This skin is not mine
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2021-02-03
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en
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Abstract
The past couple of decades the western world has been re-questioning what it entails to be human. Within biological sciences, philosophy and in cultural outings we have been thinking about possible furthers and hybrid life forms to overcome certain vulnerabilities inseparable from the human existence. We have been putting our ideas and plans to the test. Within this thesis I will conduct a research that tries to show in what different ways we have been questioning our human position. Encountering vulnerability as a social, cognitive and emotional concept that all human beings deal with in one way or another. When encountering these vulnerabilities, we are without doubt required to ask ethical questions. Questions regarding the nature of being human and for example whether or not we are allowed to change this nature and if so, by which means. Or maybe we should ask ourselves again what this thought of our nature is, and if this idea in itself should be redefined.
This research arises from my personal interest in the human as an object of study within artistic and scientific practices. A living object which is subjected to experiments which may change its existence forever. A living object, subjected to its own ideas of possible futures.
In the search for a possibility to show the layering and construct of our vulnerabilities and the perspective on those vulnerabilities I am looking taking on an interconnected, interdisciplinary approach. I aim to connect the (technical) biological field of research and the philosophical research field together by examining three artworks and artistic practices that in some way transcend the idea of the classical artistic practice, and operate on the thin line between science and art. By examining how these artworks and the creating artists try to convey a vision of a possible futures and the associated ethical questions and concerns I intend to expose the questioning of the human and its vulnerabilities. This research is thus concerned with the posthumanist philosophical notion, the definition of bio artistic practices and the possibility of art becoming a space in which we can reflect and question the fundamentals of human life, with the aim of providing a more rounded, interconnected perspective of the interpretations of the questions as asked by posthuman theory, in an attempt to free the theory from being merely words.
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