The 7th Beyond Humanism Conference
“From Humanism to Post- and Transhumanism?
”September 15-18, 2015
Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea
Program and Abstracts
Please download the proceedings of the 7th Beyond Humanism Conference here. In the printed version, there have been found a few typological errors with font. We have rectified those errors as far as we can in this PDF version of proceedings.
Conference Proceedings
About
This Conference is part of the Beyond Humanism Conference Series. The 1st Conference took place in April 2009 at the University of Belgrade (Humanism and Posthumanism), the 2nd Conference in September 2010 at the University of the Aegeans (Audiovisual Posthumanism), the 3rd Conference in October 2011 at Dublin City University (Transforming Human Nature), the 4th Conference in September 2012 at the IUC in Dubrovnik (Enhancement, Emerging Technologies and Social Challenges), the 5th Conference in September 2013 at Roma III (The Posthuman) and the 6th Conference in September 2014 at the University of the Aegeans (Posthuman Politics). The 7th BH-conference is entitled “From Humanism to Post- and Transhumanism?” and will be held at Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea, from the 15th until the 18th of September 2015.
Keynote Speakers
Stelarc
He is a performance artist who has visually probed and acoustically amplified his body. He has made three films of the inside of his body. Between 1976-1988 he completed 25 body suspension performances with hooks into the skin. He has used medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, Virtual Reality systems, the Internet and biotechnology to explore alternate, intimate and involuntary interfaces with the body. He has performed with a THIRD HAND, a VIRTUAL ARM, a STOMACH SCULPTURE and EXOSKELETON, a 6-legged walking robot. His FRACTAL FLESH, PING BODY and PARASITE performances explored involuntary, remote and internet choreography of the body with electrical stimulation of the muscles. His PROSTHETIC HEAD is an embodied conversational agent that speaks to the person who interrogates it. He is surgically constructing an EXTRA EAR on his arm that will be internet enabled, making it a publicly accessible acoustical organ for people in other places. He is presently performing as his avatar from his SECOND LIFE site.
Web site: http://stelarc.org/?catID=20247
Mark Hansen
He is Professor of the Literature Program at Duke University. Over the past decade he has sought in his research, writing and teaching to theorize the role played by technology in human agency and social life. In work that ranges across a host of disciplines, including literary studies, film and media, philosophy (particularly phenomenology), science studies, and cognitive neuroscience, he has explored the meaning of the relentless technological exteriorization that characterizes the human as a form of life and has paid particular attention to the key role played by visual art and literature in brokering cultural adaptation to technology from the industrial revolution to the digital revolution. He is the author of Feed Forward: On the Future of 21st Century Media (2013), Emergence and Embodiment: New Essays on Second-Order Systems Theory (2009), Bodies in Code: Interfaces with New Media (2006), New Philosophy for New Media (2004), and Embodying Technesis: Technology Beyond Writing (2000).
Special ‘Beyond Humanism’ Presentation
Dale Herigstad
Four times Emmy Award Winner, and Winner of the inaugural Interactive Emmy Award; responsible for the media design of the movie “Minority Report” http://www.xmedialab.com/mentor/dale-herigstad
Special Session: Post-and Transhumanism in Asia
Sungook Hong (Korea)
He is a historian of technoscience and STS (Science & Technology Studies) scholar, interested in the interaction between technoscience and art, the relationship between science and religion, as well as the mutual influence of neuroscience and law. He has written The Secret History of Science Seen through Images and Pictures(2012) and Science with a Human Face(2008) and edited Neuro-Humanities(2012) and Humans, Objects, and Alliance(2008). He has explored how the new assemblage of humans and nonhumans creates new post-human conditions in which the ideas of subject and subjectivity are reformulated. In his talk, Hong takes some examples from his studies into the co-constructive interaction between technoscience, art, relgions, and law to illuminate current posthuman and transhuman dreams and anxieties in Korea.
Yuko Hasegawa (Japan)
She is Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2006~present) and is also a Professor at Tama Art University, Tokyo, where she teaches curatorial and art theory. Previously, she was Chief Curator and Founding Artistic Director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (1999~2006). She has worked on many international biennials, and has held such positions as: Artistic Advisor of the 12th Venice Architectural Biennale (2010), Co-Curator of the 29th Sao Paulo Biennale (2010), and Co-Curator of the 4th Seoul International Media Art Biennale (2006). She has curated major thematic group exhibitions, and solo exhibitions by such artists as Matthew Barney, Marlene Dumas, Rebecca Horn, and Atsuko Tanaka. She has served on advisory boards for the Guggenheim Museum and the Venice Biennale, and has authored curatorial essays in publications for museums including The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
Wong Kin Yuen (China)
He is a professor and the head of department of English language and literature at Shue Yan University in Hong Kong. He is also performing the director of Technoscience Culture Research and Development Center. His research interests consist in intercultural studies, technoscience culture and ecology. He coedited Science Fiction and the Prediction of the Future (2011) and World Weavers: Globalization, Science Fiction, and the Cybernetic Revolution (2005). His articles include “Intercultural and Interface: Kung Fu as Absract Machine” (2011) and “Buddhist Consciousness, Deleuzian Ecoethics, and the Case with Wang Wei’s Poetry” (2009).
Post-Human Studies Workshop
Pre-Conference Workshop for high school and college students in South Korea.
Organizers
Sangkyu Shin (Ewha Womans University)
Hyesook Jeon (Ewha Womans University)
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner (Beyond Humanism Network, University of Erfurt)
Evi Sampanikou (University of the Aegean)
James Hughes (IEET)
Jaime del Val (Reverso Institute)
Hosted by
Ewha Institute for the Humanities, Ewha Womans University
http://eiheng.ewha.ac.kr