This article explores the transhuman issues raised and promoted by "new art and through art" for the future digital era of the Singularity. The features and criteria ideologically conditioned by transhumanism legalize the "advanced art" of the future, which, however, more and more clearly reveals the old occult and magical roots or, as if by chance, harmoniously incorporates them into its vision of the world, as well as of a transhuman and a posthuman. Some artists and their apologists are specifically engaged in the development of provocative shocking art with the inevitable exclusion of a human and "human" by blurring the boundaries between the living and the dead, natural and artificial, good and evil, a human and other creatures and entities. The article examines specific examples and comparisons with transhumanistic attitudes, occult-magical practices and ideas of past centuries. The author comes to the conclusion that the mythologized ideology of transhumanism is being enrooted by means of art in mass culture and by the substitution of a human for a transhuman/a posthuman with a predominance of hybrid characteristics (zoomorphic, plant and cyborg ones), thus forming a utopian world of the future digital bestiary.
James Hughes, American sociologist and bioethicist, a founder of the movement of democratic transhumanism and Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), is also a developer of a special original project which presupposes techno-optimism as its methodological foundation, more critical and pro-state approach to radical technologies (in contrast to the libertarian transhumanism previously promoted in the Extropian movement) and a strong bias towards attracting religious ideas and methods, especially the pro-Buddhist ones. This explains the interest of the scientist in religious practices and work on the “Cyborg Buddha” project. J. Hughes in his research analyzes American society along ideological axes and tries to combine them within the framework of democratic transhumanism (cyborg democracy). The latter must be approved at the state level and implemented through a special program. However, most of all, in promoting transhumanist ideas and creating a common cultural background, he relies on minority groups: from radical feminism (cyberfeminism), biopunk, supporters of LGBT movements, and to people with disabilities who will “benefit” from the experimental methods and radical transformations. In general, Hughes’ ideas remain quite radical, focus on the creation of a transhuman and a posthuman, and discard the existence of modern type people and their “outdated and too-human” culture in the future.
Mark Walker, one of the ideologists of modern transhumanism, developed a number of neuroethics provisions for the implementation of the “human enhancement” project. The basic elements of “making happy” are neurovirtues mediated by the introduction of genetic engineering (the creation of “happy-people-pills” (HPP)). The methodological basis or norm for genetic engineering is proposed to use the type of hyperthymic people. In the concept, there is some repetition of the ideas of O. Huxley’s novel “Brave New World”, where residents use soma, have the corrected nature of “genetic virtues”, and are in a state of controlled “ignorance”, happiness, and peace. M. Walker formulates his solution to O. Huxley’s dilemma (the choice between happiness and perfection) through the legalization and improvement of HPP. However, the interpretation of happiness itself is not satisfactory for transhumanists, since it comes down solely to neuroreduction and positive arguments for the use of radical technologies, including the programs which launch irreversible processes.
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