Post-Human Motherhoods: Reflections on mother-offspring bonding as symbiotic individuation in Contemporary Art

As part of an ongoing postdoctoral research on post-human motherhoods in media art, the paper examines selected artistic expressions of mother-offspring bonding and its relationships with different technological cultural basis. The introduction addresses the handling of the concept of the mother and its related operations in the research scope. Following this, we suggest as standing points for reflection both the material basis of the placenta and playfulness as elements shaping the mother-offspring bonding. They constitute fundamental aspects triggering affection in the potential symbiotic relationship established in mother-offspring bonding. The discussion is permeated by artwork examples, brought on demand to the text to feed the reflection. The notions of “natureculture” by Donna Haraway and the theoretical framework by Second-order Cybernetics are grounding references. The final considerations point towards the human and post-human aspects of motherhood revealed by the artworks, as well as to the need for concrete actions towards the reduction of the gender-based technological gap in media art, in order to increase the imaginary variability of the field.