In this article, bio-art is analyzed in the framework of critical posthumanism, a specific feature of which is anti-anthropocentrism. Posthumanist theories predetermine the relationship of a modern person with himself, the world around him, and nonhuman agents. In this regard, the scope of the concepts of bios and zoe is being reconsidered, as long as they specify the difference between human and non-human life. Posthumanism is based on the idea of a broader understanding of zoe as the common basis of all life forms, including bios. Bio-art is genetically linked to posthumanism. The latest discoveries in biology have mainstreamed posthumanism issues and inspired the emergence of this art form. But more often than not, bios and zoe act as opposites in bio-art, since bio-art uses life and its various forms as media. Technological innovations allow artists to create new forms of life or to manipulate existing ones. The interrelation of these two terms (bios and zoe) is employed as the key criterion to confirm or refute the assumption that bio-art is associated with the ideas of posthumanism by analyzing some widely known works of bio-art.
The article examines the reaction of modern visual art to the paradigm shift in the socio-cultural understanding of man taking place today. Researchers define the new discursive field as posthumanistic. The ambiguity of the concept of posthumanism becomes the reason for referring to the term post-anthropocentrism, which more appropriately describes both the direction of thought of the last decades and the main vector of the development of present-day art. The author puts forward the concept of a post-anthropocentric turn realized in art. The main purpose of the article is to substantiate and describe this turn. Using concrete examples, various art contexts are considered, including: visualizations of the “world-for-us”, “world-in-itself”, “world-without-us”; an appeal to the interspecific community; a statement of the symmetry of human and non-human actors in the work. The research is based on the works of representatives of critical posthumanism and speculative realism. The author concludes that contemporary visual art, conceptualizing and radicalizing the main ideas of post-anthropocentrism, creates many alternative ideas about the situation in which a modern person finds himself. She also notes the transgressive potential of this art.
This article explores the changing parameters of sensibility in the context of a postanthropocentric paradigm in art. In particular, we address the mechanism of the construction of affects building on the idea of their external autonomy in art. The fundamental disconnectedness of the realm of sensuality is described in the context of object ontologies, via the modes of connectedness and conditionality that exist beyond the limits of individual experience. A generalized description of the procedures of the postanthropocentric paradigm of distributed aesthetics is provided. The article discusses the shift in the understanding of the function and autonomy of art associated with the emergence of object forms of art. The current situation in object art, in particular in total installations, suggests a different paradigm of aesthetics. The specific workings of such a paradigm are clarified on the basis of the distinction between affect and emotion proposed by Brian Massumi in his conception of the autonomy of affect. The authors conclude that in deanthropologized environments sensuality operates as a chain of distributed affects associated with the effects of increasing intensity and inhibition of intensity through forms of appropriation of affect into a chain of successive instances of sensuality. The article’s general theoretical task is to describe the operation of affect structures under conditions of object deanthropologization. The applied task of the article is to describe the mechanisms of understanding and perception of object forms of art, in particular such a form as total installation.
The article discusses the problem of place affecting urban identity formation. The granite-lined embankment of the Tura River becomes a factor in reassembling urban identity and forming new urban sensuousness for the residents of Tyumen. The identity of Tyumen has long oscillated between the provinciality of the “village capital” and the nomadism of the “hub city”, serving as a transit point to service the oil and gas industry. Nowadays, city residents perceive the embankment not only as a sign of Tyumen’s integration into a modern urban context, but also as a metaphor for the escape from the boggy swamp of uncertainty to the terra firma of solid granite. The technological characteristics of the four-tier embankment (its height and length) mark it as an outstanding engineering structure. The visual excessiveness of the embankment, framing the banks of a small river, makes it a source of pride for the citizens. To clarify the process of urban identity formation, the authors introduce the term “urban hubris”. There are multiple connotations of the hubris concept, ranging from “pride” to “transgression of one’s own destiny”. In this article, urban hubris refers not only to specific traits of people initiating megaprojects but to transgressive change in urban identity. This change can be triggered by fundamentally new strategies in city design or, as in this case, by a large-scale urban development project, conveying new city images, creating new public spaces, changing citizens’ daily practices, and, ultimately, transforming their urban identity.
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