15th Beyond Humanism Conference

June 24-27, 2025 – University of Paris 8, France

Posthuman Art, Creativity, and Play in the Age of Artificial Intelligence 

Creativity and play are philosophical and cultural categories that go beyond mere activity. They are spaces for experimentation, relationality, and transformation. Art is a dynamic mode of engagement that embodies the tensions between freedom and constraint, spontaneity and system. It is rooted in structures of rules and improvisation. In the era of algorithms, the philosophy of play demands reconsideration, particularly in its intersection with post-, trans, and metahuman creativity. This interplay demands our reflection on the evolving relationships between human and non-human agencies, the aesthetics of co-creation, and the ethics of imaginative practice.

In the context of posthuman thought, play is a central part of an aesthetic in which human decentering, co-creation, and uncertainty are key values. This aesthetic embraces a relational logic in which playfulness is a fertile ground for experimentation, allowing us to reimagine forms of expression and collaboration. Play boldly critiques traditional anthropocentric structures and fosters the emergence of new modes of agentivity, where human and non-human actors co-construct a common space.

As formal structures, games of any kind are based on a set of rules, constraints, and a systemic logic reminiscent of algorithmic protocols, understood as a set of instructions for carrying out a task. Throughout history, however, games have also played a central role in practice-led methodologies and philosophies, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein’s theory of language games or Jacques Derrida’s understanding of concepts as free play with structures.

Artistic examples include the formal constraints imposed by members of the Oulipo and the practices of Fluxus, an artistic movement of the 1960s that proposed “scores” or performative instructions halfway between algorithmic protocol and the act of play.Play was then integrated into participatory performances in which the audience was invited to interact with the materials, blurring the boundaries between artist and audience. Jean-Marie Schaeffer’s notion of ludic fencing refers to a deliberate suspension of reality when immersed in a work of fiction.Digital technologies have reinvigorated algorithmic protocols in posthuman practices, where the human is no longer the sole agent of creation. Algorithms have evolved from simple tools to co-authors. Generative artificial intelligences like GPT or computational art systems like DeepDream, Dall-E, or Midjourney are part of this dynamic. These new tools make us reflect on the post-human future of creativity and creativity in general. The questions we must ask are whether our civilization will reach a state of singularity more quickly (Ray Kurzweil), or whether it will become more of an “entropocene” in Bernard Stiegler’s sense. In the latter case, the technologies we produce will become a source of decay, disintegration, and collapse, and absolute non-knowledge.

In the face of these challenges, activist practices that transcend the Capitalocene social rules and subvert algorithmic dominance will become increasingly important. However, engaging with such a system will require new definitions of creativity and a constant redefinition of the relationship between humans, machines, and the meanings produced by these interactions.

As for contemporary pop art, graphic arts, photography and video art, music, new media art and performing arts, in a video game setting, interaction with recursive neural networks and other emerging technologies complicates identities, practices, and play processes, allowing players to explore a different form of relationship to the world through human-machine interaction.By interacting with algorithms, players co-create a narrative, changing not only the course of the story, but also their perception of themselves as augmented and amputated agents, both real and virtual.The question then becomes: are the players playing, or are they being played? We must invent a new concept to account for this new modality of play, or how modern games navigate between the constraints of ludus and the more open spaces of paidia (Roger Caillois). The system adapts to the player according to a logic of cybernetic control, so what space is left for imagination and creation? In a creative context, to what extent does this decentralization represent a real resubjectification by the machine?

The papers should address the general theme of the conference. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • Refining posthuman discourses: Critical, Cultural, Existential, European, Philosophical, Radical, and Speculative Posthumanism.
  • Refining transhuman discourses: Classic, silicon-based, carbon-based Transhumanism, and Euro-Transhumanism.
  •  Post-, trans-, and metahuman foundations of play.
  •  Generative algorithms and post-, trans-, and metahuman methodologies.
  •  Ethics and creative agency.
  •  Critical Posthumanist and Transhumanist Ethics of Play and Experimentation.
  •  Gaming Ethics and Posthuman Agency.
  •  Politics of play: technology, autonomy, and control.
  •  Redefining identity and agency through play.
  •  Virtual and augmented realities: new dimensions of play and identity.
  •  Games as Art and Activism.
  •  Human and non-human creative collaboration.
  •  Generative AI systems as artistic tools.
  •  Technological singularity and creativity.
  •  Performative arts and generative AI.
  •  Non-human aesthetics.
  •  Literary depictions of creative automata.
  •  Existing and Developing Art Forms and Politics.
  •  Emotions and algorithms in political and social contexts.

Abstracts will be reviewed upon receipt.

Deadline for submission : February 28, 2025.

Final notifications will be issued by March 31, 2025.

Deadline for early bird registration: April 30, 2025.

Conference fees

early bird until the end of April
– 120 euros
– 80 euros (PhD students and independent researchers/artists)

regular fee
– 150 euros
– 100 euros (PhD students and independent researchers/artists)

Submission guidelines

We invite paper proposals including a title, an abstract of 350 words, name and affiliation of the author, as well as a short bio with contact information. 

Applications together with a short bio-bibliographical note should be submitted in English and in PDF format before the 28th of February 2025.

Please click on the following link to upload your contribution in one single file (PDF format required): https://easychair.org/conferences?conf=bhc15

 
All those accepted will receive information on the venue(s), local attractions, accommodations, restaurants, and planned events for participants.

Presentations should be no longer than 20 minutes. Each presenter will be given 10 additional minutes for questions and discussions with the audience. 

International Scientific Committee

Prof. Arnaud Regnauld, University of Paris 8, France

Prof. Evi Sampanikou, University of the Aegean, Greece

Prof. Sangkyu Shin, Ewha Womans University, South Korea

Prof. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

Jan Stasieńko., AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, Poland

Local organization and scientific committee – University of Paris 8

  Prof.  Research Unit
  Arnaud Regnauld  TransCrit  
  Gwen Le Cor
  Georges Gagnéré  AIAC-InReV  
  Cédric Plessiet
  Rémi Sohier
  Tania Ruiz  AIAC-Teamed  
  Alexandra Saemmer  CEMTI  
  Pierre Cassou-Noguès  LLCP  
  Anne Alombert
  Everardo Reyes  Paragraphe