Philosophy of Posthuman Art: Professor Stefan Lorenz Sorgner Publishes New Book
JCU Philosophy professor Stefan Lorenz Sorgner recently published a new book called Philosophy of Posthuman Art (Schwabe Ag, 2022). The book is part of the series “Posthuman Studies,” published by Schwabe Ag.
Philosophy of Posthuman Art
According to American contemporary artist Eduardo Kac, the book is a deeply considered survey of the posthuman future of art. “Sorgner’s philosophy of posthumanism provides a path away from the dominant 20th-century aesthetics that still inform our conception of art today. Through the innovative concept of the ‘twist,’ Sorgner’s encyclopedic text frames posthumanism as the foundation of an anti-totalitarian future of art,” he said.
Cyprus-born Australian performance artist Stelarc explained that “Philosophy of Posthuman Art impressively examines the aesthetics of the monstrous, of hybridity, of smoothness and of the amorphous, to name a few. It is an articulate and informed analysis not only of particular artworks but also their philosophical underpinnings of Critical Posthumanism, Transhumanism and Metahumanism. It not only includes examples of bioart, body art, performance art and cryptoart, but also techno, digital and cyborg music. It is a time when we transition from the ontology of Being to the ontology of Becoming. We are now in a liminal age of the hybrid and the chimera. And as Stefan Lorenz Sorgner reminds us, with a twist, we have always been cyborgs.”
Professor Sorgner has been invited to present his book of his at the Meltingpot Forum, a festival held in the Czech Republic. He has also been featured recent podcast episodes such as Singularity University Podcast and Futures.
Furthermore, Professor Stefan Lorenz Sorgner has recently been selected as 2022 Ewha Global Fellow (EGF). The fellowship is being awarded to distinguished scholars from around the world to actively collaborate in research and education with Ewha Faculty Members.
Professor Sorgner is director and co-founder of the Beyond Humanism Network, Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), Research Fellow at the Ewha Institute for the Humanities at Ewha Womans University in Seoul and Visiting Fellow at the Ethics Centre of the University of Jena. He is editor of more than 10 essay collections, and author of the following monographs: Metaphysics without Truth (2007), Menschenwürde nach Nietzsche (2010), Transhumanismus (2016), Schöner neuer Mensch (2018), Übermensch (2019); On Transhumanism (2020); We have always been cyborgs (2022). In addition, he is Editor-in-Chief and Founding Editor of the “Journal of Posthuman Studies.”
