Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
ABSTRACT Ideas are easy; the difficulty is in actualizing them. Our imagination not only is aided but actually is initiated by our instruments and computational systems. Unexpected information and images irradiate and mutate our desires and necessitate additional external organs. The posthuman and the transhuman are not merely about sci-fi speculation and theorizing possibilities but rather are about physically interrogating the biological status quo and engineering interfaces that short-circuit the body’s present expectations and experiences. Affirming the sensory, cortical, and anatomical architecture of the body in an age of AI-imbued computational systems and precise and powerful instruments and machines is sheer folly. The body at present is a monstrous chimera of biology, technology, and code. But it’s not enough to optimize or enhance bodies that are profoundly obsolete in form and function. It’s not enough to prosthetically patch up bodies. It’s time to redesign. Time for alternate embodiment and distributed agency. Time to surpass circulating, fractal, and phantom flesh. Time for engineering contestable futures. This article is a visual essay with descriptions of a performance expressing these themes and comments on the artist’s experience.
Stelarc (Sun,) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 4 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: