plays an integral role in Humeau’s work by serving as the sculptures’ “voice.” In doing so, Humeau allows the nonhuman body to speak for itself, thereby undermining the Romantic notion of Nature as a sublime but passive muse.

Traditions of Yoga in Existential Posthuman Praxis

This is a discussion of Francesca Ferrando’s book Philosophical Posthumanism, focusing in particular on three chapters, “Antihumanism and the Ubermensch,” “Technologies of the Self as Posthumanist (Re)Sources” and “Posthumanist Perspectivism.” It traces the origins and implications of the concepts at the center of these chapters from a posthumanist perspective. It then evaluates these implications from the viewpoint of a non-Western praxis, specifically the spiritual praxis of Indian yoga. For this, it elaborates briefly on some genealogies of yoga and discusses what an intersection of posthumanism and yoga may look like. It holds that such a consideration would enhance the concepts of the chapters in question in Ferrando’s text.

Refocusing the Anthropocenic Gaze: A Photo Essay

In the process of bringing about the Anthropocene, humanity has become accustomed to taking up a considerable amount of space. This tendency can spill over into how we as humans take up space within our own photographs, too (such as selfies that fill the entirety of the image frame). As contrast, this minimalist photo essay offers alternative visual perspectives through posthuman photography. Alongside earth-tone photographs from the author in Belgium and the Netherlands, captions illustrate how we can refocus, rescale, and reframe everyday photographs that position (post)humanity within the contexts of our planet and the epoch in which we live. In photo essay form, text and images show how us how we can decelerate and refocus the Anthropocenic gaze.

The Posthumanist Dimension of the Novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

This commentary aims to place the novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk within the framework of posthumanism, focusing on selected aspects of the theory. Particular attention shall be given to Tokarczuk’s criticism of human attitude towards nature, notably animals, as well as her unique perception of material objects which in the novel are endowed with uncanny agency. Not only does the novel’s protagonist exist in a close interconnectedness with all sentient beings, but she also displays a profound sensitivity to matter’s vitality. Tokarczuk stresses the importance of human corporeality which unites us intimately with all of existence and provides us with a deeper understanding of the world.

Beyond Posthuman Theory: Tackling Realities of Everyday Life

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed us all in front of an existential mirror: Who am I? Who are we, as a society, as a species, as a planet? Many of the old anthropocentric habits based on the foundational myth of human mastery of the world no longer work. The Anthropocene, and all the related environmental emergencies that are happening, are co-caused by the unbalance created by human unsustainable practices of living, behaving and trading. We are at the forefront of a paradigm shift, which is calling all of us to action. Academics have the duty to confront themselves on these issues: Thinking must be followed by actual change. The actualization can be challenging and intense, but is also cathartic, regenerative and empowering. In this text, we will address compelling questions for the 21st century, related to posthuman economics and emerging technologies, sustainable ways of living and existential praxis.

Forms of Intelligence: Co-species Care in More-than-human Worlds

The project consisted of a series of collaborative online workshops between eight people from Knowle West, Bristol, Kent, and Colombia over August and September 2020 with expertise in different forms of animal and plant intelligence. These people ranged in age from 18-80 and included community activists, artists, and researchers with specialisms in spiders and ants, trees, fungi, butterflies and local wildlife, soil, coral, gardening, bees, dogs, birds, robotics, wearables, performance and visual arts. The group came together on the project to share knowledge, create principles for collaborating well across species and to begin exploring what could be made that would benefit humans, animals, plants and environments in more connected ways. The cards were inspired by, amongst other things, tarot and Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategy cards, as well as other types of card games (such as Cards Against Humanity) and creative inspiration techniques from artistic and design practices.

Book Review of Lucretius II: An Ethics of Motion (2020)

Lucretius II: An Ethics of Motion (2020), written by Thomas Nail, is an alternative book to approach posthumanism from a philosophical aspect. Its focus on motion correlates posthuman thinking with sociological, political, and philosophical dynamics by applying to Lucretius and continental philosophers. Its philosophical frame allows readers to comprehend posthumanism deeply by applying to ethics. The conceptualization of posthumanism, motion, and ethics is grounded in four fundamental methodologies including historical ontology, close reading, translation, and argumentation. Thus, the abstraction of the book is quite inclusive to envision what philosophical posthumanism is by delving into Lucretius’s philosophy.

Posthuman Media Studies

In connection with emerging scholarship in the digital humanities, media genealogy, and informational ontology, this paper begins the process of articulating a posthuman approach to media studies. Specifically, this project sheds new light on how posthuman ethics, ontology, and epistemology can be applied in order to develop new methodologies for media studies. Each of these approaches builds upon the foundation of an informational ontology, which avoids the necessity for pre-existing subjects that transmit messages to one another within a cybernetic paradigm. Instead, a posthuman paradigm explores methods that include counter-actualization, modulation, and counter-memory. Posthuman media studies emphasizes the need for experimentation in developing new processes of subjectivation and embraces an affirmative posthuman nomadic ethical subjectivity, linking true critique to true creation.

Sympoietic Art Practice in Co-expressive Re-worlding with Hegel’s “Vegetal Subject”

“Sympoietic art practice”, construed as co-creative making-together-with plants, contributes to posthumanist discourse by forming cross-species partnerships which re-configure exploitative relations with plants. The posthumanist commitment of sympoietic practice to live equitably with the more-than-human world is inherently opposed to the tradition of anthropocentrism widely associated with Hegel’s idealization of reason and culture. But when Hegelian philosophy comingles with the radically different assumptions of sympoietic art practice in this exploratory paper, a co-expressive “worlding with plants” emerges. A transformative re-reading of Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature reveals that the English translators have smoothed away the vibrant concept of a “vegetal subject” explicitly used by Hegel in the original German. The resulting interpretive fissure makes space for a creative scrutiny of human exceptionalism, humanist and posthumanist conceptions of plant subjectivity and human-plant relations. Our transdisciplinary article concludes with a performative knitting together and composting of shreds of Hegelian text with vibrantly participative strands of living couch grass.