Humanity defines itself through an animal other, the animal in Jacques Derrida’s definition of “absolute alterity,” cannot return the human gaze. In this paper, I explore the possibilities of ...accommodation and hospitality which posthuman philosophy provides in conceptualizing the position of alterity of the “animal”. Building on the writing of Jacque Derrida and Giorgio Agamben I will argue how Posthumanism can radicalize the way in which the anthropocentric worldview looks at the animal as other, questioning the positioning and relevance of speciesism and species boundary. Also, the issue of the agency has been interrogated in this research article. I have also argued for a new mode of conceptualizing the “other” / the “animal” which abolishes the hierarchical view of anthropocentric conception of nonhuman but instead views the other from the lens of companionship, borrowing from the ideas of “companionship” and “Chuthulucene” of Donna J. Haraway. The paper is an attempt to expand the humanist exclusionary boundaries and is an exercise in developing a posthuman ethics through which the category of human can be radically questioned and can be made more hospitable.
Recent debates within broadly considered posthumanities have been populated by various conceptual personae. One such figure is the diplomat. First proposed in this context by Isabelle Stengers in her ...Cosmopolitics series, the diplomat has been subsequently taken up and further developed by Bruno Latour, particularly in his AIME project, and most recently by Baptiste Morizot in Les Diplomates. This article traces the metamorphosis of this conceptual character in the work of Stengers, Latour and Morizot. As all three versions are relatively close to each other, this article proposes three companion figures: the heretic (for Stengers), the designer (for Latour) and the amateur (for Morizot) that allow us to carefully examine the differences between, and the specific stakes of, each iteration of the diplomat. Furthermore, the article critically evaluates the theoretical pertinence of the diplomat figure for each philosopher’s project and considers its potential for thinking about the future of our more-than-human worlds.
This article offers an analysis of two theatre pieces that seek to extend our awareness of non-human forms of life. Estado Vegetal from Chile steps into the world of plant life while Organism ...Democracy is a German-language participatory guideline for performances seeking to create a multi-species society.
3D printing technologies are among the new developments in fashion design. The Dutch designer Iris van Herpen is one of the forerunners of 3 D printing in fashion design. She is particularly known ...for her 3 D printed designs of "fractal folds": designs of inimitable curves, bends, and loops. Morphing art, fashion and technology, she developed productive collaborations with scientists and artists. Through a mixed method, this article provides background information and gives insight into the design practice of the fashion house of Iris van Herpen in Amsterdam. Iris van Herpen combines highly technical specifications with a commitment to esthetic design. In her designs, she intertwines the digital and the material and the human and the non-human. Such intertwinements are characteristic of posthumanism that postulates a dynamic notion of life in which human bodies are inextricably entangled with the non-human-like fibers, silicones, garments, and technologies. The article interprets Van Herpen's work within the context of posthuman theory, so as to make sense of its avant-garde esthetic. Out of innovative technologies, new materials, and assiduous craftsmanship, Van Herpen creates a visual and material language of fractal folds that expresses the affective mood of a posthuman world.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The posthuman has been central in TV shows since the first space opera (Star Trek) which has left its mark on its legacy of SF TV series. From 1966 to the present time, from the information paradigm ...proposed by cybernetics then, to screen culture and the fantasies of transhumanism now, the social and cultural context may have changed, but what is at stake with the third industrial revolution seems the same. Recent SF TV series (post-2010), such as Orphan Black (BBC America, 2013-2017), Westworld (HBO, 2016-) or The Expanse (Syfy, 2015-2022) show that critical posthumanism remains an operative approach, particularly since it also relates to Donna Haraway’s cyborg feminism. In her famous Cyborg Manifesto, her examples were taken from feminist SF novels of the 1970s. As a figure, the cyborg has inspired feminist philosophers who argue that going beyond dualism is necessary (Braidotti/Hoquet). However, Haraway and Larue also illustrate a critical evolution from cyberfeminism towards a complex and intricate web of approaches which encompass ecofeminism, material feminism, queer studies, posthuman feminism, or even animal studies. This article aims at assessing from an epistemocritical perspective how recent SF TV series inform the elaboration of contemporary critical thought, and more specifically that of critical posthumanism.
This article discusses the basic arguments and important achievements of Jane Bennett’s vital materialism, as well as some problems and limitations of this theoretical perspective. It first analyzes ...the ontological underpinnings of Bennett’s materialist account and presents two examples she uses to illustrate the notion of a ‘force of things’. The paper then addresses central conceptual and analytic problems of Bennett’s account. The notion of an all-encompassing ‘vitality of matter’ is insufficient to explain the relationality of matter; it is also empirically limited and provides only a selective account of agency. These shortcomings and limitations affect the political perspectives of Bennett’s version of vital materialism. I conclude that there is a tendency in her work to displace political considerations by invoking new ethical responsibilities and sensibilities. Being attentive to the vitality of things translates into a systematic blindness concerning the inequalities, asymmetries and hierarchies enacted in vital materializations.
This editorial essay introduces a special issue that tackles the seemingly intractable challenge of re-conceptualizing power and performativity as continuously interweaving and co-emergent dynamics ...in the processes of organizing. It is in these processes, we argue, that new futures may be visibly made through the academic activism of our scholarly communities. We position our argument, and the six papers that comprise this special issue, in relation to Rosi Braidotti’s framing of Humanism, anti-humanism and the posthuman. We also suggest some future lines of inquiry to move studies of organizing forward into a posthuman world.
Cartography as a posthuman method cultivates the creative and critical mapping of relational encounters between human, non-human and material entities. These empirically grounded accounts render the ...dynamic, intra-connected and inexhaustible possibilities verifiable in educational research practices. However, the current literature cites a number of examples of cartography mapping but provides no clarity as to how such an analytical practice might come about. In this paper, I design a Diffractive Transversal Framework to guide the cartographies in my research project where 21 interactive media students collectively author a story with(in) Flors the Teacherbot. The purpose of the framework is threefold: to limit the thresholds of encounter in an ethical and sustainable way; the multiperspectival nature of the framework acknowledges material entities; and transdisciplinarity draws from theory traversing multiple disciplines to become philosophically, educationally, and politically driven. A selected cartography charts the qualitative shift in student understandings around knowledge and its creation. Here, the students diffractively analyse how the collective story came about, rather than its meaning, through structured reflective dialogue enacted with(in) Flors. This is a novel approach to research in automated teaching and demonstrates how the method of cartography can be used to analyse digital data from a posthuman perspective.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
49.
Geographies of digital skill Richardson, Lizzie; Bissell, David
Geoforum,
February 2019, 2019-02-00, 20190201, Letnik:
99
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
In an era of rapid technological change, especially considering the rise of robotics and AI, there is widespread anxiety about the impacts of digital technologies across a vast range of industries. ...Policy responses to this changing employment landscape champion the necessity for growing ‘digital skills’. However, we argue that these dominant macropolitical interpretations draw on a restricted understanding of spatiality where digital skills are discretely located in particular bodies and in particular geographical locations. The paper develops a novel geographical response through an exploration of the micropolitics of digital skills. This focuses on the material and practical dimensions of work with digital technologies that produces a more dynamic spatiality and thus a more complex politics of labour. We argue that the dynamic spatiality of digital skills can be evaluated according to: (1) site-specific dimensions, as digital skills are co-minglings of humans and technologies; (2) extensive dimensions, as digital skills are networked across geographically dispersed sites; and (3) intensive dimensions, as digital skills emerge across bodies and environments through repetitive practices. This analysis suggests that policy declarations of digital skills ‘shortages’ are problematic, since they overlook the contested and shifting forms of enablement and constraint that labour practices involving digital technologies give rise to. Unpacking this labour politics therefore requires geographical approaches that are adept at grasping these complex spatialities of labour.
Posthumanism offers a unique opportunity to examine the relationship between dead and living bodies. In this article, we explore one setting in which matter – conventionally considered as ‘dead’, ...demonstrates its continued vitality: the anatomical dissection room. Using data from interview transcripts, we report on the affect (capacities to affect and be affected) within this space, to reveal the micropolitics of dissection. Analysis of the ‘dissection-assemblage’ reveals how interactions between the living – students, teachers, technicians – and dead bodies not only produce knowledge and understanding of human anatomy but also show how the dead body gains new capacities to affect living bodies psychologically, emotionally and physiologically. While conventional humanist discussions of dissection have addressed how these interactions ‘de-humanise’ and ‘re-humanise’ the cadaver in this particular setting, this analysis discloses a complex micropolitics in which the conventional distinction between ‘living’ and ‘dead’ ignores the multiple ways in which all matter is vitally affective.
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