ROBOTIC ART IN THE CASE STUDY OF THE INFERNO PERFORMANCE (TRANSHUMANIST PROJECTS IN REALITY)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the provisions of the transhumanist “philosophy” implemented in contemporary art, particularly, in cyber art. The performance Inferno created by two artists - Louis-Philippe Demers and Bill Vorn is presented as a case study. The artists have shown this performance in various parts of the world: from the USA to Russia. From the point of view of transhumanism, this performance is positioned as a “useful experience” and as an illustration of symbiosis (mutualism) of man and machine. However, this assessment initially contains a number of errors. Firstly, there is a substitution of concepts and processes, where the term “symbiosis” does not correspond to the essence of the phenomenon. Secondly, the article emphasizes the role of the experiment when, through robotic art, the “voluntary” monitoring of the reactions of the performance viewers is carried out, and the viewers serve as experimental samples or transhumans in the context of the “human enhancement” project.

Keywords

• robotic art
• transhumanism
• transhuman
• performance
• cyborgization