Publication details
Performance a posthumanismus: Hledání nových modů života v umění
| Title in English | Performance and Posthumanism: Searching for New Modes of Life in Art |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2023 |
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| Description | The changes taking place in the last few decades under the influence of accelerating technological development — the re-framing of the concept of human body and identity, as well as real threats of global warming associated with the need to transform economic production and adjust everyday lifestyle — are beginning to profoundly influence contemporary artistic and performative practice. The shift in the field of performance and live, event-focused works of art is manifesting both in the formal side, and in the overall ideological framework. My proposal in this thesis is to view these newly emerging tendencies in performative arts through the lens of posthumanism. Posthumanism, as a heterogeneous philosophical movement, is based on conceptual re-thinking of the idea of Human as the centerpiece of all life on Earth. Posthumanists seek to explore the possibilities of merging the human body with technology, and drawing from feminism, post-colonialism, gender and environmental studies, to equalize all life on Earth, be it gender or racialized others, an animal, or a rainforest. For my work, I have selected characteristic performative works that somehow operate within the themes of posthumanist thought, and see posthumanism either as an ideological background, an inspiration, or a subject to complicate and criticize. Thus, my text should not be viewed as a catalogue of model examples documenting the whole direction of posthumanist art, but a specific approach of thinking about emerging tendencies that somehow respond to conceptual changes in the self-definition of humanity. The thesis should provoke thought concerning new modes of life, and also open the potentialities of rethinking Human through art. |
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