Art&Science and Posthumanism: Technoscience, Aesthetics and Body

• Published in: Nauka televideniâ (Online) Vol. 19; no. 3; pp. 43 - 67
• Main Authors: PISAREV, ALEXANDER А., ALEKHINA, ANASTASIA V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• ISSN: 1994-9529; 2587-9782
• DOI: 10.30628/1994-9529-2023-19.3-43-67

The article is devoted to the conceptual and aesthetic connections between Art&Science and posthumanism. In their interpretation of posthumanism, the authors start from Michel Foucault’s thesis that “man would be erased, like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea,” showing how posthumanism problems follow from this idea. At the center of posthumanism is the realization that man and nature are the material-discursive products of a technoscientific network consisting of human and non-human actors. This network is considered in Science and Technology Studies (STS), which serve as a bridge between posthumanism and Art&Science. Therefore, the authors turn to STS to present Art&Science through their lens. They briefly introduce the thesis of ontological constructivism about technoscience as the enactment of natural realities. Art&Science, with its laboratory-technical aesthetics, is interpreted here as a performance or enactment of technoscience itself as a heterogeneous network producing natural realities. This brings scientific art closer to posthumanism. Further, the authors focus on how Art&Science works with the posthumanistic problems of the body, analyze strategies and examples of its development in art projects, and show that the projects of this art belong to the aesthetics of the posthuman. In conclusion, some limitations of Art&Science’s interaction with posthumanistic issues are discussed.