HUMAN+
The future of our species
Cyborgs, superhumans and clones. Evolution or extinction? What does it mean to be a human today? What will it feel like to be a human a hundred years from now? Technological capabilities are increasing at a rapid pace—should we continue to embrace modifications to our minds, bodies and daily lives, or are there boundaries we shouldn’t overstep?
"HUMAN+. The future of our species" Exhibition Report
Cyborgs, superhumans and clones.
Prothetic Bodies and Souls
Soy Cámara online
The exhibition Human+ helps us visualise some of the challenges we are facing. Are we close to an artificial soul? To the singularity? Will sufficient resources exist to support the increase in mobility and worldwide demographic saturation? Language: English ...
The Aftermath of the Aftermath (A Reflection on Time)
Soy Cámara online
We are living in historic times in which acceleration, technology, catastrophe and its resulting humanitarianism have occupied the world stage. The apocalyptical tale of the end of time is triumphing in parallel with the technological enlightenment that considers that innovation equals speed and technological development.
Ars Robotica: Conversation with Roc Parés
Soy Cámara online
We talk with artist and teacher Roc Parés, a collaborator of the CCCB’s recent exhibition “Human+”, about today’s dangers of an invisible and omnipresent technology; about current fascination with hacking, which invites people to open and dismantle machines (like a child dismantling toys); about the constant war to control our consumer habits and invisible advertising, about virtual reality and the capacity to move extremities that we don’t have, etc.
Aubrey de Grey
An End to Aging?
The biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey is emphatic in his view that, in the near future, regenerative medicine and the new biomedical technologies will let us defeat biological aging.
Jo Labanyi
Thinking Affects
Why do we feel what we feel? What role do affects play in our lives? Are emotions a singular product of our own subjectivity or, rather, do they have a shared character? Jo Labanyi offers a critical overview of recent thinking about affects and how this relates with theories in the post-human domain...
Avatars, Cyborgs and Robots: Can Humans Enhance Themselves? (II)
Sandra Álvaro
Codifying human beings into data and increasing the processing capacity of computers has made it possible to create environments and machines that can adapt and respond to our actions. This interaction is facilitated by information processing, which has evolved from projecting our body and movements into a virtual environment to creating electromechanical prostheses and reactive environments.
Avatars, Cyborgs and Robots: Can Humans Enhance Themselves? (I)
Sandra Álvaro
The interaction between humans and machines has evolved on the basis of quantifying our environment and our bodies and reducing our reality to discrete data that can be mathematically processed. This procedure has improved our capacity to impact and redesign our environment.
Cathrine Kramer presents “Afterlife” by James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau
Human + The future of our species
Afterlife suggests harnessing our chemical potential after biological death as a microbial fuel cell, harvesting its electrical potential in a dry cell battery. Here, technology acts to provide conclusive proof of life after death, life being contained in the battery.
Cathrine Kramer presents “Transfigurations” by Agatha Haines
Human + The future of our species
Transfigurations consists of sculptures representing five babies, each with a surgically implemented body modification. Each modification is designed to solve a potential future problem for the baby, ranging from medical or environmental issues to social mobility issues.
Cathrine Kramer presents “Reproductive Futures” by Zoe Papadopoulou and Dra. Anna Smajdor
Human + The future of our species
From the stork to the invention of the microscope, the ‘birds and the bees’ to IVF—how will stories evolve as our methods for human reproduction become increasingly more diversified? This multidisciplinary project investigates how scientific and technological developments influence the narratives that we use to explain ‘where we come from’.
Cathrine Kramer presents “When we all live to 150 ” by Jaemin Paik
Human + The future of our species
In this project, Jaemin Paik explores the consequences of life extension by asking how family, a fundamental basic unit that makes up a society, would change if we all lived to one-hundred and fifty or beyond. Cathrine Kramer, curator of the exhibition, explains the piece.
Liam Young talks about "New City: Machines of Post Human Production”
Human + The future of our species
New City: Machines of Post Human Production depicts the global trade infrastructure as a planetary-scaled conveyor belt. Along this endless factory floor, the human body has been enlisted as a machine, just one more component of a production line which connects the cities of consumption to the online shopping distribution centers, the autonomous container ships of maritime trade, the rows of choreographed factory robots and the super-scaled mining equipment that roam the earth.
Cathrine Kramer presents “Our Daily Bread” by Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Human + The future of our species
Cathrine Kramer, curator of the exhibition "HUMAN +" presents the film "Our daily bread". From fields to factories, Our Daily Bread gives a panoramic overview of daily life within the industrial food system in Europe.
Laura Allcorn talks about "The Human Pollinitation Project"
Human + The future of our species
What if humans had to assume the pollination responsibility from the honeybee? Aiming to draw attention to the human reliance on honeybee pollination, Laura Allcorn has created a hand pollination toolkit, designed to be worn as a functional fashion accessory. Donning the tool kit, the wearer can attempt the delicate task of hand pollination, but may also find themselves in an uncomfortable and overwhelming situation; assuming the vast and tedious pollination responsibilities of the bee.
Richard Pell talks about European Organisms of the Center for PostNatural History
Human + The future of our species
This exhibit from the collection of the Center for PostNatural History features organisms deliberately altered by humans. Each of these organisms was modified and selected by an individual or institution for a specific purpose.
Arne Hendrick talks about "The Incredible Shrinking Man"
Human + The future of our species
The Incredible Shrinking Man is a speculative design research project about the implications of downsizing the human species to 50 centimeters, in order to better fit the Earth. What motivates contemporary goals of physical enhancement and genetic improvement of the human species? Instead of desiring to become larger and more dominant, what would a smaller humankind that consumed less look like? The author of the piece, Arna Hendricks, explains it to the audience in this interview.
Cathrine Kramer presents "¿Whose Utopia?" by Cao Fei
Human+ The future of our species
Cathrine Kramer, the curator of the exhibition "HUMAN + The future of our species" talks about the piece "Whose Utopia?", a video that was born in a factory of the Osram company in Foshan, a chinese city. Cao Fei organized workshops for workers, many of whom were young people coming from small towns of the country, and asked them which were their dreams and aspirations.
Cathrine Kramer presents "Optimitzation of parenting, part 2" by Addie Wagenknecht
Human+ The future of our species
There are many technologies created to facilitate domestic work, but the role of the mother is still being considered sacred. Addie Wagenknecht, artist and mother designed a robotic arm that swings the cradle every time the baby cries, trying to find a way to combine creative work with motherhood.
Cathrine Kramer presents "Teledildonics for long distance relationships" by Kiiroo
Human+ The future of our species
Our social lives are increasingly mediated by technology, is it inevitable that our sexual activities will be as well? Kiiroo is a company that hopes to bring teledildonics to the mainstream— enabling tactile sexual relations from separate locations via computers. Their interactive sex toys connect to other users to create “a new kind of internet experience.
Julijonas Urbonas talks about the "Cumspin"
Human+ The future of our species
Cumspin is a proposal for an orgasm enhancing funfair machine. Based on the principle of a centrifuge, it exposes the love riders to variable gravitational forces.
![More [than] human?](http://www.cccb.org/rcs_gene/BLOC-VEUS-FOTO.jpg)
Heidi Kumao talks about "Misbehaving: Media Machines Act Out"
Human+ The future of our species
What is expected of robots? How do they enact or defy expectations? Can a robot be polite or misbehave? This project features two robotic, female performers who represent women and girls who disobey or resist expectations. Each intimate installation focuses on translating “unseen” information (data from proximity sensors, sound data) into tangible activity such as erratic movement or “incorrect” behavior.
Lorenz Potthast presents the "Decelerator Helmet"
Human+ The future of our species
What would happen if we could perceive the world in slow motion? The "Decelerator Helmet", which can be seen in the exhibition of the CCCB "HUMAN +" allows to experience it. Its creator, the multidisciplinary designer Lorenz Potthast presents his work and the dilemmas that raise the possibility of slowing time in an increasingly fast-moving society and the risk that would arise of having a personal perception of reality for each person.
Cathrine Kramer presents Improvised Empathetic Device (IED) by S.W.A.M.P.
Human+ The future of our species
Are we affected by news about wars and deaths? How to remember the importance of that sort of events to an an user anesthetized by the saturation of information? The IED can be considered an emotional prosthesis. It is a portable device that you can stick in your arm and pinch you with a needle every time that there are broadcasted on TV some news about deaths of american soldiers in the Middle East war.
Neil Harbisson talks about the "Soundcromatic head" (Cyborg Foundation)
Human+ The future of our species
The artist Neil Harbisson is the first cyborg recognized by a government. Carries an antenna implanted in the head (made by himself) that allows him to hear colors and perceive invisible colors as the infrared and the ultraviolet, and also, allows him to receive images, videos, music and phone calls directly from external devices.
Moon Ribas talks about the "Seismic arm" (Cyborg Foundation)
Human+ The future of our species
In the CCCB exhibition "HUMAN + The future of our species", the Cyborg Foundation (an organization that defends that people can become cyborgs) presents two cybernetic life-size sculptures that look like the classical sculptures but that carry certain sensors that capture data in real time and connect these data with the body and mind of the artist.
Soy Cámara #47. More than human
Parallel to the Human+ exhibition, the 47th program of the "Soy camara" TV show reflects the concerns and hopes aroused by the artificial intelligence, programs and applications that are already around us.
The “uncanny valley” hypothesis in robots
Ferran Esteve
One of the challenges inherent to robotics is the creation of an automaton that looks and behaves exactly like a human being. But what happens in the meantime? The “uncanny valley” hypothesis holds that when a robot looks and moves almost, but not […]
Judith Butler
Bodies That Still Matter
How can bodies be recognized when they do not fit the social norm of what bodies should be?
Interview Cathrine Kramer
Curator of Human+
The artist and curator explains the highlights of the exhibition.
What does it mean to be human today?
Cathrine Kramer
What does it mean to be human today? From conception to death (and beyond), people’s lives are mediated and shaped by our tools and technologies. There are many advancements that, depending on your beliefs, are utterly frightening or totally exciting, but the most massive changes are happening subtly, in the everyday.
BIO·FICTION. Science Art Film Festival
Short films preview
BIO·FICTION, the Science Art Film Festival explores the field of synthetic biology from angles as diverse as engineering and design. Related to the exhibition "Human +. The future of our species ", the CCCB presents a selection of short films that were presented at the 2014 edition.
Human + The future of our species
What does it mean to be a human today? What will it feel like to be a human a hundred years from now? Technological capabilities are increasing at a rapid pace—should we continue to embrace modifications to our minds, bodies and daily lives, or are there boundaries we shouldn’t overstep? The CCCB, in collaboration with the Science Gallery of the Trinity College Dublin presents the exhibition Human +.
Human +
The future of our species
What does it mean to be a human today? What will it feel like to be a human a hundred years from now? Technological capabilities are increasing at a rapid pace—should we continue to embrace modifications to our minds, bodies and daily lives, or are there boundaries we shouldn’t overstep? The CCCB, in collaboration with the Science Gallery of the Trinity College Dublin presents the exhibition Human +.