The Human to Come

During at least the last two decades, transhumanism has generated profound philosophical questions and created at once both suspicion and hope for humanity.

Its proposal of a radical transformation and even of overcoming the human condition by technological means, entails a diversity of both theoretical and practical problems. From the theoretical perspective, some problems are the potential advantages and risks of transhumanism, personal identity, new alterities (robots, cyborgs, etc.), equality and social justice in a posthuman future, human/posthuman evolution, nature and nurture in transhumanism, history of transhumanism, literature and transhumanism, death and immortality, religion and transhumanism, and the meaning of life in a posthuman world. From the practical perspective, some problems are hybridization human-machine, ethics of physical, cognitive, and moral enhancement, defense/security, AI and enhancement, sports and enhancement, and cryonics and mind uploading.

Who do we, today, call the “human”? Otherwise said, are we today facing a metamorphosis, a “turning point,” where the “human” is radically changed and altered into a wholly different entity or being? Other than the definition, determination, identity has always marked its historical meaning? Are we, today, facing a transfiguration of the “human” far surpassing the traditional and classical divide between the “being” and the “becoming” of humanity? Is the figure of the “human to come” exceeding—and in which sense?—the essentialist determination of the human being through the becoming of its historical development? And furthermore, how are we to think this novel figure of the “human”?

For it remains our duty—both philosophical and ethical—to think towards this unedited contemporary manifestation of the “human.” From which plane and according to which law are we to exemplify this philosophical and ethical duty? In which manner, will this confrontation change our thinking of humanity and which are the political consequences of such an engagement in the face of this mutation in the history of the “human”?

These philosophical, ethical and political questions are undoubtedly central also to artists and architects. Their different approach however, their direct impact on our sensorial perception and awareness, their thinking in images, in places and spaces of experience, will open an important interval in our research and offer another gaze on the distance between our present and the alterations occurring within it.

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

8:45–9:15am Arrivals, coffee
9:15–9:45am
Opening: Joseph Cohen, Alain Fleischer, Raphael Zagury-Orly (Organizers)

9:45–11:15am
The Coming “Non-Human”: Distributing Intelligence in the Inorganic World of Machines and Robots.
Véronique Aubergé (CNRS/INSHS)
Charles Corval (Sciences Po Paris)
Julien De Sanctis (Spoon.ai)

11:30am–12:30pm
Can we Really Critise Transhumanism?
Gabriel Dorthe (Université Catholique de Lille)
David Doat (Université Catholique de Lille)

Break

2:30–4pm
Joining the Arts and Technologies in Order to Stimulate a new Understanding of the Human (in a renewed dialogue with nature. Reflections on Eden Artech).
Pierre Antoine Chardel (EHESS)
Olga Kisseleva (Paris I)
Lilia Chak (Paris I)
Emeline Gougeon (Paris I)
Armen Khatchatourov (Université Paris Est Marne la Vallée)

4:15–6:15pm
Film: Les Forêts sombres by Stéphane Breton
Discussion
Anne Simon (CRAL/EHESS)
Stéphane Breton (CRAL/EHESS)

Break

8:30–10:30pm
Film (programme to be confirmed)

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

9–9:30am  Coffee
9:30–10:15am
Designing with Microbial Life (Lecture in English)
Teresa van Dongen (artist)
Korneel Rabaey (Professor, University of Ghent)    

10:30–11am
Humanity that Opens
Mario Côté (UQAM)
Véronique Béland (artist)

11:15am–12:45pm
Discussion on the Subjects of Transhumanist Thought: Radical Longevity and Mortality
Didier Coueurnelle (Association Française Transhumaniste)
Terence Ericson (Association Française Transhumaniste)
Elisabeth de Castex (Sciences Po Paris)
Dominique Raynie (Sciences Po Paris)

Break

2:30–4pm
Artistic Panel
Olivier Perriquet (Le Fresnoy - Studio national)
Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis (artist)
Grégory Chatonsky (artist, ENS Paris)
AnneMarie Maes (artist)

4:15–6pm
Philosophical Panel
This Human to Come?
Joseph Cohen (University College Dublin)
Raphael Zagury-Orly (Sciences Po Paris)
Nicolas de Warren (Penn State University)

6:15–7:15pm
Bernard Stiegler | Keynote – Closing remarks / Introduced by Alain Fleischer
Elements of Neganthropology
(At)tending non-inhuman beings with Alfred Lotka
Éléments de néguanthropologie
Panser les êtres non-inhumains avec Alfred Lotka

Working language: French
Free entry | Booking accueil [​at​] lefresnoy.net
T +33(0)3 20 28 38 00
22 rue du Fresnoy | 59200 Tourcoing | France

*Exhibition Fluidities: The Human to Come
February 8–April 29
H. Berrada, S.L. Cheang, J. Fontcuberta, A. Gormley, L. Hershman, D. Steegmann Mangrané, M. Najjar, P. Rahm, SMITH…