Posthuman Embodiment and Material Entanglements—a Theoretical Outlook and Review

In recent theories of posthumanism and new materialism, the body is described as a permeable, open system that is in mutual exchange with its environment. Biological, technological, and sociocultural influences shape and alter the body, and vice versa. This panel will address the aforementioned philosophical approaches and their suspension of the ontological difference between humans and their environment. Theoretical approaches, critical histories of development, and questions of application will be used to show how supposedly invisible technologies and artificial intelligences have always been embodied. The economic and biopolitical mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion of this mutual penetration of technology and body will also be discussed.

Fig.: Mark Leckey, UniAddDumThs, 2014-ongoing, detail from the Section “MAN,” installation view “Mark Leckey: UniAddDumThs,” Kunsthalle Basel 2015, Photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel © Mark Leckey

Speakers N. Katherine Hayles | Artificial Bodies in Motion: From Top-down Control to Relational Embeddedness Josef Barla | Cutting Technology and the Body Together-Apart: Bodies-in-Technologies and the Haunting Climate of Materializations

Chair Maria Muhle