The futurible body: an essay on the recent (re)descriptions of the human body towards the post-organicity

Abstract

This essay aims at characterizing and discussing a route pursued by the body in the western society, from the building of the concept of the body-property to the postmodernist dilemmas which provided a gateway to a new corporeality. In modernity, the body was submitted to science and to the political and economic means of production and, under specific conditions, conducted to a utilitarian biologizing description. Postmodernity has brought an identity crisis and the subsequent hyperconsumerism, and has watched this social model lay its bioascetic guidelines on the body, redescribing it. The need to extend the time/space of body consumerism indistinctly approaches the scientific breakthroughs: drugs, bionic prostheses, plastic surgeries, wearable computers, genetic modifications. The desire to void the biological coercions, functional and aesthetic improvements of the body and even immortality give rise to a new description: the futurible body.

Keywords

• Corpo
• Cibercultura
• Pós-modernidade