Abstract

Keywords: aesthetics, cyborg, posthumanism, transhumanism and futurism

Old futuristic dreams and utopias
Over the course of one hundred years, humanity has moved from the visionary and fantastic description of a new futuristic human to the contemporary actualized realities of cyborgology. The aesthetic of the human body has changed from the futurist’s ideal – a world based on a merging between the human and the machine for the creation of a new being able to supersede the limitations imposed upon the body by nature and society – to the contemporary realities of bioengineered prosthetics that are used to overcome physical limitations and mutilations (Poggi 1997: 19-20).
Humanity is no longer relegating the possibility of a cyborg to the realms of illusion and wondrous utopia. The existence of beings that are in part machines has become a fact of life with the increased possibilities of exchanging and replacing organs and limbs for prosthetics and mechanical devices. The ethical question to be asked is no longer whether a human being with an artificial heart or with artificial limbs is still human, but how much of a human body can be artificially reconstructed before the human element is overtaken by the nature of the mechanic.

• Dr Lanfranco Aceti Associate Professor in Contemporary Art and Digital Cultures, Sabanci University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Istanbul, Turkey

Full Text (PDF) p.  508-515