In an era characterized by unprecedented ecological and technological change, Ontological Play: Reinventing (Machinic) Arts-Based Research in the Posthuman Era attempts to seed creative processes for educators, researchers, and artists to collaborate for the common good of planetary co-existence. Humanism and anthropocentrism have created precarious conditions, and much is at stake. Here I consider the revolutionary potential of aesthetic production, while engaging concepts such as mashup and remix as points of departure. In these times of theory fatigue, this dissertation functions as a wayfinding device with both simple and complex refrains that can be further sampled and repurposed. The aim is to reinvent social practices and to learn to play, ontologically. / Graduate / 2023-01-28

Technology in Japan has reached ubiquitous status and its development is one of the main priorities of state policy. which includes a wide range of programs aimed at increasing the involvement of IT in everyday life as an improvement of both society and humanity itself. On the other hand, there seems to be resistance among citizens of western countries to accept refrigerators able to tell you that you are almost out of eggs, or cars that remind you to fasten the safety belt or check your breath for the presence of alcohol before you can drive. There seems to he resistance for us to talk to machines as if they were alive. The question thus emerges: why are the Japanese so conscious about technologies? What is there in Japanese spirituality, tradition, history, or ideology that facilitates the acceptance of Information Technologies and Artificial intelligence as not only an integral part of daily life, but in fact as forms of actual consciousness? This thesis will deal with two aspects of contemporary life of Japanese - technologies and Shinto as a part of daily routine. These two aspects lead us to the concept of posthumanism as well as a religious concept of Shinto as a way of life in Japan. The questions arising from this approach are why and how information technologies are related to Shinto. Why is this relation almost inevitable? To answer these questions, this thesis will analyze the personification of technology in both Japanese animated film and in consumer products. / Graduate

SLUTSATS: För  att  nå  min  egen,  djupaste,  svarta  spegel  hade  jag  behövt  ”möta  mitt  eget  mörker”, som Soran Ismail beskriver det i Absolut Svensk… Gjorde jag det? Njae… Jag hade gärna utforskat mina fördomsfulla sidor mer, för att se var jag själv står på  skalan  mellan  Tes och  Antites.  Soran  gjorde i avsnitt 1 ett vetenskapligt  fördomstest, där reaktioner registrerades för att ta reda på fördomar en ”inte vet om att den har”. Någon liknande miljö eller metod (vetenskaplig, existentiell eller psykoanalytisk)  möttes  jag  inte  av  under  kursen  där  jag  kunde  ta  mitt  fördomsprojekt  så  mycket  längre,  däremot  synliggjordes  en  undangömd identitet  hos  mig  själv  som  jag  har  haft  fördomar  kring,  baserat  på  ett  internaliserat  förtryck.  I  min  vilsenhet  kunde  jag  orientera  mig  mot  att  börja utforska detta ämne parallellt i samband med självreflektionen.   Jag  vill  alltså hävda  att  desorientering,  att  gå  vilse,  är  startpunkten  för  självreflektion.  Och  att  självreflektion  i  samband  med  kommunikation  och kunskap är det som krävs för att krossa fördomar. Konst bör därför sträva efter att inleda en process av självreflektion, för att det betraktande  subjektet  ska  kunna  spegla  sig  i  sin  egen  svartaste  spegel  – där  fördomen existerar inom en. / Svarta speglar - magisterutbildningen i konstnärlig självreflektion

Cyborgen, en samansättning av orden cybernetik och organism, en gestalt vars innebörd bör ses som mer än en fiktiv gestaltning. Cyborgen är idag enligt forskare och filosofer en samhällelig verklighet och dess inverkan på individen är mycket större än vi tror. Det här kandidatarbetet undersöker vad som definierar en cyborg, med stöd ifrån forskning och filosofin summeras tankar och synsätt för att få en mer definitiv bild av begreppet. Arbetet studerar även hur den sociala kontexten kan komma att förvrängas när tekniken letar sig in i den köttsliga kroppen. De resultat och insikter arbetet resulterat i sammanfattas och står som grund för en gestaltning vars mål har varit att kategorisera öppen data från individer med inbyggda Rfid-chip, en diskussion av begreppet och dess innebörd sammanfattas i en resultatdel för att få en bred bild av cyborgen som helhet. Metoder såsom workshop och litteraturstudier har bidragit till att arbetet fått en bredare bild av människans sätt att leva tillsammans med tekniken. / Cyborg, a shared setting of the words cybernetics and organism, a figure whose meaning should be seen as more than a fictional creation. The cyborg is today, according to scientists and philosophers a social reality and its impact on the individual is much greater than we can imagine. This bachelor thesis investigates what defines a cyborg, with support from research and philosophy thoughts and approach are summed up to get a more definitive picture of the concept. The work also studies how the social context may be distorted when the technology finds its way into the physical body. The results and insights this work resulted in is summarized and stands as the basis for a design whose goal has been to categorize open data from individuals with built-in RFID chip, a discussion of the concept and its meaning is summarized in the results section to get a broad picture of the whole cyborg. Methods such as workshops and literature studies have helped to get a broader picture of the human way of living together with technology.

I Identitetskris undersöks ambivalensen hos den fiktiva figuren doktor Glas. En svängande osäkerhet tar sig uttryck genom såväl karaktärens självsyn som genom de större frågor som karaktären ställer sig om människan och dess varande. Dessa tankar och frågor står att finna i de dagboksanteckningar som doktorn fingeras skriva, vilka har varit föremålet för uppsatsens analys. Doktor Glas framställs i ena stunden som ensam, viljesvag och självkritisk för att i nästa stund framställas som en man fylld av självförtroende och kraft som står över sina medmänniskor. Med hjälp av ett posthumanistiskt perspektiv kopplas karaktärens ambivalenta självsyn samman med hans uttalanden om Darwins utvecklingslära och om förhållandet djur­–människa. Glas uttrycker längtan efter ett tillstånd där människan inte teoretiserar hela sin tillvaro och istället lever mer ödmjukt och enkelt. På samma gång uttrycker han ett förakt mot människans ursprung bland djuren och förespråkar den civiliserade och tänkande människan. Analysen visar hur doktorns identitetsvacklande kan hänga samman med hans kluvna uttalanden kring människan som särskild från andra djur, från naturen och från sitt ursprung. Söderbergs stora idéroman visar sig innehålla mer känslogrund och fler paradoxer än vad man först kanske tror, när man väljer att se på den ur ett nytt perspektiv. Romanen kanske till och med kan sägas innehålla ett posthumanistiskt frö …

Syftet med studiet är att undersöka hur romanens protagonist kan läsas som en posthumanistisk karaktär, där det granskas hur hon relaterar till Haraways cyborg, men också till delar av Barads teori om agentiell materialism. En alternativ läsning utförs genom att granska karaktären utifrån ett esoteriskt perspektiv, där tonvikten ligger på andliga inslag. De två perspektiven möjliggör en läsning utifrån två till synes mycket olika synvinklar, vilka dock tycks bestå av vissagemensamma tendenser. Målet med studien blir således även att granska hur posthumanism och esoterism kan knytas samman, och hur April häxans huvudperson Desirée kan betraktas som ett center för denna sammanföring. Frågeställningarna lyder enligt följande: Hur kan huvudpersonen Desirée läsas utifrån en posthumanistisk teoribildning? Vilka esoteriska inslag manifesteras i karaktären? Vilka esoteriska inslag manifesteras i karaktären?Hur relaterar posthumanism och esoterism till varandra?

This dissertation considers the future convergence between gothic studies and humanism in the age of posthumanism and proposes “cyborgothic” as a new literary genre that heralds that future. The convergence under consideration is already in progress in that an encounter between human and non-human consistently inspires the two fields, questioning the nature of humans and the treatment of such non-human beings as cyborgs. Such questioning, often conducted within the boundary of humanities, persistently interprets non-human beings as either representing or helping human shortcomings. Accordingly, answers are human-orientated or even human-centered in many cases, and “cyborgothic,” generated out of retrospective investigation into gothic studies and prospective formulation of posthumanism, aims to present different, nonanthropocentric ways to view humans and non-humans on equal terms. The retrospective investigation into gothic studies focuses on Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful to retrieve a gothic aesthetics of the beautiful, and in the second chapter, examines Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein against Kant’s aesthetics to demonstrate how this gothic aesthetics becomes obsolete in the tradition of the sublime. This dissertation then addresses Bram Stoker’s Dracula along with Bruno Latour’s Science in Action to reveal problems in fabricating scientific knowledge, especially focusing on sacrifices made in the process. In the forth chapter, I examine Sinclair Lewis’s Arrowsmith with William James’s pragmatism, and consider the question of how moral complications inherent in science have been handled in American society. The last chapter proposes Marge Piercy’s He, She and It as a same cyborgothic text, which tries to develop a way to acknowledge the presence of the cyborg—one that is at once aesthetical and ethical—so as to enable humans and cyborgs to relate each other on equal terms. Thus, “cyborgothic” is being required as a literary attempt to present the age of posthumanism that is no longer anthropocentric.

Departing from a technofeminist perspective, Becoming Image, places the digital image in a broader context of modern and postmodern technological discourses and fashion. In four articles, the compilation dissertation expands a contemporary and imagistic tech discourse by questioning the ideology of ”masculinity”―specifically the idea of it as a historically male domain. Through interviews, discourse analysis and feminist critique, as well as an interdisciplinary focus on digital media, the project investigates how everyday image practices open up for new embodied experiences. Focusing on women and social media, the articles examines the way material and immaterial aspects of images overlap in everyday life. Rather than artistic intention, emotions and basic human interaction often lie at heart of becoming image. Fashion is, however, highly present in this critical transformation. Not only as collaborative projects emerge out of combining new technologies and dress―such as using your smartphone to elevate your clothing―but also how fashion is a technology itself. Fashion highlights the body as medium, but fashion is also always (mostly) image.  Previous research around the digital image and its meaning has often stressed the banality of everyday image practices as taking selfies. However, these debates represent deeper cultural values and norms, which the dissertation reaches beyond. As women, and also queer and trans-people increasingly innovate and interfere with normative technological usage, it becomes evident that such groups have been excluded from communities organized around technological power and skill. As with language, technology and digital imagery are not neutral media. Women have hence been excluded―and been forced to use instruments and apps seemingly made for strict masculine purposes. Arguably, image practices such as selfies or image micro-blogging encourage women to “write” themselves out of a world they have not constructed themselves. Thus, Becoming Image simultaneously illuminates the structural and fundamental levels of technology and gender―while also suggesting new methodological and theoretical ways of studying and approaching digital media. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Accepted.</p><p> </p>

Hybrid beings have been a part of the artistic imagination since art was first made on cave walls and rock faces. Yet their visual makeup and symbolic meanings have changed over time from deities, demons, and oddities of nature to unconscious states of being and the socially and culturally marginalized. This dissertation will examine a history of hybrid beings and the work of Australian artist Patricia Piccinini. Her silicone sculptures, photographs, installations, and videos are hyperrealistic representations of composite beings that appear to have blended rather than fragmented characteristics of human and animal, which sets them apart from their historic precedents. Piccinini suggests that her hybrids are products of genetic engineering, ostensibly created to serve human beings as comforters, nurturers, protectors, and surrogates for humans and endangered species alike. I argue that Piccinini's hybrids shed light on the hubris and commercialism inherent in bioscientific advances, yet they also reveal a kind of societal ambivalence regarding the posthuman era. Her works suggest utopian aspirations for the future while mourning the loss of humanity as it has been known. Examining Piccinini's art through the lens of liminality and the body, I will contextualize her hybrids within cultural and art historical models from ancient Egypt and Greece through the Victorian eras. In particular, I will establish common ground with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), which served as an early inspiration for Piccinini's images and conceptual aims. I will also highlight hybrid imagery in Dada and Surrealism and feminist art to reveal the similarities and differences in their approaches and intent. Piccinini's works operate within Donna J. Haraway's notion of the cyborg; therefore, I will also analyze her art within that theoretical model. In addition, I will compare and contrast Piccinini's art to early hyprerrealist sculptors and contemporary artists working in this manner. Piccinini's hybrids establish that both humans and animals are social constructs, and that society has a responsibility for the life forms it creates. Ultimately, this project demonstrates that Piccinini's hybrids are not cautionary tales of a dystopian future but representations of the biotechnological sublime.

This thesis uses Cybernetic Fruit: A Posthuman Fairytale (a show directed by Shauna MacDonald and Nico Wood) to explore notions of posthumanism. The thesis of this project is that every being possesses beingness (one could say, a soul), be it raccoon, raspberry, or rock; that nothing is perfect or ever can be, for perfection and imperfection (like order and disorder) are human constructions spun from human vantage points and seen with a human-level of resolution; that collaboration fosters propagation of a posthuman discourse and compassionate behavior; and finally, that staging philosophical inquiry, in the flesh and for the community, is a potent methodology for germinating new theoretical fruit.