生理机械时空的文化螺旋：

后人类主义、赛博格与具身性——关于田晓磊个展

 

文/付晓东

 

田晓磊的作品中提出了哪些新问题？这些问题是否超出了我们之前的讨论，引发我们更进一步思考？

 

一、后人类主义

后人类主义体现了“人类日益技术化”和“技术物日益人格化”的本体论转向。在人类和非人类的交界处,在开放式终结和前瞻式历史中，真正的新奇事物是如何在时间的缝隙中，真实地涌现出来？后人类是人工制造的，非自然遗传的生物之人，是按照人为目的设计出来的存在之物；是机械或电子设备控制的有一定生理过程的人，是人与机械物质混合状态的生化之人。他们在功能上超越体力、智力以及生命力等极限，在思想意识、生理结构、生命限度、智力水平突破现有的局限性，进化为完美的、无限的超人。是长生不老、羽化成仙的技术版本，是伊甸园智慧之果和永生之果叠加的原罪再现。

 

二、赛博格

赛博格起源于控制论，哈拉维在《赛博格宣言》中是这样界定“赛博格” 本体的：“赛博格是一种控制论有机体，一种机器和有机体的杂合，一种社会建构和一种幻想相结合之物。”哈拉维的理论对于塞博格的理解是打破了人与动物、人与机器、物理与非物理之间的界限，并由此打破了国家与种族、性别与阶级、自然与人工、心灵与身体、有机与无机等人类自身建造的一切神话。它是在科学、技术、政治、经济、伦理之间错综纠缠的情境中生成。哈拉维用转基因生物重新讲述的了身份的故事，土豆、萤火虫和烟草的转基因，使原有的二元对立的区分标准都失效了。用哈拉维的话说，这是“自然文化的纠缠与内爆”，我们每个人都是赛博格，我们每天都与技术融合在一起，技术和人类的身体已经互相糅合。

 

三、具身性

离身性认为生命最重要的载体不是身体本身，而是抽象的信息或者信息模式。具身性可以追溯到20世纪初的语言学转向，莱柯夫借用心理学和哲学的embodiment来强调身体在塑形精神时所起的决定性作用。唐伊德在《技术性的身体》中提出了理解身体的三种路径，1. 物质的、现世的，现象学意义上的身体；2. 社会和政治建构的后现代话语的身体，身体被强加于身体上的心理、政治、文化的重构所遮蔽；3. 与技术产生互相呼应的身体，身体在技术中得以具体化。虚拟身体通过连接网络，在赛博空间里，人类被认为不仅身体处于物理空间，而且精神与物质互相作用，同时处于两种现实。具身性的后人类身体是边缘跨越的身体。人类和机械装置互相联系的身体，从根本上去掉了人类中心主义和实质上的自我神像。梅洛庞蒂提出了“具身主体性”的概念，不把人看成离身心智，也不把人看成极其复杂，而时视为活生生，积极的创造物，主体性是通过身体与世界的物质性互动实现。人类的认知始于“我能”，是“身体－主体”，一个与世界同在的身体，因此我才能存在，并与世界互动。在田晓磊的作品中，虚拟的身体具有无穷的数字化可塑性。从后人类主体来看，技术的本质既不是积极的，也不是消极的，而是促成一系列后人类的可能性。身体和技术不可避免的缠绕在一起，以海量信息转变成一个完全具身化的个体。后人类的主体是流动中的主体，是间隙身体的主体，既不是固定在概念上，也不是固定在物质上，是一种在中间的状态。

 

Cultural Spiral of the Bio-mechanical Age: Cyborg, Posthumanism and Embodiment —— Tian Xiaolei’s Solo Exhibition

 

Text: Fu Xiaodong

 

What questions are raised in Tian Xiaolei’s art? Do these questions go beyond what’s been previously discussed and provoke us to ponder further?

 

1.Posthumanism

Posthumanism indicates the ontological shift of “the increasing technologicalisation of human” and “the personification of technology.” On the border between human and nonhuman, in the open-endedness and a history that is forward-looking, how do the truly ground-breaking things really emerge in the fissures of time? The posthuman is an artificial entity designed by humans, a bio-human emerged through unnatural heredity. It’s mechanically or electronically controlled while to a certain degree maintaining its biological function, a biochemical human in a state of hybrid of man and substances. It exceeds the limits of stamina, intelligence and vitality of human functionality, breaking through the present constraints to evolve into a perfect, infinite super-human. It’s the technological adaptation of ascending to immortality, a sinful representation of the overlapping of the fruits of intelligence and immortality of the Garden of Eden.

 

2. Cyborg

Cyborg originates from cybernetics. Haraway defines the cyborg ontology in Cyborg Manifesto: “A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.” This concept of cyborg in Haraway’s theories break down the rigid boundaries separating “human” from “animal,” “human" from “machine” and the “physical” from “non-physical,” and in doing so it further undermines all the mythology of nation and race, gender and class, nature and artificiality, spirituality and body, organic and non-organic invented by human itself. It comes into being from the complex, intertwining situations of science, technology, politics, economics and ethics. Haraway reiterates the story of identity with genetically modified creatures. The genetic modification of potatoes, fireflies and tobacco invalidates the conventional dualistic separational standards. In Haraway’s words, everyone of us is a cyborg, since we mingle with technology on a daily basis while technology and the human body integrate each other.

 

3. Embodiment

Disembodiment claims the essential vehicle of life is not body itself, but the abstract information or informational mode. Embodiment can be traced to the shift in linguistics of the early 20th century. Lakoff borrowed the term “embodiment” from psychology and philosophy to highlight the crucial role the body plays when shaping the spirit. Don Ihde proposed three approaches of understanding the body in his Bodies in Technology: 1) The phenomenological body in a present, objective world. 2) A socially and politically constructed postmodern body that is complicated by the impositions of psychological, political and cultural reconstructions. 3) the body that’s mutually corresponding to and fulfilled by technology.

 

While the virtual body is connected to the Internet in a cyborg space, it is regarded that human exists simultaneously in two kinds of realities with not only its body existing in the physical realm but also its mind interacting with physical substances. The embodied posthuman body is a trans-border body. The body that’s mutually connected to mechanical devices, unroots the inherent anthropocentrism and self-deification. Merleau-Ponty proffers the concept of “embodied subjectivity” which sees humans as from neither a disembodied mentality, nor extremely complex, but a living, active creation, whose subjectivity is fulfilled by material interactions between the body and the world. The human perception originates from “I can,” which is “body - subject,” a body that coexists with the world, and therefore “I am” to interact with the world. In Tian Xiaolei’s works, the virtual body contains endless digital plasticity. In the point of view of posthuman subject, the essence of technology is neither positive nor negative, but rather a series of possibilities to facilitate the becoming of the posthuman. The body and technology entangle inevitably, becomes an embodied entity through mass amounts of data. The posthuman subject is a subject in flux, a subject in the gapped body, it’s not fixed upon a concept nor substance, but an in-between state.

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