Papers by Aleksandra Lukaszewicz
Somapower: Somaesthetics Reads Politics, 2024
Capillary practices of power are disseminating in contemporary form of the society of control, ab... more Capillary practices of power are disseminating in contemporary form of the society of control, about which wrote Deleuze in Postscript on the Societies of Control developing and adjusting to nowadays Foucauldian analysis of power relations in disciplinary society. Practices of power reach individual bodies, which are controlled in their movements and worldly actions by digital technologies – traced, monitored, and formed according to the images promoted. The contemporary form of power is digitally embracing each and one of us in the unprecedented ever way touching intimate and private spheres – and again, as in 1970s as feminist postulated “the private is political”, or even more: private sphere became public. Then, the contemporary forms of power are executed directly on the body and through the body in form of disciplinary power and of biopower in Foucauldian terms. However, the body is then also the ultimate place of resistance of these practices of power. This situation is recognized by Leszek Koczanowicz and conceptualized as somapower build in relation to Foucault’s biopower, but also to Richard Shusterman’s somaesthetics.
The case study I want to examine here refers to power executed on bodies by global corporations and to somapower that can be emancipating from corporation’s practices of power. Then, I take on board the outbreak of the Covid-19 that allowed global corporations to reach out to potentially all the bodies in the world, by means of pharmaceutics corporations in cooperation with the World Health Organization imposing on countries the necessity of vaccinations. The critical response to such situation that can be understood in terms of somapower is for example the revival of interest in traditional healing, knowledge in herbs and traditional activities (for example infusions and syrups from Plantago lanceolata are used as anti-virus protection). These activities sit firmly in bodies, which are active and integral part of persons, and are a form of resistance to contemporary biopower by developing bodily sensibility, what is the practical postulate of Richard Shusterman somaesthetics. Arnold Berleant stresses it also advocating for recovering of the sensibility from the capitalist abuse. For him the sensibility should be recovered from overtake by images, smells, tastes, and sounds done by corporations making profit from abuse of senses. From such perspective, the decision to listen to the body, to strengthen it with natural methods, also calming the mind, to develop its abilities and sensibility, not allowing the total corporations’ control over it, is a political decision.
DUOS FESTIVAL, 2024
Art is the language that allows human beings to represent in a symbolic form the experience of th... more Art is the language that allows human beings to represent in a symbolic form the experience of their own time. Then, to understand a culture it is necessary to appreciate its art. It is so, also because the aesthetic experience represents the fundamental interaction between individuals and the environment stimulating creative thinking and therefore activating processes for human evolution.
Opening oneself to the other in the common artistic and aesthetic experience helps to find the common ground between different peoples and cultures. For this reason, within the research project focused on Transcultural Perspectives in Art and Art Education (TPAAE) there were realized three paths: research, educational, and artistic– the last of them resulting in the Polish-Kenyan art festival DUOS that took place in the years 2021-2023.
Drugie Oko. Zbigniewa Rogalskiego refleksje nad widzeniem, 2023
Widzialność to percypowana cieleśnie widzialna obecność świata. Jest odmienna od wizualności, któ... more Widzialność to percypowana cieleśnie widzialna obecność świata. Jest odmienna od wizualności, która stanowi wizualny naskórek rzeczywistości, możliwy do pojęcia w oderwaniu od rzeczywistości. Przeciwstawienie wizualności i widzialności przez Jean-Francisa Lyotarda miało na celu wydobycie swoistości obrazu cyfrowego i sztuki nowych mediów, w odróżnieniu do tradycyjnego obrazu malarskiego . Dokonał go w odniesieniu do zrealizowanej przez niego we współpracy z Thierry’m Chaput’em w 1985 roku słynnej wystawy Les Immatériaux w Centre de Pompidou.
Wizualność stanowi przedmiot badań kultury wizualnej, podczas gdy badania nad widzialnością wymagają innej postawy, reflektującej formy, za pomocą których odbieramy świat oraz sposoby jego przejawu. Wizualność nie ma też takich obciążeń metafizycznych, to, co wizualne, jest dane w doznaniu natychmiast, a jego kontekst jest społeczny, technologiczny i kulturowy. Natomiast widzialność jest fenomenologiczną własnością bytu, który się jawi zanurzonej w nim cieleśnie jednostce poprzez oko, ale nie tylko ściśle w sposób wizualny. To, co widzialne potrafi wzbudzać odczucie ciepłoty lub chłodu, dźwięku, wibracji, ostrości, miękkości, nie tylko koloru i kształtu. Na tę właściwość malarstwa wskazywał w swoich analizach malarstwa Paula Cézanne’a Maurice Merleau-Ponty pisząc o „percepcji pierwotnej” włączającej dane pochodzące z różnych zmysłów oraz o „perspektywie żywej” , ucieleśnionej we wrażliwej jednostce zanurzonej w świecie, w tym, co istnieje. Jednostka, tak naprawdę nie jest jednostką, ale le chair według Merleau-Ponty’ego , lub – można powiedzieć ciałem bez organów z poematu Antoine Artaud lub Figurą Bacona (Deleuze) , to znaczy jest żywą całostką, uformowaną, lecz poddawalną deformacji pod wpływem różnego rodzaju sił, odbierającą wrażenia, czującą. Malarstwo zaś jest specyficzną aktywnością, pozwalającą skupić się na wrażeniu, co nie wyklucza zawarcia w nim znaczenia intelektualnego, konceptualnego. Wręcz przeciwnie, bycie w ciele i refleksja nad egzystencją zazwyczaj sobie towarzyszą. Malarstwo pozwala zgłębić widzialną naturę bytu, sposób, w jaki świat się jawi przed naszymi oczami (może, choć nie musi, a możliwych dróg do obrania jest wiele, jak choćby malarstwo ilustracyjne, narracyjne czy abstrakcyjne). Taką postawę uosabiał Paul Cézanne, który zgłębiał widzialną naturę świata za pomocą swojego malarstwa. Taką też prezentuje Zbigniew Rogalski, współczesny polski malarz i rysownik.
Springer eBooks, Dec 23, 2020
Springer eBooks, Dec 23, 2020
Nowa Krytyka, 2014
Powodów, by zastanowić się głębiej nad twórczością Aleksandra Rodczenki, mamy obecnie przynajmnie... more Powodów, by zastanowić się głębiej nad twórczością Aleksandra Rodczenki, mamy obecnie przynajmniej kilka. Niewątpliwie pretekstem jest wystawa, która odbyła się w Muzeum Narodowym w Krakowie w ramach Miesiąca Fotografii w okresie od maja do sierpnia 2012 roku pod tytułem "Aleksander Rodczenko. Rewolucja w fotografii". Kuratorem wystawy była Olga Swibłowa, dyrektor Muzeum Moskiewskiego Domu Fotografii, zaś pomysłodawcą i autorem koncepcji katalogu-Aleksander Ławrientiew, wnuk Aleksandra Rodczenki. Kiedy przyjrzymy się wielu współczesnym wystawom prac Rodczenki oraz dotyczącym go publikacjom, to zauważymy, że przy większości z nich pracował właśnie jego wnuk. Dotyczy to zarówno publikacji rosyjskich, jak Aleksandr Rodczenko. Fotografija-iskustwo współwydanego przez Muzeum Moskiewski Dom Fotografii 1 , publikacji w Stanach Zjednoczonych, jak Aleksandr Rodchenko. Experiments for the Future: Diaries, Essays, Letters, and Other Writings wydanej przez The Museum of Modern Art w Nowym Jorku 2 , opartej
Przegląd Kulturoznawczy, 2023
Jan Stasieńko w książce "Media Technologies and Posthuman Intimacy" opublikowanej przez wydawnict... more Jan Stasieńko w książce "Media Technologies and Posthuman Intimacy" opublikowanej przez wydawnictwo Bloomsbury w 2022 roku podejmuje ważne współcześnie kwestie dotyczące naszych intymnych związków z technologią. Konieczność określenia (a właściwie nieustannego określania) siebie i świata w środowisku technologicznym i medialnym, zapośredniczającym większość interakcji, wymaga dostrzeżenia zachodzącej obecnie rekonfiguracji intymności, która z ludzkiej staje się postludzka, jak twierdzi Stasieńko. Intymność jest zapośredniczana przez technologię ze względu na impet technologii medialnych, które stanowią naszą doświadczaną rzeczywistość. Ta sytuacja zmusza nas do pogłębionej refleksji, przekraczającej dotychczasowe formy ustanawiania samookreśleń, opartych na świadomości i sprawczości człowieka jako racjonalnej jednostki. jednostki.
Stasieńko bada tę transformację ludzkiej intymności, a także emocjonalności i podmiotowości, które postrzega jako powiązane, zachodzącą pod wpływem inwazyjnych technologii, które sprawiają, że nasza intymność i podmiotowość stają się postludzkie.
Roczniki Kulturoznawcze
The presented statement is part of the volume it covers a variety of responses from people who in... more The presented statement is part of the volume it covers a variety of responses from people who interact with art in different ways. The aim is to suggest to the participant of the contemporary world a new, personal perspective to rethink what is this area of our world that we label with art; thoughts with and without theoretical suggestions - reflections by the creators and reflections by the audience, teaching humility and uniqueness, perhaps - forming a fresh perspective on art.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Dec 23, 2022
Analysing the current political scenario, it is good to mind the 'distribution of the sensible' a... more Analysing the current political scenario, it is good to mind the 'distribution of the sensible' as phrased by Jacques Rancière, which refers to a regime and delimitates spaces and times, of the visible and the invisible, of speech and noise; and to think about possible redistribution , which has emancipating character that can contribute to more democratic politics and aesthetics. In contemporary times of visual culture, it is important to mind especially strong, symbolic images constructed for political stakes and distributed in the public sphere to understand what they do and how, in order to disarm and transform them. Focusing on two faces of backlash observed in contemporary Europe, one anti-Muslim and the other anti-women, we propose the interdisciplinary analysis of two artworks by Polish female
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Dec 23, 2022
Analysing the current political scenario, it is good to mind the 'distribution of the sensible' a... more Analysing the current political scenario, it is good to mind the 'distribution of the sensible' as phrased by Jacques Rancière, which refers to a regime and delimitates spaces and times, of the visible and the invisible, of speech and noise; and to think about possible redistribution , which has emancipating character that can contribute to more democratic politics and aesthetics. In contemporary times of visual culture, it is important to mind especially strong, symbolic images constructed for political stakes and distributed in the public sphere to understand what they do and how, in order to disarm and transform them. Focusing on two faces of backlash observed in contemporary Europe, one anti-Muslim and the other anti-women, we propose the interdisciplinary analysis of two artworks by Polish female
Symbiotic Posthumanist Ecologies in Western Literature, Philosophy and Art. Towards Theory and Practice, 2023
Contemporary experiments with broadening the borders of sensibility lead to cyborgization of the ... more Contemporary experiments with broadening the borders of sensibility lead to cyborgization of the body, connecting it not only mechanically but essentially with new technological organs implanted in tissues, and transforming the range of perceived data in reality. Two pioneers of the cyborg era - Neil Harbisson, with an antenna implemented into his brain which allows him to hear color frequencies through bone conduction, and Moon Ribas, with implants in her elbows allowing her to feel all earthquakes over 1.0 on the Richter scale as well as movements of the moon - are the case studies I analyze, in order to show the mode of our embodiment influences the system of our beliefs and self-consciousness, as well as our orientation in living spaces in social practice and in a context of interspecies relations. These first cyborg persons exploit their new senses in creation of original artworks, such as Neil Harbisson's sound portraits of a famous persons or images of sounds (politicians' speeches, or fragments of classic and popular music, like in the series "Colour Scores"), and Moon Ribas' choreographed dance-performances (from which the most famous is "Waiting for the Earthquake".) The medium of these artistic realizations is upgraded technological sensibility, which is grounded in a person's body, and which is experienced aesthetically.
Journal of Posthuman Studies, 2019
Communication is neither just verbal communication nor written and has to be understood in relati... more Communication is neither just verbal communication nor written and has to be understood in relation to a particular context: historical, material, embodied, emotional, and so on. We also have acknowledged that some kind of communication is possible between species. The investigation of interspecies and material communication is interestingly developed through artistic experiments of Eduardo Kac (a Chicago-based, Brazilian-born bio-artist interested in genetic engineering, and the first person to implant an RFID microchip under his skin in the art project “Time Capsule,” 1997). The aim of the interview was to inquire into Kac’s views on language, evolution, and material and interspecies communication, which turns out to have the capacity to mitigate our anxiety that direct, material, nonlinguistic communication will be lacking poetic, aesthetic, and interpretative values. Kac states that if we resign from linguistics and philology, we will open ourselves to the possibility of intersp...
Annals of Cultural Studies, Vol. 13, No 4, 2022
Reflecting on the commodification of the art and the economic character of the large part of the ... more Reflecting on the commodification of the art and the economic character of the large part of the artworld - from one side, from the other - I address the performative turn in art in 20th century, mentioning current examples from the field of art, as Sokołowsko Laboratorium Kultury and Gropius Granary.
This difference I view in transcultural perspective, conscious of the historical and cultural character of the modernist understanding of art as pure, for art sake. The theoretical analysis I support with the effects of my research from the past years on contemporary art of non-European cultures, recently on East African art and culture within TPAAE project.
Il Capitale Culturale. Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage, 2022
Analysing the current political scenario, it is good to mind the ‘distribution of the sensible’ a... more Analysing the current political scenario, it is good to mind the ‘distribution of the sensible’ as phrased by Jacques Ranciere, which refers to a regime and delimitates spaces and times, of the visible and the invisible, of speech and noise; and to think about possible re-distribution, which has emancipating character that can contribute to more democratic politics and aesthetics. In contemporary times of visual culture, it is important to mind especially strong, symbolic images constructed for political stakes and distributed in the public sphere to understand what they do and how, in order to disarm and transform them. Focusing on two faces of backlash observed in contemporary Europe, one anti-Muslim and the other anti-women, we propose the interdisciplinary analysis of two artworks by Polish female artists: The Polish Burqa by Karolina Mełnicka (2013) and Mokosh by Katarzyna Górewicz (phot. Jacek Gajak, 2017), which imply discourses on women in tradition in different ways that might be considered as dialectic and symbolic in Ranciere’s terms. One is decomposing the politically oppressive use of traditional symbols, and the other is proposing a reference to tradition in an empowering way.
Contemporary Aesthetics, 2022
The contemporary environment in developed countries is highly urbanized and technologized. It is ... more The contemporary environment in developed countries is highly urbanized and technologized. It is not only physical but also virtual, created with the use of cyber-techniques and the internet. The two layers of the environment are: the physical places, persons, objects, etc., and the virtual – electronically-emerged places, persons, and objects, etc. Therefore, it is correct to overcome the enforced conceptual dualism between what is virtual and what is physical, as proposed by Michal Ostrowicki (aka Sidey Myoo) in calling for the recognition of the hybrid status of reality, by pointing to symbiosis within the context of lived experience. This raises questions on the kind of experience one has in a hybrid environment, and how this in turn influences one’s practices and forms of being with others.
Trying to respond to these questions will lead us to recognition of the ongoing transformation of aesthetic sensibility in a hybrid environment, and of the need for aesthetic reflection to respond to this. This will be done in the following paper by recognizing the community-building potential of art in both layers of a hybrid environment, the physical and the digital, which leads to emergence and functioning of communities in such an environment, showing the necessity of broader research in this field.
This book presents argumentation for an evolutionary continuity between human persons and cyborg ... more This book presents argumentation for an evolutionary continuity between human persons and cyborg persons, based on the thought of Joseph Margolis. Relying on concepts of cultural realism and post-Darwinism, I redefine the notion of the person, rather than a human, and discuss the various issues of human body enhancement and online implants transforming modes of perception, cognition, and communication. I argue that new kinds of embodiment should not make acquiring the status of the person impossible, and different kinds of embodiments may be accepted socially and culturally. I propose we consider ethical problems of agency and responsibility, critically approaching vitalist posthuman ethics, and rethinking the metaphysical standing of normativity, to create space for possible cyborgean ethics that may be executed in an Extended Republic of Humanity.
Cyborg Persons or Selves, 2019
It would be natural to commence the book dedicated to 'cyborg persons' with broad... more It would be natural to commence the book dedicated to 'cyborg persons' with broad references to post- and transhumanism. This of course will happen on the following pages, because it is impossible to discuss issues regarding the redefinition of 'human person' without the perspective developed by these branches of contemporary reflection in humanities. Yet I do not consider them as a necessary departing point, because the topic in question is of greater significance than should be confined to one field. Technological enhancement – developments in genetic engineering, artificial intelligence and robotics, and so forth – are processes that are currently happening; we should not be blindsided by them, wondering when they will knock at our door. The question that follows is: how should we refer to the new entities starting to appear among 'us' humans, and what is the significance of redefining of our relationship with these entities (with which we're already familiar, as various parts of 'nature')? Trying to approach that subject we encounter philosophical, sociological, and legal understandings of what it means to be a person – definitions which have never before needed to specify a 'human person'; these are the layers in which we should see a person as existing and operating. Therefore, my principal reference, helping me to rethink the notion of a person in such a way that it may include non-humans (especially cyborg persons) is Joseph Margolis. Particularly helpful to my reasoning is his idea of defining a human person or self as an artefactual individual emergent from the process of hybrid evolution (intertwined nature and culture, due to invention and mastery of language), and everything that this entails with developments of culture and technology (Margolis 2017, pp. 39-62). The stripping of a human person from his assumed, probably 'divine' (or 'of divine provenance') nature or essence, as Margolis does, is bold but bright – not reducing the human world to mere matter, nor blindly accepting neo-Darwinism, but also not accepting religious or transcendental demands. Cultural realism as proposed by Margolis (Margolis 2010, p. 134) seems to be a better weighted version of ontology as proposed by Roman Ingarden (famous pupil of Edmund Husserl) recognizing three ontological realms: material, ideal, and cultural. The entities existing on a cultural level considered by Ingarden were artworks, predominantly novels and sometimes sculptures (Ingarden 1958; 1966). Influenced by his master's transcendentalism and in spite of the discussion on idealism and realism between them, Ingarden claimed that there is an ultimate truth, a correct perception and an objectively correct judgment of aesthetical values of an artwork which have Intentional characteristic – and so he believed that there is one and only one correct form of valuing each artwork (Ingarden 1966). Margolis makes claims much broader than Ingarden's, because he describes the cultural realm as embracing institutions, practices, meanings, ideas, art, languages, and technology. Radically unlike Ingarden, he encloses this in post-Darwinian evolutionary perspective and historical relativism (Margolis 1995). In this realm exists a person, who is an enlanguaged creature involved in an historical social and political life, comparable in ontology to an artwork, because artworks are also enlanguaged entities, artefactual and interpretable, evolving in relation to their matter (Margolis 1999). The way Margolis presents human persons – as artefactual, enlanguaged, and hybrid, having no natural environment and therefore no natural source for any set of norms and rules other than that which is collectively invented, shared, and transformed historically (what he calls “sittlich”) – opens up for the inclusion of cyborgs into the classification of persons. It also opens for consideration the possibilities of cyborgian ethics and politics, because normativity – as Margolis explains – is not rooted in any transcendental setting but rather always contingent and relational. Contemporary discussions on cyborgs and the ethical, social, and political issues that accompany them – currently happening in various places across the world – could benefit from turning to Margolis' philosophy in the process of redefining our ideas of a person, his/her/its/their autonomy, responsibility, and freedom, as well as for imagining possible practical applications in science and politics. It is important to regard some recent occurrences increasing the issue's urgency, such as the presentation of the 'Transhumanist Bill of Rights' to the US Capitol in Washington, D.C. in 2017 by a representative of the Transhumanist Party in favor of life extension and space exploration; or the recognition of Sophie, a humanoid robot produced by Hanson Robotics company from Hong Kong, as an official citizen of Saudi Arabia in 2017.…
Are Cyborgs Persons?, 2020
Are Cyborgs Persons?, 2020
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Papers by Aleksandra Lukaszewicz
The case study I want to examine here refers to power executed on bodies by global corporations and to somapower that can be emancipating from corporation’s practices of power. Then, I take on board the outbreak of the Covid-19 that allowed global corporations to reach out to potentially all the bodies in the world, by means of pharmaceutics corporations in cooperation with the World Health Organization imposing on countries the necessity of vaccinations. The critical response to such situation that can be understood in terms of somapower is for example the revival of interest in traditional healing, knowledge in herbs and traditional activities (for example infusions and syrups from Plantago lanceolata are used as anti-virus protection). These activities sit firmly in bodies, which are active and integral part of persons, and are a form of resistance to contemporary biopower by developing bodily sensibility, what is the practical postulate of Richard Shusterman somaesthetics. Arnold Berleant stresses it also advocating for recovering of the sensibility from the capitalist abuse. For him the sensibility should be recovered from overtake by images, smells, tastes, and sounds done by corporations making profit from abuse of senses. From such perspective, the decision to listen to the body, to strengthen it with natural methods, also calming the mind, to develop its abilities and sensibility, not allowing the total corporations’ control over it, is a political decision.
Opening oneself to the other in the common artistic and aesthetic experience helps to find the common ground between different peoples and cultures. For this reason, within the research project focused on Transcultural Perspectives in Art and Art Education (TPAAE) there were realized three paths: research, educational, and artistic– the last of them resulting in the Polish-Kenyan art festival DUOS that took place in the years 2021-2023.
Wizualność stanowi przedmiot badań kultury wizualnej, podczas gdy badania nad widzialnością wymagają innej postawy, reflektującej formy, za pomocą których odbieramy świat oraz sposoby jego przejawu. Wizualność nie ma też takich obciążeń metafizycznych, to, co wizualne, jest dane w doznaniu natychmiast, a jego kontekst jest społeczny, technologiczny i kulturowy. Natomiast widzialność jest fenomenologiczną własnością bytu, który się jawi zanurzonej w nim cieleśnie jednostce poprzez oko, ale nie tylko ściśle w sposób wizualny. To, co widzialne potrafi wzbudzać odczucie ciepłoty lub chłodu, dźwięku, wibracji, ostrości, miękkości, nie tylko koloru i kształtu. Na tę właściwość malarstwa wskazywał w swoich analizach malarstwa Paula Cézanne’a Maurice Merleau-Ponty pisząc o „percepcji pierwotnej” włączającej dane pochodzące z różnych zmysłów oraz o „perspektywie żywej” , ucieleśnionej we wrażliwej jednostce zanurzonej w świecie, w tym, co istnieje. Jednostka, tak naprawdę nie jest jednostką, ale le chair według Merleau-Ponty’ego , lub – można powiedzieć ciałem bez organów z poematu Antoine Artaud lub Figurą Bacona (Deleuze) , to znaczy jest żywą całostką, uformowaną, lecz poddawalną deformacji pod wpływem różnego rodzaju sił, odbierającą wrażenia, czującą. Malarstwo zaś jest specyficzną aktywnością, pozwalającą skupić się na wrażeniu, co nie wyklucza zawarcia w nim znaczenia intelektualnego, konceptualnego. Wręcz przeciwnie, bycie w ciele i refleksja nad egzystencją zazwyczaj sobie towarzyszą. Malarstwo pozwala zgłębić widzialną naturę bytu, sposób, w jaki świat się jawi przed naszymi oczami (może, choć nie musi, a możliwych dróg do obrania jest wiele, jak choćby malarstwo ilustracyjne, narracyjne czy abstrakcyjne). Taką postawę uosabiał Paul Cézanne, który zgłębiał widzialną naturę świata za pomocą swojego malarstwa. Taką też prezentuje Zbigniew Rogalski, współczesny polski malarz i rysownik.
Stasieńko bada tę transformację ludzkiej intymności, a także emocjonalności i podmiotowości, które postrzega jako powiązane, zachodzącą pod wpływem inwazyjnych technologii, które sprawiają, że nasza intymność i podmiotowość stają się postludzkie.
This difference I view in transcultural perspective, conscious of the historical and cultural character of the modernist understanding of art as pure, for art sake. The theoretical analysis I support with the effects of my research from the past years on contemporary art of non-European cultures, recently on East African art and culture within TPAAE project.
Trying to respond to these questions will lead us to recognition of the ongoing transformation of aesthetic sensibility in a hybrid environment, and of the need for aesthetic reflection to respond to this. This will be done in the following paper by recognizing the community-building potential of art in both layers of a hybrid environment, the physical and the digital, which leads to emergence and functioning of communities in such an environment, showing the necessity of broader research in this field.
The case study I want to examine here refers to power executed on bodies by global corporations and to somapower that can be emancipating from corporation’s practices of power. Then, I take on board the outbreak of the Covid-19 that allowed global corporations to reach out to potentially all the bodies in the world, by means of pharmaceutics corporations in cooperation with the World Health Organization imposing on countries the necessity of vaccinations. The critical response to such situation that can be understood in terms of somapower is for example the revival of interest in traditional healing, knowledge in herbs and traditional activities (for example infusions and syrups from Plantago lanceolata are used as anti-virus protection). These activities sit firmly in bodies, which are active and integral part of persons, and are a form of resistance to contemporary biopower by developing bodily sensibility, what is the practical postulate of Richard Shusterman somaesthetics. Arnold Berleant stresses it also advocating for recovering of the sensibility from the capitalist abuse. For him the sensibility should be recovered from overtake by images, smells, tastes, and sounds done by corporations making profit from abuse of senses. From such perspective, the decision to listen to the body, to strengthen it with natural methods, also calming the mind, to develop its abilities and sensibility, not allowing the total corporations’ control over it, is a political decision.
Opening oneself to the other in the common artistic and aesthetic experience helps to find the common ground between different peoples and cultures. For this reason, within the research project focused on Transcultural Perspectives in Art and Art Education (TPAAE) there were realized three paths: research, educational, and artistic– the last of them resulting in the Polish-Kenyan art festival DUOS that took place in the years 2021-2023.
Wizualność stanowi przedmiot badań kultury wizualnej, podczas gdy badania nad widzialnością wymagają innej postawy, reflektującej formy, za pomocą których odbieramy świat oraz sposoby jego przejawu. Wizualność nie ma też takich obciążeń metafizycznych, to, co wizualne, jest dane w doznaniu natychmiast, a jego kontekst jest społeczny, technologiczny i kulturowy. Natomiast widzialność jest fenomenologiczną własnością bytu, który się jawi zanurzonej w nim cieleśnie jednostce poprzez oko, ale nie tylko ściśle w sposób wizualny. To, co widzialne potrafi wzbudzać odczucie ciepłoty lub chłodu, dźwięku, wibracji, ostrości, miękkości, nie tylko koloru i kształtu. Na tę właściwość malarstwa wskazywał w swoich analizach malarstwa Paula Cézanne’a Maurice Merleau-Ponty pisząc o „percepcji pierwotnej” włączającej dane pochodzące z różnych zmysłów oraz o „perspektywie żywej” , ucieleśnionej we wrażliwej jednostce zanurzonej w świecie, w tym, co istnieje. Jednostka, tak naprawdę nie jest jednostką, ale le chair według Merleau-Ponty’ego , lub – można powiedzieć ciałem bez organów z poematu Antoine Artaud lub Figurą Bacona (Deleuze) , to znaczy jest żywą całostką, uformowaną, lecz poddawalną deformacji pod wpływem różnego rodzaju sił, odbierającą wrażenia, czującą. Malarstwo zaś jest specyficzną aktywnością, pozwalającą skupić się na wrażeniu, co nie wyklucza zawarcia w nim znaczenia intelektualnego, konceptualnego. Wręcz przeciwnie, bycie w ciele i refleksja nad egzystencją zazwyczaj sobie towarzyszą. Malarstwo pozwala zgłębić widzialną naturę bytu, sposób, w jaki świat się jawi przed naszymi oczami (może, choć nie musi, a możliwych dróg do obrania jest wiele, jak choćby malarstwo ilustracyjne, narracyjne czy abstrakcyjne). Taką postawę uosabiał Paul Cézanne, który zgłębiał widzialną naturę świata za pomocą swojego malarstwa. Taką też prezentuje Zbigniew Rogalski, współczesny polski malarz i rysownik.
Stasieńko bada tę transformację ludzkiej intymności, a także emocjonalności i podmiotowości, które postrzega jako powiązane, zachodzącą pod wpływem inwazyjnych technologii, które sprawiają, że nasza intymność i podmiotowość stają się postludzkie.
This difference I view in transcultural perspective, conscious of the historical and cultural character of the modernist understanding of art as pure, for art sake. The theoretical analysis I support with the effects of my research from the past years on contemporary art of non-European cultures, recently on East African art and culture within TPAAE project.
Trying to respond to these questions will lead us to recognition of the ongoing transformation of aesthetic sensibility in a hybrid environment, and of the need for aesthetic reflection to respond to this. This will be done in the following paper by recognizing the community-building potential of art in both layers of a hybrid environment, the physical and the digital, which leads to emergence and functioning of communities in such an environment, showing the necessity of broader research in this field.
The multidimensional presentation of urban visual and technological environment found in the book is certainly a valuable scientific publication within social and cultural sciences, inspiring the readers sensibility for the quality of visual solutions in architectural spaces for deep research in contemporary urban visual culture.
Technological enhancement – developments in genetic engineering, artificial intelligence and robotics, and so forth – are processes that are currently happening; we should not be blindsided by them, wondering when they will knock at our door. The question that follows is: how should we refer to the new entities starting to appear among 'us' humans, and what is the significance of redefining of our relationship with these entities (with which we're already familiar, as various parts of 'nature')? Trying to approach that subject we encounter philosophical, sociological, and legal understandings of what it means to be a person – definitions which have never before needed to specify a 'human person'; these are the layers in which we should see a person as existing and operating. Therefore, my principal reference, helping me to rethink the notion of a person in such a way that it may include non-humans (especially cyborg persons) is Joseph Margolis. Particularly helpful to my reasoning is his idea of defining a human person or self as an artefactual individual emergent from the process of hybrid evolution (intertwined nature and culture, due to invention and mastery of language), and everything that this entails with developments of culture and technology (Margolis 2017, pp. 39-62).
The stripping of a human person from his assumed, probably 'divine' (or 'of divine provenance') nature or essence, as Margolis does, is bold but bright – not reducing the human world to mere matter, nor blindly accepting neo-Darwinism, but also not accepting religious or transcendental demands. Cultural realism as proposed by Margolis (Margolis 2010, p. 134) seems to be a better weighted version of ontology as proposed by Roman Ingarden (famous pupil of Edmund Husserl) recognizing three ontological realms: material, ideal, and cultural. The entities existing on a cultural level considered by Ingarden were artworks, predominantly novels and sometimes sculptures (Ingarden 1958; 1966). Influenced by his master's transcendentalism and in spite of the discussion on idealism and realism between them, Ingarden claimed that there is an ultimate truth, a correct perception and an objectively correct judgment of aesthetical values of an artwork which have Intentional characteristic – and so he believed that there is one and only one correct form of valuing each artwork (Ingarden 1966). Margolis makes claims much broader than Ingarden's, because he describes the cultural realm as embracing institutions, practices, meanings, ideas, art, languages, and technology. Radically unlike Ingarden, he encloses this in post-Darwinian evolutionary perspective and historical relativism (Margolis 1995). In this realm exists a person, who is an enlanguaged creature involved in an historical social and political life, comparable in ontology to an artwork, because artworks are also enlanguaged entities, artefactual and interpretable, evolving in relation to their matter (Margolis 1999).
The way Margolis presents human persons – as artefactual, enlanguaged, and hybrid, having no natural environment and therefore no natural source for any set of norms and rules other than that which is collectively invented, shared, and transformed historically (what he calls “sittlich”) – opens up for the inclusion of cyborgs into the classification of persons. It also opens for consideration the possibilities of cyborgian ethics and politics, because normativity – as Margolis explains – is not rooted in any transcendental setting but rather always contingent and relational. Contemporary discussions on cyborgs and the ethical, social, and political issues that accompany them – currently happening in various places across the world – could benefit from turning to Margolis' philosophy in the process of redefining our ideas of a person, his/her/its/their autonomy, responsibility, and freedom, as well as for imagining possible practical applications in science and politics.
It is important to regard some recent occurrences increasing the issue's urgency, such as the presentation of the 'Transhumanist Bill of Rights' to the US Capitol in Washington, D.C. in 2017 by a representative of the Transhumanist Party in favor of life extension and space exploration; or the recognition of Sophie, a humanoid robot produced by Hanson Robotics company from Hong Kong, as an official citizen of Saudi Arabia in 2017. Sophie is the first humanoid to be accepted as a citizen of any country and this has led to discussion on the kind of rights that status brings about, such as whether Sophie can marry, or vote, or if she were intentionally switched off – would that be murder?
However I cannot address all the subjects and problems appearing in conjunction with rapidly developing technology, so I limit myself predominantly to the idea of the 'cyborg', a being embodied in a technologically enhanced human form, who by means of online technology implemented in the body has different kinds of perception, cognition, practices, patterns, habits, and/or methods of communicating in comparison to someone embodied in an unaltered human form. Cyborgs are not science fiction, neither they are completely artificial entities as Sophie; there are those on the spectrum between us and robots and androids. These are such persons as Neil Harbisson, whose antenna implanted into his brain allows him to 'hear' colors via bone conduction, and Moon Ribas, whose implanted sensors allow her to 'feel' earthquakes over 1.0 on the Richter scale and movements of the Earth's moon. There are many other DIY bodyhackers too – Harbisson and Ribas are not the first ones to implant themselves with connectivity-enabled technology in order to change their perception and communication. Eduardo Kac implanted his leg with digital memory (in RFID chip form) within the art project 'Time Capsule' in 1997, and Kevin Warwick also implanted himself with multiple chips for sensory perception and online communication. However, in these cases the technology did not merge with the organism in the intent to alter regular performance. For this reason it may be helpful to differentiate between the relatively 'weak' cyborg status of Kac and Warwick, and the relatively 'strong' status of Harbisson and Ribas.
Contemplating the changing conditions of personhood nowadays, there should be taken also a broader overlook on the future of society, in which we will have to include differently embodied legal persons – technologically enhanced, genetically engineered, artificially created. An interesting perspective to which I will later refer to more extensively, is proposed by Steven Fuller (a professor of social epistemology and enthusiast of transhumanism) and it is: “Humanity 2.0” – an “Extended Republic of Humanity or Transhumanity” which includes all responsible agents regardless of their material substratum. Humanity 2.0 is Fuller’s name for the republican society inclusive of all possible citizens, not just those born as Homo Sapiens. For this to occur, as he points out, it is necessary to redefine the concept of Human Rights as declared by the United Nations in 1948, which currently limits the basis for civil rights legislation to the Homo Sapiens species (Fuller 2015).
Claiming that citizenship and legal rights should not be limited to one kind of biological being, Fuller proposes that we should resign from theological argumentation and its understanding of 'human' as the unique, Abrahamic figure, and instead take an evolutionary approach. In order to test 'human citizenship' he proposes a Turing Test 2.0, in “attempt to capture the full complexity of the sorts of beings that we would have live among us as equals” (Fuller, 2015, p. 81). This kind of proposal has extraordinary effect – according to this line of thinking: “some animals and androids may come to be eligible for citizenship, while some humans may lose their citizenship, perhaps even in the course of their own lifetime” (Fuller 2013, p. 2). For Fuller however the biological human is not inviolate, and “the predicate human may be projected in three quite distinct ways, governed by (...) ecological, biomedical, and cybernetic interests.” (Fuller 2013, p. 6) Moreover, the predicate 'human' is not essential; of main import is extended citizenship and science’s “political capacity to organize humanity into a project of universal concern” (Fuller 2013, p. 5), allowing for responsibility, risk-taking, and pursuing the individually diverse lives of differently embodied persons.
Therefore, my research on cyborgs as persons focuses on philosophical redefinition of the category of 'person' with Margolis as an ally, in order to make space for the inclusion of differently embodied, relatively autonomous individuals into our societies and sketch a vision for our future – indispensably framed by sociopolitics as envisioned by Fuller.
Considering the current development of posthuman studies and its theoretical potential in reconfiguring the paradigm in humanities, Ferrando decides to scrutinize its major concepts and the various modes
of their development, offering an overall compendium on this new and exciting interdisciplinary field and implementing order in its understanding.