Hey guys, I wanted to let you know that I wasn't dead, but I don't have quite enough time to write up a full post at the moment. Please know that I'm warming up to continue the saga of pursuing Full-Time Ministry.
In the meantime, have an essay I wrote last year on the concept of the post-human in modern art.
Hopefully it still makes sense. This was one I wrote on not much sleep, and in one go. Hmm. Enjoy.
AART 3105: Contemporary
Issues in Art
What is the
‘post-human’ and how is it expressed in art? Discuss using the work of at least
3 contemporary artists, showing the social, political and philosophical
implications of each artist’s work.
From the literal definition of
post-human, it is understood that the subject refers to a state beyond that of
the regular or presently-defined human. The manner in which this ‘post-‘may yet
to be defined, but there is certainly the connotations of a modification or
addendum to the understood human.
This essay will discuss the works
of artists Lee Bul, Phillip Toledano and Eduardo Kac, and their comments
through their art practise on the role of the human and the post-human.
Centering on the inherent value of the human, this essay will discuss the
ramifications of blending with technology, enhancing through science and the
required response to these actions.
The concept of a cyborg is one
familiar to the general populace, mostly through science-fiction and speculative
fiction. It is a frequently recurring character, and for a variety of reasons.
The seamless blend of machine and man grants the character a new set of
abilities and life goals, albeit with a very different set of problems and
rules in conjunction to those of a human character. The cyborg in fiction
becomes a projection of the self with a different set of rules to live and
behave by. Are they human? Are they something else? At which point does the
presence or absence of human tissue in the cyborg pronounce them human or
android?
Lee Bul, a mixed-media artist from
South Korea, creates works that investigate this blending of organic and
artificial with surgical precision. Working in industrial materials such as
silicone or resin, the artworks tend to explore the polarised concepts of
cyborg and monster, dwelling on the results of blending opposing ends of the
spectrum between the perfect and the imperfect.
Immaculately finished, with
exaggerated proportions reminiscent of typified Japanese anime characters, Bul’s forms hang in suspension. Bearing the
appearance of the human form, and yet lacking heads and limbs, their incomplete
appearance quietly comments on the role of the human in this
technically-augmented realm, and whether there would be a place for the human
in this new environment. Perhaps more important though, is the query offered by
the artist on the right of mankind to engage in the act of augmenting what is
already in existence.
Figure
1. Lee Bul, Cyborg W6 (2001). Hand-cut polyurethane
panels on fibreglass reinforced plastic, polyurethene coating. 232 x 67 x 67 cm
If the opportunity is made for the
cyborg to exist in the real world, to the degree that is understood in the
realms of fiction, then Bul has made it a point in her work to understand the
relationship that current humans would have with this post-human. She says,
“I’m always concerned with ideas about the extension of the human body,
substitution of the human body,
transcending the flesh, and the desire for immortality,”
Her works always appear as
incomplete forms, hinting towards the inability of the human to create a whole
and perfect replica of itself
.
Her interest in the blurred line between the human and the mechanical is echoed
in fiction, and is a keystone theme in many cyberpunk stories. An appropriate
example would be the character of Motoko Kusanagi from the landmark
manga series
Ghost in the Shell (figure 2 below)
, and its adapted film released in 1995 under the same name.
Figure
2. Ghost in the Shell theatrical movie poster. Produced by Bandai,
Directed by Oshii Mamoru. Original Story by Shirow Masamune.
Kusanagi’s role in the storyline is
that of a Major in a top secret task force, but the personal demons driving her
through the series relate directly to the definition of the human within the
cyborg. Only possessing a small amount of brain tissue, with the rest of her
body comprised of state-of-the-art technology, it is this character who is
constantly wrestling with the questions, “Am
I human? What proof exists that I am not a computer program designed to think
it was human?”
Fiction reflects the thoughts of
the day, and the relatory points between the cyberpunk anime story told by Shirow Masamune (The creator of aforementioned
series) and Lee Bul’s deliberately incomplete cyborg bodies become clear upon
observation. Both creators, Bul and Masamune use their work as vehicles to
question the value of the human, especially when this living creature is able
to be changed and edited so effortlessly.
Similar in thought but different in
output is the photographic series A New
Kind of Beauty, a series of photographs captured by Phillip Toledano. Taken
between 2008 and 2010, A New Kind of
Beauty is comprised of portraits
of people who have undergone radical plastic surgery. For some of the subjects, the changes are hard to detect. Others
wear features so different from the accepted norm that they cannot help but
draw the eye; their alien countenances conveying this strangeness with a
self-possessed and quiet dignity.
Figure
3. Phillip Toledano, Angel (2009)
This kind of alteration deviates
from the idea presented by Bul in that the change is administered first and
foremost for aesthetic reasons. Toledano’s series of portraits showcase a type
of beauty that is able to be controlled and shaped by choice, resulting in
subjects who appear vastly different from the general populace. This kind of
human is one augmented and changed beyond a natural circumstance, and it is the
artist’s interest in this reshaping that draws the concept and thought for the
series.
“In
50 or 100 years’ time, I think humanity won’t look like it does today because
of technology. …We will be able to redefine what it means to look human and I
think these people are the vanguard of that type of evolution,”
Toledano’s statement on the project
stands as an interesting observation on the present and a curious look into the
future. With the tools at humanity’s disposal, the question of augmentation for
aesthetics becomes not an ‘if’ but ‘when’, and ‘to what extent?’
This pursuit of aesthetics in
itself presents as a fascinating subject; the definition of what is
aesthetically pleasing having changed many times over years. Is then the
accepted aesthetic presently given subject to change? It would appear so, if
the cyclic nature of trends and fashions are anything to go by. Concepts and
aesthetics remain subject to time and the ability that plastic surgery bestows
in changing the human face and body at will brings to mind another series of
thoughts. Will the definition of beauty still be subject to change when the
alteration of a surgeon can cause change in the subject instead? And how will
the spectrum of beauty be changed by this artificial intervention?
It would seem that the rising
popularity of plastic surgery allows the individual to pursue their concept of
beauty to the finest degree. One of the models of Toledano’s photographic
series, Justin Jedlica, is part of the niche ‘living doll’ aesthetic.
Figure
4. Phillip Toledano, Justin, (2009)
Jedlica, along with the ‘human
Barbie’ Valeria Lukyanova, are examples of humans who have taken to the optical
illusions of makeup and the more extreme alterations offered by surgery in
pursuit of their ideal of beauty – that of the impossibly proportioned and
shaped dolls Barbie and Ken, childhood doll toys manufactured by Mattel.
Figure
5. Justin Jedlica and Valeria
Lukyanova. Photo copyright of Inside Edition.
This aesthetic, offered by a doll
company, is what inspired Jedlica and Lukyanova to alter their bodies to fit.
According to Jedlica, ‘Children play with Barbie and Ken all the time so it’s
fed to us from a very young age that that is the epitome of what is beautiful
or what is handsome.’
This thought is echoed in
Toledano’s artist statement on
A New Kind
of Beauty – one of his many queries centering on the recent ability to
completely reshape the aesthetic appearance of a human; ‘When we re-make
ourselves, are we revealing our true character, or are we stripping away our
very identity?’
The
artist does not bring about a conclusion to the rhetoric, but instead invites
the public to interact with the photographic series, composed and laid out in a
style deliberately referencing 16
th century artist Hans Holbein the
Younger
,
a landmark portraiture artist of his time.
This new and potentially unsettling
method of pursuing perfection can have a variety of ramifications for the
unsuspecting member of public. So different is the drive behind this thought
pattern, it almost certainly warrants a different method of interaction between
the altered and the unaltered. There is also much to be said for an
individual’s identification to the rest of society when so much about them can
be changed, permanently. How would the uninitiated relate to the individual
capable of such an extreme morphing? They are clearly not the same as they were
before, and yet it is only the physical appearance of the individual that has
changed. This interaction of opposing concepts often leaves the general public
with the difficult task of relation and navigation amid a maze of social
conforms and expectations that is defined by the individual.
What then can be said of the
post-human in this environment? It now appears that the human is granted the
ability to determine their own shape, and set of physical aesthetics. These
personal aesthetics in turn are influenced by the time in which the individual
lives, and the amount of change possible is limited only by the current range
of techniques and surgeries marked as ‘ideal’ or ‘safe’ by medical practitioners.
This ability to determine the
countenance of the individual brings with it a new set of thoughts and
arguments in turn – what can be said of the face that people were born with?
Society is given the ability to obtain more than what was given at birth, and
there are those who would grasp it in pursuit of their own aesthetic. It brings
into question the inherent value of the appearance of an unaltered human. In a
society where so much of the value of an individual is determined simply at
face value, the post-human has the potential to change much of what is valued
in the current and future generations.
The advent of this change affects
clearly the environment of not only those who partake in it, but those who
inhabit the same sphere. This outfall of change, like everything that happens
in the known world, has to be governed by a certain power, and it is this
governance that allows the change to cohesively blend with society. Simply put,
there must be an entity or entities that are called to responsibility as a
result of this introduced set of ideas.
Enter Eduardo Kac. Kac’s art
focuses on the puzzle of genetics and deliberate mutation, of working on a
basal level with the building blocks that determine the physical and
physiological makeup of living things. Particularly brought to attention is his
genetic work from 2000, the GFP Bunny (also
known as Alba).
Figure
6. Eduardo Kac, GFP Bunny (Alba) 2000
Of the creature, Kac has stated,
‘transgenic art is a new art form based on the use of genetic engineering to
create unique living beings. This must be done with great care, with
acknowledgement of the complex issues raised and, above all, with a commitment
to respect, nurture and love the life thus created.’
The year before, Eduardo Kac had
proposed the concept of a dog with the GFP gene to the symposium ‘Life Science’
presented by Ars Electronica.
It was met with a variety of responses, ranging from outright refusal to complete
support, but was limited by technology available at the time
.
Kac’s desire had been to investigate new methods of breeding in dogs, the
well-associated closest animals to humans. This initial plan was adapted to the
GFP Bunny, known to the general
public as ‘Alba’.
After the birth of Alba, Kac had
requested to take the laboratory-born animal home, and was met with refusal.
Subsequently, he began to raise awareness of the situation, sensationalising
his request and bringing it into the public eye.
This compounded the unique creature’s situation, as her creation just months
prior had created a stir all over the world in various forms of media.
Whether the motive for the artist to personally obtain the rabbit in order to
possess the fame that came with the animal or to properly care for the creature
is not sure, but Kac’s statement pertaining directly to the creature seems to
indicate that he had a deep-seated desire to take personal responsibility for
the animal he had manufactured.
This sense of obligation towards
the created was not limited exclusively to Alba the rabbit; as Kac’s other
works indicate.
Natural History of the
Enigma was a work created by Kac between 2003 and 2008 and was focused on a
‘plantimal’ created by the artist. Named an ‘Edunia’, the creation was a
genetically modified petunia, which had been modified to incorporate the
artist’s genetic pattern for immunoglobin.
A component of blood commonly known as ‘antibodies’, the immunoglobin was
encoded into the plant’s genetic makeup, and its presence in the finished
product was made evident by the bright red veins lining the flowers of the
‘plantimal’
.
Kac dubbed the creation as ‘plantimal’, citing it as a mix of plant and animal,
something which would never grow in the wild. In naming the plant an ‘Edunia’,
he gave it his own name, and as a result extended his ownership and subsequent
onus of responsibility to it as well.
Figure
7. Eduardo Kac watering Edunia,
2009. Photo: Joy Lengyel
Somehow,
Kac manages to inhabit two seemingly opposing trains of thought when explaining
the concept of
Natural History of the
Enigma. On one side, the conceptual reach of the artwork was designed to
show off the ability of genetic splicing in creating a relation between the
classified kingdoms
Plantae and
Animalia. On the other, the artist
states that ‘all life, no matter how similar, is fundamentally different. All
life is singular.’
These two concepts find correlation in the artist’s desire to take responsibility
for what is created; something that is made evident through the events
surrounding both
GFP Bunny (Alba) and
Natural History of the Enigma. It is
seen that in both cases, the artist tries to take as much responsibility as can
be held for his genetic creations.
This overarching theme of
responsibility is also addressed by Australian artist Patricia Piccinini,
although the application of said action is rather different. Piccinini’s works
are nonliving, hyper-realistic creations, resembling genetic creatures altered
to a much greater degree than that used by Kac.
An example in point would be the
mixed-media sculpture
Surrogate for the
Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat. The work is of a theoretical creature,
designed for the purpose of breeding back from endangerment the rare wombat,
whose declining numbers can be attributed in part to human error.
The artwork raises thoughts among its audience of what extent society could use
biotechnology to undo damage done to flora and fauna of the environments we inhabit.
Figure
8. Patricia Piccinini, Nature’s Little Helpers –Surrogate (for the
Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat) (2004) (rear view) Silicone, fibreglass,
leather, plywood, hair. Dimensions variable
In this case, Piccinini is
absolutely nodding to the question of responsibility. Would we hold ourselves
responsible for errors or actions done in the past? And would we be willing to
do something about the situation as a result? Her work contrasts to that of Kac
in the degree of which this theme is employed. Kac for a large part seems to
allow his statements and actions to speak quietly of the responsibility
inherent in creating life. Piccinini’s works by contrast take the
responsibility required and petition the viewer to take it up. This petitioning
usually comes across in her artworks through their uncanny resemblance to
humans, in spite of their often animalian features.
Figure
9. Patricia Piccinini, The Young Family, (2002) Silicone,
polyurethane, leather, human hair. Dimensions variable.
In The Young Family, one of Piccinini’s most well-known works, the
resemblance of the creatures to human inspires both familiarity and revulsion.
It is like us, and at the same time very much not like us. How should we react
to it? It has an appearance completely different from any creature we know of,
and therefore would be considered artificial; a result of genetic tinkering.
Who then takes responsibility for the creature and its offspring? The clear
mother of the scene has by extension of her motherhood taken responsibility of
the creatures; of her offspring. She
challenges the viewer, and yet does not need to be taken to task for the same
challenge; she already has something to care for.
Piccinini is less subtle in her thematic
use of responsibility in creating life, but is no less interested in the
concept than Kac.
What then can be said of these
artists when relating to the post-human? Each has a different manner in which
their art and conceptual work is expressed, but all boil down to one particular
idea: the inherent value of the human.
For Bul, her fascination centres on
the blurring of lines between the human and technology in pursuit of
perfection. Her fragmented cyborgs ask quietly what it would mean to be human and
why it is that the cyborg cannot holistically exist without the human (although
by definition, a cyborg requires interface with a human to exist). Bul
investigates the right of mankind to intervene and right ‘human imperfection’
through technology and its incorporation into the human body.
Toledano presents a different look
at the inherent value of the human; similar to Bul is the incorporation of
foreign materials into the body, but the focus lies in aesthetics and the
pursuit of beauty, even boiling down to the individual definitions given for
beauty among society. In this self-defined world, the natural body is subject
to alteration and augmentation, to a point where it is no longer recognisable
from its native state. The desire is not for the base human form, but for the
capturing of ‘a particular part of beauty from our time’.
Overarching and yet still very much
related then, is the practise of Kac. Focused on the reactions to the
post-human, Kac’s evidenced desire for responsibility taken for his creations
reflect a different outlook on the augmentation of the human form or the forms
seen in the environment of the human. The concept is understood as taking
responsibility for the creation, no matter what is actually created.
This concept of responsibility
relates strongly to the value of the human on two levels; firstly, it
acknowledges that the post-human is something entirely different from the
human, and thus cannot be given the same set of rules for interaction with
society as given to its predecessor. Secondly, if the human is to be credited
and held responsible for the creation of the new creature, the post-human
cannot be credited as greater than the human. They co-exist, equal and yet
different.
The concept of the post-human and
its reoccurrence in modern art often raises questions. It’s a relatively new
concept, and can be very confronting. This stems from a very simple source: by
creating the post-human, we are changing something intensely personal to
society and to the human race, calling into question something that is
unequivocally shared by everyone. By changing the makeup of the human, we
create a new set of rules required to correctly engage with the subject. This
is not limited to the social circle, as this new set of rules overflows into
how the post-human must be governed and cared for by society, and how the human
and post-human would value each other.
The definition of the post-human,
it would seem then, is the augmented human. The human that blurs the defining
lines between themselves and their environment, creating change for the sake of
change, but at the same time taking responsibility for their alterations,
concurrently existing as human and post-human: progenor and progeny.
Bibliography
Bul, Lee. Lee Bul. Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2004
Dixon, Joan Broadhurst &
Cassidy, Eric J, editors, Virtual
futures: cyberotics, technology and post-human pragmatism. London and New
York: Routledge, 1998
Eduardo Kac. “Natural History of
the Edunia” Last modified 06/06/13 http://www.ekac.org/nat.hist.enig.html
Gautherot, Frank. ‘Supernova in
Kareoke Land’ Flash Art International, no.217,
March-April 2001, Kac, Eduardo, Signs
of Life: Bio Art and Beyond. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006
Masamune Shirow, Mamoru Oshii, Ghost in the Shell (motion picture),
Bandai Entertainment, 1995
The Slate. Rosenberg, David.
“Classical Portraits of Extreme Plastic Surgery”. Last modified 06/06/13.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2013/04/04/phillip_toledano_a_new_kind_of_beauty_examines_people_who_redefine_what.html
