Posthuman Narrative “Three Divisions”

Phil Devine — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:03:15 +0000

“A second way to think about the organisation of How We Became Posthuman is narratively. In this argument, the three divisions proceed not so much through chronological progression as through the narrative strands about the (lost) body of information, the cyborg, and the posthuman body”
(Towards embodied virtuality, Hayles, 1999, p21)

=> (lost) body of information => the cyborg => posthuman body => (found) body of information

“Speculative fictions constructs a semiotics of virtuality by showing how the central concepts of information and materiality can be mapped onto a multilayered semiotic square”
(Towards embodied virtuality, Hayles, 1999, p24)

“Metaphor performs essential functions in orienting and guiding thought; it connects abstraction and embodiment; it allows us to discover regularities between what we perceive and what exists outside of ourselves; and it entwines cultural presuppositions with scientific frameworks.”
(Desiring Agency, Hayles, 2001, p.144)

“a definition formation originates in human experience and imagining: a concept exists in the world – humans experience the concept – humans create concept images in their minds – humans create concept definitions – humans operate with concepts”
(Creating and reading images, Lakovic, 2010, p.128)

Constrained Constructivism: “is that reality is never present to us as such; rather, our sense perceptions are self-organising processes that construct the world we know from the unmediated flux, unknowable in itself”
(Desiring Agency, Hayles 2001, p.145).

This all seems like one big experiment to me! An experiment to explain the existent. We are all ‘information’ bound by materiality (that seems to accepted), the 20th C and Modernism, bound by atomic physics has uncovered a journey to posthuman. If information has no dimensions, no materiality, no necessary connection with meaning (Shannon, in Hayles, 1999, p21), and that “Metaphor performs essential functions in orienting and guiding thought; it connects abstraction and embodiment;” (Hayles, 2001) – So! The dichotomy between the analogue domain and the digital domain is key to this narrative… Virtuality (Posthuman) is the link, the tool that leads to a semiotic interpretation of information, information that has no dimensions, no materiality, no necessary connection with meaning – that’s why ‘critical design’ exists – making better sense of ‘Bridget Riley’ at last!

Better start the journey then…

Morophospace » Marx

Posthuman Narrative “Three Divisions”