How to Become a Posthuman

The Circle

The consequences of the Anthropocene challenge the survival of all species on planet Earth. In this regard, the circle becomes the central form of posthuman resilience in the online exhibition. The circle symbolises a shared living place. Whether as an agora, a meeting forum or a theatre, whether as a stadium, a campfire, a chorus or a circus – the circle is a basic form of social gathering, a collective space of sympoietic experience, a site for entangled intra-actions where everything is connected. At the same time, the circle is one of the basic forms of bio-construction found on the biological nanoscale; for example, in the formation of bubbles, living cells or water molecules.

Earth, Fire, Water, Air

The exhibition contributions place the four basic elements of earth, fire, water and air in a posthuman perspective. They are examples of figures of thought on the subject of “nature” and “being”that stem from the Ionian origins of Western philosophy. This pre-Socratic thought was influenced by several ancient cultures, such as Babylon and Egypt, and developed in parallel with the Chinese concept of the five elements as movements. As well in many indigenous cultures, elements such as earth/plants, fire, water and air are interconnected and, often along with many other elements, form the very balance of the sphere of nature.

The iconic symbol representing the International Committee to Save the Earth through Speculative Fabulation refers to the four elements. Their reference is meant as an impulse and a starting point, a conundrum: if they were once categorical criteria for grasping the world and understanding what it is made of, we propose to rethink them today in the context of climate catastrophes and the agency of nature. Fabulation for Future stands for thinking in motion, conceiving of all entities and beings as multiply interconnected, unfolding in an interdependent entanglement of becoming.

Performativity

“The Circus is on Fire” is a metaphor for the state of the endangered planet Earth and its multi-species life forms, presented by committee deputy and circus artist Marie-Andrée Robitaille. How to Become a Posthuman proposes the circus as a hub of performative action and establishes the form of the circle as an elementary symbol. The circle thus becomes a sign with an affirmative character that calls for performativity and responsibility in the acute situation of upheaval.

Coexistence

The exhibition contributions adopt a posthuman perspective through speculative fabulation. They propose to rethink the dichotomies of human-animal, human-plant, nature-technology as well as the human-human relation in a transversal way. Instead of a dualistic worldview, the principle of intra-active entanglement of all entities, including the human, becomes important. This post-anthropocentric principle potentiates spaces of thought as kaleidoscopic diffractions rather than reflections. Because: “Everything you touch also touches you. Everything that touches each other changes each other.” (after Octavia E. Butler)

Agential Performance

In the digital exhibition, 20 reports performed by the deputies of the fictive International Committee to Save the Earth through Speculative Fabulation and 27 project contributions are intertwined, both in form and content, and refer to each other. Agential performance is hereby an elementary principle which generates intra-activity. Because: “There are no pre-existing individual objects with determinate boundaries and properties that precede some interaction,” rather, they “are enacted through specific intra-actions, where phenomena are the ontological inseparability of intra-acting agencies.” (Karen Barad)

Diffractive Action

Performativity is one of the conceptual key motifs of Fabulation for Future. The aim is not to describe, reflect or depict the world; rather, to allow the productive forces of the arts and artistic research to become diffractive and to shape the new as a kaleidoscopic event. “In contrast to reflecting apparatuses, like mirrors, which produce images—more or less faithful—of objects placed a distance from the mirror, diffraction gratings are instruments that produce patterns that mark differences in the relative characters.” (Karen Barad) Different forms of knowledge produce actual presence and diffractively entangle thinking with action.