A transhumanistic theme by Timo Maier
„Man is something that needs to be overcome“ – is what Nietzsche postulated in his Zarathustra around the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 21st century, the superman has found his technology-based counterpart in a transhumanism that sees itself as an international, cultural and intellectual movement with the goal to improve human nature through the use of technology.
The targeted life-form is the human machine, the cyborg, as a utopia of evolutionary and biologial technology through the fusion of body and technological prosthesis. Whether bio-hacking, body-modification, aesthetic, plastical, cosmetic surgery or surgery for changing one’s sex: the relationship between man and his body is constantly objectified, deliberately disturbed, one’s own body becomes an object which can – thanks to technological progress – be changed at will for less and less money moving towards a better, improved, more suitable man, both on the inside and outside.
But how does this technological and physical change of being human influence the way we see ourselves, the way we see others or our social life? How will our relationship to our bodies change, if the latter increasingly become objects to modification? And what hopes and fears do we project onto our self-chosen new creation?
 | Timo Maier (DE) – Graduate of German Literature, Philosophy and History from RWTH Aachen. He is an expert in digital communication strategies and their concepts with a special focus on social interactions and new collective processes shaping art, politics and society. As a freelance consultant he works for agencies, corporations and art projects. He is also founder of transdemo e. V. (non-profit association for politics, arts and technology) and a passionate observer of internet phenomena. Meet his avatars: // Facebook // Twitter // Blog |