The Swedish artist Ulla Wiggen (b. 1942) started her artistic career in the early 1960s with detailed paintings of the insides of early electronic devices. In the early 2010s she turned to the interior of the body in the series Intra where organs and cells are fictionally combined. Here, she used a similar pictorial style as in the electronic paintings. This thesis seeks to analyze the relationships and tensions between body and machine that are found in Wiggen’s works. Questions are posed about the relationship between scientific and artistic imagery, as well as the role that fiction plays in knowledge-producing representation. This thesis looks to Wiggen’s use of the grid and connects it to historical and modernist images by showing its inherited paradoxical relation between rationality and spirituality. Through the anatomical picture, focusing on the Renaissance and Rationalism, this thesis explores the meanings of portraying bodies in cross-section. The role of the opened body has been oscillating between a body filled with spiritual meaning to a divided body, seen as an object for knowledge production. By using Donna Haraway’s figurations of the hybrid and the cyborg, the text proposes to re-think dualistic tensions between the human and the machine, science and fiction, realism and magic in Ulla Wiggen’s works. Through this perspective and post-humanist theory, it becomes clear that these boundaries have always been in flux. Instead of thinking either machines or bodies, the thesis suggests that we see the two series of Ulla Wiggen’s works as hybrid constructions that are both body-machines and machine-bodies.

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Esta pesquisa aborda as possibilidades de dramaturgia e de presença que as novas tecnologias da Era Digital oferecem para o fenômeno teatral a partir da observação e reflexão do processo de criação dos espetáculos de Teatro Expandido realizados pela companhia de teatro Os Satyros durante os anos de 2014 e 2015. Usando a abordagem metodológica de pesquisa/ação (Michel Thiollent), as investigações empíricas resultaram na dramaturgia e encenação dos sete espetáculos do projeto E se fez a humanidade ciborgue em sete dias. A partir da revisão bibliográfica baseada em pensadores do teatro como Béatrice Picon-Vallin, Josette Féral, Silvia Fernandes, Erika Fischer-Lichte, Marcelo Denny e Jeniffer Parker-Starbuck, bem como em cientistas sociais e estudiosos da Comunicação como Slavoj ?i?ek, Jürgen Habermas, Zygmunt Bauman, Manuel Castells e Shanyang Zhao, são analisados aspectos do processo de criação de cenas em que as tecnologias contemporâneas contribuíram para formas expandidas de presença e dramaturgia, do ponto de vista do diretor-dramaturgo. A pesquisa visa contribuir para a discussão das potencialidades tecnológicas do teatro contemporâneo. Este trabalho se dirige a alunos de graduação e pós-graduação interessados nas artes cênicas contemporâneas, encenadores interessados em tecnologia da cena e formas expandidas de dramaturgia. / This research discusses the possibilities of playwright and presence that the new technologies of the Digital Age offer to the theatrical phenomenon, based on the observation and thinking of the creation process of the augmented theater performances developed by the theater company Os Satyros during 2014. Following the action research methodology proposed by Michel Thiollent, the empirical investigations resulted in the dramaturgy and mise-en-scène of the seven performances of the project \"And so was the Cyborg Mankind made in seven days\". From the bibliographic review based on theater thinkers such as Béatrice Picon-Vallin, Josette Féral, Silvia Fernandes, Marcelo Denny and Jeniffer Parker-Starbuck, as well as social scientists such as Slavoj ?i?ek, Jürgen Habermas, Zygmunt Bauman, Manuel Castells and Shanyang Zhao, a series of scenes and investigations made in the project are analysed. The research aims to contribute to the discussion of the potentialities of contemporary theater. It adresses stage arts graduation and post-graduation students, theater directors interested in stage technology and hybrid stage artists.

The zombie narrative has seen an increasing trend towards the emergence of a zombie sentience. The intention of this thesis is to examine the cultural framework that has informed the contemporary figure of the zombie, with specific attention directed towards the role of the thinking, conscious or sentient zombie. This examination will include an exploration of the zombie’s folkloric origin, prior to the naming of the figure in 1819, as well as the Haitian appropriation and reproduction of the figure as a representation of Haitian identity. The destructive nature of the zombie, this thesis argues, sees itself intrinsically linked to the notion of apocalypse; however, through a consideration of Frank Kermode’s A Sense of an Ending, the second chapter of this thesis will propose that the zombie need not represent an apocalypse that brings devastation upon humanity, but rather one that functions to alter perceptions of ‘humanity’ itself. The third chapter of this thesis explores the use of the term “braaaaiiinnss” as the epitomised zombie voice in the figure’s development as an effective threat within zombie-themed videogames. The use of an epitomised zombie voice, I argue, results in the potential for the embodiment of a zombie subject. Chapter Four explores the development of this embodied zombie subject through the introduction of the Zombie Memoire narrative and examines the figure as a representation of Agamben’s Homo Sacer or ‘bare life’: though often configured as a non-sacrificial object that can be annihilated without sacrifice and consequence, the zombie, I argue, is also paradoxically inscribed in a different, Girardian economy of death that renders it as the scapegoat to the construction of a sense of the ‘human’. The final chapter of this thesis argues that both the traditional zombie and the sentient zombie function within the realm of a posthuman potentiality, one that, to varying degrees of success, attempts to progress past the restrictive binaries constructed within the overruling discourse of humanism. In conclusion, this thesis argues that while the zombie, both traditional and sentient, attempts to propose a necessary move towards a posthuman universalism, this move can only be considered if the ‘us’ of humanism embraces the potential of its own alterity.

Diploma work New Flesh? The Limits of the Body in the Films by David Cronenberg deals with the human body as one of the main motives in the filmography of the Canadian director David Cronenberg. Its mission is to implicate new approaches to the human body in the theories of postmodern philosophy, philosophy of media and posthuman therories, which fundamentally transform the principles of previously applied concept of body and mind dualism and point out that media and new technologies has a significant influence on our perception of a human body. New approaches to the human flesh and fleshliness are applied in the final part of this work through the interpretation of selected movies by David Cronenberg - Videodrome and eXistenZ. The main point of this work is to show the complete change of conception and perception of the human flesh, which is summary reviewing here as a "new flesh". Key words body - controlled body - body extension - reality - hyperreality - media - new technologies - cyborg - post-human - body horror - new flesh

Bien que la science n’ait pas encore percé les secrets de la conscience humaine, les avancées dans le domaine de l’intelligence artificielle ont provoqué une résurgence du mythe de la créature artificielle dans le domaine de l’imaginaire. Ce mémoire vise à comprendre l’actualisation de ce mythe antique par la promesse scientifique contemporaine et son incarnation dans l’imaginaire cinématographique de science-fiction. Après un retour historique sur l’évolution du domaine de l’IA, j’insisterai sur le rôle joué par le cinéma de science-fiction dans sa capacité à construire un imaginaire scientifique crédible. Je me concentre sur le mythe antique de la créature artificielle pour ensuite mettre en évidence le point où il rencontre la science par l’usage du medium cinématographique, capable de transmettre cet « ailleurs » contenu dans la promesse scientifique et matérialisé par la science-fiction. Afin de rendre compte de cette actualisation, je forme un corpus de films en prenant soin de retracer la généalogie conjointe de l’évolution scientifique de l’IA et de sa projection dans l’imaginaire par la mise en parallèle dans l’analyse de l’actualité de la recherche technoscientifique au moment de la parution de chaque film du corpus. Par cette méthode j’arrive à liste suivante : Frankenstein (1931) ; 2001, A Space Odyssey (1968) ; Blade Runner (1982) ; Terminator 2 (1991) ; A.I : Artificial Intelligence (2001) ; Her (2013) ; Ex Machina (2015) ; Blade Runner 2049 (2017). Cette disposition me permet de constater l’évolution de la promesse de l’IA forte en prise avec la discussion que le réel entretient avec l’imaginaire du mythe de la créature artificielle. Par l’analyse des technologies qui sous-tendent la création de chacune de ces créatures, j’analyse la manière par laquelle la science-fiction matérialise la promesse scientifique d’une IA forte, et cela avant même l’érection de son domaine consacré (i.e. Frankenstein). Deux films ont cependant résisté à mon cadre d’analyse, Blade Runner et Blade Runner 2049, en offrant une histoire alternative de l’IA à partir d’une créature artificielle non pas entièrement technique mais cyborg, à l’interstice de notre monde biologique et celui de la machine. / Although science has yet to unlock the secrets of human consciousness, recent advances in Artificial Intelligence research have caused the myth of the artificial creature to resurface in the realm of the imaginary. This dissertation aims to understand the actualization of this ancient myth through the contemporary scientific promise of AI and its incarnation in the cinematic science fiction imagination. After a historical review of the evolution of the field of research in AI, I insist on the role played by science fiction cinema in its ability to build a credible scientific imagination. I then come back to the imaginary of the myth of the artificial creature to highlight the point where it meets science through the use of the medium of cinema, capable of transmitting this "elsewhere" contained in the scientific promise and materialize it through science fiction. I form a corpus of seven films retracing the joint genealogy of the scientific evolution of AI and its projection into the imagination by comparing it in the analysis of current events of technoscientific research at the time of the release of each film in the corpus. By this method I arrive at the following list: Frankenstein (1931); 2001, A Space Odyssey (1968); Blade Runner (1982); Terminator 2 (1991); A.I: Artificial Intelligence (2001); Her (2013); Ex Machina (2015); Blade Runner 2049 (2017). This allows me to describe the evolution of the promise of strong AI in the discussion that the real entertains with the imaginary of the myth of the artificial creature. By focusing on the technologies which underlie the creation of each of these creatures, I am able to analyze how science fiction materializes the scientific promise of a strong AI, and this even before the erection of its consecrated domain (i.e. Frankenstein). However, two films withstood our analytical framework, Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049, by offering an alternate story of AI from an artificial creature not entirely technical but cyborg, at the interstice of our biological world and that of the machine.

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This thesis considers the understudied issue of genetic engineering as it has been deployed in the literature of the late 20th century. With reference to the concept of the enlightened gender hybridity of Cyborg theory and an eye to ecocritical implications, I read four texts: Joan Slonczewski's 1986 science fiction novel A Door Into Ocean, Octavia Butler's science fiction trilogy Lilith's Brood – originally released between 1987 and 1989 as Xenogenesis – Simon Mawer's 1997 literary novel Mendel's Dwarf, and the first two books in Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction MaddAddam series: 2003's Oryx and Crake and 2009's The Year Of the Flood. I argue that the inclusion of genetic engineering has changed as the technology moves from science fiction to science fact, moving from the fantastic to the mundane. Throughout its recent literary history, genetic engineering has played a role in complicating questions of sexuality, paternity, and the division between nature and culture. It has also come to represent a nexus of potential cultural change, one which stands to fulfill the dramatic hybridity Haraway rhapsodized in her "Cyborg Manifesto" while also containing the potential to disrupt the ecocritical conversation by destroying what we used to understand as nature. Despite their four different takes on the issue, each of the texts I read offers a complex vision of utopian hopes and apocalyptic fears. They agree that, for better or for worse, genetic engineering is forever changing both our world and ourselves.

This essay examines the body in post-cyberfeminist art to study possible changes in how the body is perceived in the shift from cyberfeminist to post-cyberfeminist art. I have studied the body by examining power and identity in four cases of post-cyberfeminist art, using postmodern feminist theories and concepts such as gender, gender performativity, heterosexual matrix and intersectionality. The essay consists of image, moving image and textual analysis and two shorter comparative analyses. In the first comparative analysis, I have compared the four cases of post-cyberfeminist art with each other. In the second analysis, I focus on a comparative analysis between the four cases of post-cyberfeminist art and earlier cyberfeminist projects. In the discussion, I present my results and elaborate on a possible shift in how the body's materiality is viewed within digital landscapes of post-cyberfeminist art. I argue that the cyborg, central to the earlier cyberfeminist project, might have been replaced by transformable avatars.