In February 2023, my article “S’inspirer du passer pour créer l’Être du futur. Une histoire de l’image du corps prothétique ” was published in Les récits du posthumain, edited by Mara Magda Mafei and Dominique Viart at Presses Universitaires Septentrion. This work examines how posthumanism, while projecting a future of augmentation and surpassing biological limits, draws on narratives and references from the past to shape its imagination.
Reference of the conference proceedings:
Jessica Ragazzini, (2023), “S’inspirer du passer pour créer l’Être du futur. Une histoire de l’image du corps prothétique, ” in Les récits du posthumain, Mara Magda Mafei and Dominique Viart (ed.), Presses Universitaires Septentrion.
Abstract
Future-oriented though it may be, posthumanist iconography nevertheless draws upon a distant past. In 1906, the term mannequin no longer referred solely to an anthropomorphic object, but also came to designate the female body itself. A few years later, Futurist thinkers imagined the “New Man,” Metropolis appeared in cinemas, and the eroticism of Surrealism left a lasting mark on Western culture. The postwar period fostered a profound ambivalence toward technology, whose redemption seemed to lie in its capacity to repair the very bodies it had destroyed. An entire visual iconography, simultaneously rooted in the past and oriented toward the future, emerged through the intertwining of the visual arts and the fashion industry, notably in the early robotic representations produced by Helmut Newton. Despite herself, the young amputee athlete Aimee Mullins became an icon of posthumanism when she served as a muse for Alexander McQueen in 1999 and later performed for Matthew Barney in 2002. Situated between body and object, between the cyborg and the augmented body, these works project an imagined humanity of the future. Contemporary posthumanist iconography continues to oscillate between inherited artistic traditions and visions of technological innovation yet to come. This article examines the iconography of the posthuman body through the lens of its artistic and cultural legacy.
A Memory of the Augmented Body
The idea of a “new man” is not purely a creation of contemporary transhumanism. Art history, philosophy, and literature have continually questioned the transformation of body and mind. From classical sculptures idealizing human perfection to contemporary artworks depicting augmented bodies, the tension between past and future shapes the representations of the posthuman.
An Interdisciplinary Work Under the Auspices of UNESCO
This work is part of a collective reflection involving philosophers, anthropologists, jurists, specialists in the arts, and digital sciences. Under the auspices of UNESCO, Les récits du posthumain (Narratives of the Posthuman) questions the social, ethical, and philosophical implications of the rising power of technologies that modify the human body.