According to Michael Sean Bolton, the posthuman Gothic involves a fear of internal monsters that won't destroy humanity apocalyptically, but will instead redefine what it means to be human overall. These internal monsters reflect societal anxieties about the "other" gaining power and overtaking the current groups in power. The posthuman Gothic shows psychological horrors and transformations. Traditionally this genre has been used to theorize postmodern media and literary work by focusing on cyborgs and transhumanist medical advancements. However, the internal and psychological nature of posthumanism is fascinating and can more clearly manifest in a different Gothic setting, 1800s American Gothic Fiction. This subgenre of the Gothic melds well with the posthuman Gothic because unlike the Victorian Gothic, its supernatural entities are not literal; they are often figurative and symbolic, appearing through hallucinations. In this historical context, one can examine the dynamic in which the "human" is determined by a rational humanism that bases its human model on Western, white masculinity. Therefore, the other is clearly gendered and racialized. Margrit Shildrick offers an interesting analysis of the way women fit into this construction of the other because of their uncanniness and Gothic monstrosity. Three works of American Gothic fiction--George Lippard's The Quaker City, Edgar Allen Poe's "Ligeia," and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" portray these gendered power dynamics present within the posthuman Gothic when applied to the American Gothic; the female characters are either forced by patriarchy into becoming monstrous, or they were never fully human in the first place.

La problématique à l’étude dans ce mémoire est la représentation et conceptualisation de la notion de posthumanité dans trois romans de Philip K.Dick : The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? et Ubik. L’analyse de ces romans nous permettra de montrer que l’auteur américain focalise sa réflexion sur le posthumain sur la subjectivité transcendante de personnages qui absorbent, et se substituent à la réalité d’autres personnages dans leur environnement. Nous montrerons également que l’écriture de Dick a évolué vers une vision plus spirituelle ou mystique en se détachant graduellement du récit de science-fiction traditionnel. Ce développement aura des répercussions significatives sur sa postérité cyberpunk. / This thesis examines the problematic of posthumanity in three novels by Philip K. Dick: The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep and Ubik. I shall argue that the notion of “transcendent subjectivity” is central to Dick’s conceptualization of the posthuman and that the novelist’s engagement with this notion enables a shift in his writing towards a more spiritual or mystical vision. Dick’s vision of the posthuman had a profound impact on cyberpunk authors such as William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Neil Stephenson. The questioning of the posthuman is a recurring strategy in the work of these writers.

No description available.

En djupdykning i att forska inom filosofin som är posthumanismen har utförts för att se hur den kan appliceras på den fotografiska processen. Flera aspekter av posthumanismen har identifierats som sedan har gjort ett försök till att skapa en alternativ metod för att få ett fotografi att uppstå. Några av de största svagheterna för bildskapandet är att fotografen har givits diktatoriska egenskaper om vad och hur något gestaltas, att motivet är endast en liten del av omvärlden som får plats inom bildens restriktiva ram, och kamerans oförmåga att representera en ständigt skiftande natur. Genom olika metoder så som en posthumanistisk vandring, texturering, bildanalys, och en performativ gestaltning skulle den konventionella fotografiska processen utmanas. Senare i designprocessen kom reflekterande objekt fram som en aktör som mycket väl utmanande problemen som ett fotografi annars lider av i sin skapelse. Spegelfragment placerades slumpmässigt framför kameran för att försöka fånga en oavsiktlig del av omgivningen som annars inte hade gestaltats inom bildens restriktiva ram. Designprocessen använde sig även av andra metoder som var mindre lyckade i sitt mål, men som ändå spelade en kritisk del i att leda fram till den slutgiltiga metoden för undersökningens gestaltning. Slutsatsen för arbetet blev att en alternativ process har uppnåtts, men att den gärna hade kunnat utvecklats mer för att bättre använda sig av posthumanismens verktyg. Det mänskliga skulle inte uteslutas ur fotografins skapande, men decentraliseras för att tillåta andra aktörer att ta plats inom fotografins arkiverande värld. / A plunge has been made into the world of posthumanism to investigate its merits to be applied to the process that creates a photography. Several aspects of the posthuman have been identified that would allow for the creation of an alternative photographic process. Some of the major weaknesses of image creation are that the photographer has been granted dictatorial powers over what can be captured by the camera, how the picture only captures a limited view of the world, and the cameras inability to represent an everchanging nature. Through different methods such as a posthuman hike, texturing, image analysis, and a performative design the conventional photographic process were to be challenged. Later in the design stage reflective objects would prove to be a useful actor in challenging the problems that a Kandidatarbete i Medieteknik Oscar Idberg (osid15) Sida 2 av 46 photography faces. Mirror fragments were randomly placed in front of a camera to capture an unintentional part of the surroundings that otherwise would have not fit within the images restrictive frame. The design stage used several other methods that were less successful in their goals, they did however still play a critical role in leading up to the final method for the investigations product. The conclusion acknowledged that an alternative process for the creation of an image had been achieved, it did however not take the investigation far enough and could have better used the posthuman tools available. The human should not be excluded from the photographic process; however, it needs to be decentralized to allow other actors to take their place within the archiving world of photography.

Submitted by Erika Demachki (erikademachki@gmail.com) on 2015-01-20T16:41:42Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Hélio Renato Silva Brantes - 2014.pdf: 13639112 bytes, checksum: 463c190579f150c6223126cc8494f57c (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Erika Demachki (erikademachki@gmail.com) on 2015-01-20T16:41:58Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Hélio Renato Silva Brantes - 2014.pdf: 13639112 bytes, checksum: 463c190579f150c6223126cc8494f57c (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-01-20T16:41:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Hélio Renato Silva Brantes - 2014.pdf: 13639112 bytes, checksum: 463c190579f150c6223126cc8494f57c (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-11 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Goiás - FAPEG / This Master dissertation developed in the Postgraduate Program in Art and Visual Culture at FAV / UFG , in Visual Poetics Research and Creative Processes line, part of an exploratory theoretical and practical research that aims to reveal the possibilities of working with artistic poetic having as a conductor bias the trajectory of the means of production an d creation of art and new technologies in the field of cyber art. It introduces the artistic trajectory of the researcher through the universe of painting on traditional support and the technical and technological paths followed by image makers throughout art history with emphasis on the rise of the so-called numerical art of digital basis. Conceptually, holds up in the struggle of man in the use of new technologies and in the approach of the concept of expanding the body through the machines, the "posthuman" body. Simultaneously to the theoretical research, the work involved the development of experimental poetics through a creation exercise that incorporates to the artwork of painting on cotton canvas the unfolding in a digital visual narrative. / Esta dissertação de mestrado desenvolvida no Programa de Pós-graduação em Arte e Cultura Visual da FAV/UFG, na linha de pesquisa Poéticas Visuais e Processos de Criação, parte de uma pesquisa exploratória teórico-prática que objetiva revelar as possibilidades de trabalhar poéticas artísticas tendo como viés condutor a trajetória dos meios de produção e criação da arte e as novas tecnologias no campo da ciberarte. Apresenta a trajetória artística do pesquisador pelo universo da pintura em suportes tradicionais e os caminhos técnicos e tecnológicos adotados pelos criadores de imagem ao longo da história da arte com destaque para o surgimento da chamada arte numérica, de base digital. Conceitualmente, detém-se nos embates do homem no uso das novas tecnologias e na abordagem do conceito de expansão do corpo através das máquinas, o corpo “pós-humano”. Simultaneamente à investigação teórica, o trabalho envolveu o desenvolvimento de uma poética experimental através de um exercício de criação que incorpora ao trabalho artístico de pintura em tela de algodão o desdobramento em uma narrativa visual digital.

Esta pesquisa contextualiza e analisa poéticas artísticas polêmicas e visionárias de alguns ciberartistas que vêm refletindo continuamente sobre o avanço da tecnologia nos campos da genética, robótica e telemática e de sua relação com o corpo e a consciência. Essas tecnologias são elementos fundamentais para a configuração de obras que questionam a própria condição biológica da espécie humana, vislumbrando uma possível relação de simbiose entre a tríade \"homem, máquina e biotecnologia\" que poderá resultar em uma nova espécie, pós-humana. Como produto poético, parte experimental desta tese - resultante da contextualização e análise -, o autor relata o desenvolvimento de um universo ficcional inspirado por essas obras e pelas reflexões de seus criadores, para o qual são apresentados múltiplos trabalhos artísticos em suporte papel e nas hipermídias. / This research contextualizes and analyzes the polemic and visionary artistic production of some cyberartists that have been constantly thinking over technological advances in the areas of genetics, robotics and telematics, and their relationship with the body and the conscience. These technologies are of central importance to the configuration of works that question the biological condition of the humankind and lay eyes on a possible symbiotic relation between man, machine and biotechnology, which might result in a new posthuman species. As outcome of the research the experimental part of this thesis the author narrates the development of a fictional universe inspired by those works and their creators\' considerations, and also presents several artistic works framed in paper and in hypermedia.

In recent years, the use of social media has grown significantly, yet associations between digital photo-practices and female self-representation in cyberspaces remain unknown. This thesis aims to assess how female self-images shared on Instagram are being associated and evaluated. Inspired by the cyberfeminist effort to create positive cyberspaces for women by reevaluating the relationship between technology and women, a posthuman feminist framework is applied to allow an analysis beyond modern western dualistic understandings of nature vs. culture and reality vs. virtuality. A focus group discussion with four female-identifying participants, mean age 25 years old, was conducted on October 25, 2022. The discussion focused on three digital photo-practices. The analysis of posting frequency suggests that a regular display of female self-images is generally negatively associated with superficiality due to the incompatibility of patriarchally female attractiveness with female intellectuality. Further it suggests that revealing images are generally negatively associated due to the coupling of cyberspaces with masculinity. A digital affirmation of femininity is associated with self-objectification through the male gaze and therefore with sexual intent directed at men. Lastly, the analysis suggests that photo editing practices are generally negatively associated with artificiality. Due to the acceptance of binary oppositions, “artificial” images are negatively associated as “unnatural”. The analysis concludes that the extent of digital photo-practices determines the extended criticism.

No description available.

Collaborating in the Electric Age: [onto]Riffological Experiments in Posthumanizing Education and Theorizing a Machinic Arts-Based Research is a study about locating opportunities and entry points for introducing consideration of the nonhuman and posthuman to pedagogical perspectives that are traditionally concerned with human beings and epistemological subjects. The research, herein, engages doings in collaborative effort, during conditions of unprecedented interconnectedness facilitated by the electric age. Steeped in a environment thus created by technologies’ immense ubiquity and influence, this collaboration endeavours to recognize their full research participation, alongside that of humans. This research presents collaboratively conducted, published inquiries that have been coauthored by myself and fellow doctoral candidate Richard Wainwright. Each facilitates, then attempts to articulate ways to decentre the human in educational contexts, beginning with our own human perspectives. As exercises in broadening our considerations of the life forms, matter, and nonhuman entities that surround humanity, this research prompts us to recognize much more than what humanity typically acknowledges as existing, given the anthropocentric frameworks it has constructed. We reorientate the nature of these relationships—posthumanizing them—and in doing so, disrupt our own thinking to work something different than our circumstances have hitherto informed us to consider. We have co-developed a study and conducted research in collaboration with human and nonhuman research participants.Five nationally and internationally published co-authored journal articles, a book chapter, and five intermezzos (short “observational” pieces) comprise this study that explores collaboration and recombinatoriality during “the electric age” (McLuhan, 1969, 10:05). Recognizing humanity’s increasingly inextricable relationships with technologies, this collaboratively conducted study draws into creative assemblage Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s philosophical concepts; new materialism as cultural theory; the prescient observations and predictions of Marshall McLuhan and a media studies curriculum he co-developed over forty years ago; arts-based research; museum exhibitions; features of music production such as sampling, mashup, remix, and turntabling; among many other notes and tones. A conceptually developed riff mobilizes our inquiries as “plug in and play,” while its academic study is theorized as [onto]Riffology. Ontological shifts beget a machinic arts-based research (MABR) that develops a posthuman critical pedagogy inspired by Negri and Guattari (2010). Collaborating in the Electric Age: [onto]Riffological Experiments in Posthumanizing Education and Theorizing a Machinic Arts-Based Research celebrates collaborativity, discovery, and learning during the electric age. / Graduate / 2023-01-07

Du dopage sportif à l’usage de psychotropes pour accroître les capacités intellectuelles ou mieux contrôler les émotions, du recours aux nouvelles technologies reproductives permettant une maîtrise croissante des naissances, au développement d’une médecine anti-âge qui oeuvre à l’effacement de toute trace du vieillissement, jamais il n’a été autant question d’améliorer l’être humain et ses performances par le biais des avancées technoscientifiques et biomédicales contemporaines. Cette étude interroge cette aspiration à un humain augmenté à la lumière de l’idéal humaniste et politique de la perfectibilité humaine systématisé par les philosophes des Lumières au 18ème siècle, en particulier dans l’oeuvre et la pensée de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. À la différence du modèle politique et humaniste de la perfectibilité, qui valorise l’amélioration de la condition humaine dans et par la société, au coeur de l’imaginaire démocratique moderne, la société de l’amélioration contemporaine paraît, elle, promouvoir un modèle de perfectibilité dépolitisé, axé sur l’adaptabilité technoscientifique de l’être humain et la transformation de la vie en elle-même. À travers une excursion au sein l’histoire de la pensée sociale, l’objectif de cette étude est de comprendre comment un tel renversement et une telle dépolitisation de la perfectibilité ont pu avoir lieu. De Jean-Jacques Rousseau à Karl Marx, de Auguste Comte à Francis Galton, despenseurs postmodernes au mouvement transhumaniste, cette thèse offre une généalogie synthétique de la société de l’amélioration dans laquelle nous entrons, seule à même d’éclairer de manière critique des transformations sociales et technoscientifiques trop souvent présentées sous le masque de l’inéluctabilité / Whether we speak of doping in sport, the use of psychoactive drugs to improve man’s intellectual performance or better check his emotions, new reproductive technologies allowing more efficient birth control, or anti-aging medicine to erase the effects of time, there is no denying that enhancing humans through the use of technoscientific and biomedical means has grown more pervasive in our contemporary societies. This study questions today’s quest for human enhancement under the light of the humanist and political ideal of perfectibility defined by 18th century Enlightenment philosophers, particularly in the work and thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In contrast to the humanist andpolitical model of perfectibility, which promotes the improvement of the human condition by and through society, at the core of the democratic ideal, today’s enhancement society seems to champion a depoliticized model of perfectibility focused on human technoscientific adaptability and the transformation of life itself.Offering a journey through the history of social thought, the objective of this study is to understand how such a reversal and depoliticization of the concept of perfectibility may have been possible. From Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Karl Marx, Auguste Comte and Francis Galton, from postmodern thinkers to the transhumanist movement, this thesis presents a synthetic genealogy of the enhancement society we are entering, which allows for a critical analysis of socialand technoscientific transformations that have too often been presented behind the mask of ineluctability