Each narrow cell in which we dwell

Is a foul and dark latrine,

And the fetid breath of living Death

Chokes up each grated screen,

And all,but Lust, is turned to dust

In Humanity´s machine.

The ballad of reading gaol; Oscar Wilde

_: The Technobody

With Charles Babbage’s unrealized Difference Machine, conceived in 1822, mankind stepped in to a new era of philosophical thought. The Difference Machine is widely regarded as the first computer. Since the invention of the computer chip and its development mankind finally succeeded in opening the gates of hell. They created a new era where technological innovations appear at an ever increasing pace. The future of the human body begins to be questioned. The human need of passing genotypes into future systems has been bound up in a world of electronic circuitry. The human body has become virtually extended; the body is displaced in its environment. Authenticity is no longer grounded on its individuality, but rather more ‘in the multiplicity of remote agents’ that it hosts. It falls into a dimension based on human errors. It is analogous to hell, committing to the lost body, an orgy of torture, rape and depravity. There is no need anymore for human senses. Compared to industrialisation there is an analogous result: the alienation of the human body. The Techno-body is degrading mankind to the status of an object; mankind is becoming fragmented. Through its data reducement, its decomposition and re-composition in a constantly fleeting space each time the body alters its location.

The technobody deals with the de-humanization through our extended phenotypes. The techno body commits to the idea that it’s just a site for the mind. It is crucial to learn how to survive this disjuncture of reality and fictional space. We have to discover how it works when our mind is transferred into digital blood and vice versa. The term ‘Technobody’ is just an idea; a state of intelligent thinking.

It is obvious that mind and body forms a symbiosis for living. It is not written that if we overcome our bodies we will loose our status of human being. We should train to see our body just as site for our mind; new radical technologies will give us new possibilities! Nowadays we are able to inhabit a virtual body with our mind. It’s crucial to learn how to survive this disjuncture of reality and fictional space. We have to discover how it works when our mind is transferred into digital blood and via versa. Even the position of total escape of our body. In the end the term body is just an idea; a state of intelligent thinking.

We could train our mind that we don’t only see objects, that we start to squad them; so that we are becoming those objects and every object becomes an extension of us. Mankind would increase in a rapidly growing network of responsibility to their environment. All will be one; this will give us the possibility of looking through objects, all human knowledge will be united in one organism; mankind could start understanding each other. This goal should inspire more then any religious dictates!

Reference here to overcome our body: “the twenty-fifth man” by Ed Morrell. The succeeding in overcoming the physical borders and the victory of mind over torture and mortality. Ed Morrell achieved this goal in an extremely stressful situation (he was the subject to terrible tortures, but survived by projecting his astral body to the outside of the prison walls). Today man is more fascinated by the idea of dealing with this request in use of modern techniques and the escape from ‘reality’, rather in thinking about why and how to use this new extensions of our bodies adequate.

 

Excerpt from „Electro Flesh Disorder“ 2007 / Dietmar Koering

Pictures from the Silverlinings Symposium at the Academy o Arts in Vienna in 2015

Opening | 09.10.2015, 19:00 acoustic performance by Zosima at 20:00 Exhibition dates | 10.10.2015 – 17.10.2015 opening times from 12:00 – 19:00 Finissage | 17.10.2015, 19:00 Venue | Mehrzwecksaal, 2nd floor, Atelierhaus der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Lehargasse 8, 1060 Wien Symposium | 10.10.2015, 16:00 Pecha Kucha presentations held by the participants of the show Q&A, first round, moderated by Seth Weiner Q&A, second round, moderated by Marlene Rutzendorfer 

Symposium
Alpenglühen | Ulrich Aschenbrenner and Atzgerei A New Peninsula | Unit 15 research (Nic Clear, Mike Aling) Cellular Complexity | Kais Al-Rawi, Marie Boltenstern and Julia Körner From ‘phyche’ to ‘hyle’ | TόΤά (Ismini Christakopoulou and Athanasios Farangas) Nacktscanner and Repair my Series 7 | Patrick Jaritz and Rüdiger Suppin Scrapers and Bierzyklus | Lucas Kulnig and Daniel Podmirseg Standard Primitives | Christian Tonko Towards Unstable Moments | Zosima (Gonzalo Vaillo) Virtual Extended Phenotypes & The Technobody | Arphenotype (Dietmar Köring) Walking in the City | eyeTry (Eva Sommeregger and Florian Schafschetzy) Weerkas | Johan Voordouw
Silverlinings Exhibition is curated by Eye-Try Architects