From Co-Creator to Demiurge. A Theological and Philosophical Perspective on Transhumanist Art

Abstract

The paper seeks to explore aspects of transhumanist art, starting from philosophical and theological perspectives on the future of humanity in the 21st century: body/soul/mind relationship, the problem of death and immortality, as well as questions about the nature of the beings that are emerging from technological developments. In the first part, we are looking at the things that unite and separate posthumanism and transhumanism in terms of their origins and current orientation. We are going to review some Eastern and Western Christian perspectives concerning the technological embrace, the challenge to revisit the definition of the human beings brought by transhumanism, and the pressure it puts on theological thinking. In the second part, we analyze some tendencies in transhumanist art practices and the emergence of new forms of artistic creations. We relate to the promises that transhumanism makes with regards to body prosthetics, cyborgism, and transspeciesism. At the same time, we identify religious thinking in the deification of the artist within the context of the new definitions of art in the digital age. Finally, as humans meditate on the future of humanity, we argue for the need to introduce art perspectives into the ongoing dialogue between philosophy, theology, and science.