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Themesicon: navigation pathCyborg Bodiesicon: navigation pathEditorial
 
 
 
 
 

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progressive theories on new bodies beyond simple body extension fantasies. The focus is on the following questions: What body images and body fantasies are contained in media art? What influence do new technologies have on the body and its perception? What kind of aesthetics do the artists elaborate?

Because «Cyborg Bodies» was conceived and realized in Zurich, it was also important to me to include local discussions on the topic. While the artistic discourse on new media technologies has only just begun, there are several projects currently examining the meaning of or the danger to body and subjectivity.

Structure and contributions

«Cyborg Bodies» makes no claim to completeness. Rather it raises an issue and offers an insightful, embedding discourse on the productions of artificial bodies in recent years. The texts deal with current topical focuses, which are not arranged linearly but in the form of key words. While in the first group the focus is on historico-philosophical aspects, in the second group of texts current work is discussed based

 

on different theoretical questions. Verena Kuni's essay «Cyborg_Configurationen als Formationen der (Selbst-)Schöpfung im Imaginationsraum technologischer Kreation (I): Alte und neue Mythologien von ‹Künstlichen Menschen›» presents a broadly interpreted, historically accentuated history of the fascination with the cyborg. This basic introduction into the cultural history of the artificial human is contained under the key word «Mythical Bodies I.» The key word «Doll Bodies» also includes historical bases, in relation however to the doll fantasy and how it is adapted in media art. In her text «The Media/Games of the Doll — From Model to Cyborg. Contemporary Artists' Interest in Surrealism,» Sigrid Schade discusses the meaning of the uncanny for the shaping of media in art. In «The Making of … Desire, digital,» Marie-Luise Angerer examines what she diagnoses as today's «postsexual bodies» and explains them in relation to psychoanalysis and current discussions on subjectivity.

The second group takes a specific look at today's media art: In «Mythical Bodies II,» Verena Kuni's essay on the cyborg configurations, «‹Monstrous Promises› and ‹Posthuman› Anthropormorphisms,» shows how

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