Further thoughts regarding a ‘virtual human gallery’, the most iconic (perhaps) example of a virtual human is the Dancing Baby 3D render in the late 90s that went viral and even ended up in an episode of Ally McBeal.

Giving this 3D render human qualities of dancing and humour, attach a quality that makes you see this as no longer an object but as ‘real’. How far do you need to go to reduce a human to an object? And then how far do you have to go to add back in human qualities until that object is defined as a human?

Following on from my discussion with Clive, these are both uses of holograms (in essence they are interpretations of the Pepper’s Ghost technique) to allow a musician to perform from beyond the grave.

Here the use of a hologram places that person in the environment and allows them to interact with their surroundings and other ‘real’ people. Does this therefore make the object of a hologram human? Animating them and adding in aspects of human interaction can apply a false facade of humanity, but in essence are they are just an object of projected light?

Meeting with Clive McCarthy 7/10.

• Expressions of being human
  • Music
  • Art – artforms
  • Poetry

• Virtual human gallery
  • Holograms – would this still be considered human? [i.e. Tupac ‘performing at Coachella 2012 and Michael Jackson ‘performing’ at Billboard Music Awards 2014]
  • VR – would this still be considered human?
  • 3D printed heads – would this still be considered human?
    • Projecting over 3D printed head with small human actions i.e. blinking, yawning, hand scratching nose.
    • Projecting over with people talking about what it means to be human.
• Next steps in research
  • Posing the question.
  • Print outs of my human as object experiments – inviting comments from public using a hashtag, forming a discussion forum on social media.

Reflections on ‘Magic Birth’ Realist Magic: Objects, Ontology, Causality

‘I experience the profound givenness of beginning as an anamorphosis, a distortion of my cognitive, psychic and philosophical space. The birth of an object is the deforming of the objects around it. An object appears like a crack in the real.’ (Morton, 2013, 124)

In this chapter, Morton discusses the idea of the beginning of objects and asks the question ‘how do objects begin?’ (Morton, 2013, 124). Morton discusses the notion of aperture, which is the feeling of beginning and this beginning is filled with uncertainty where every detail is weird with potential significance. In this beginning state the birth of objects affects and distorts the surrounding space and all other objects that occupy that space, an example of a glass breaking into fragments is used here to highlight that each of those glass fragments are now new objects. In the birth of these new objects they affect the environment to which they have been born, glass fragments fill the space and interact with other objects most notably the possibility of physically cutting you if you were there. Following on from this Morton also states ‘a new thing is a distortion of other things’ (Morton, 2013, 125), if a new object is the distortion of other objects then if a human body is distorted does this create a new object? If so, then this new object will change all other objects that went before it by changing the understanding and perception of that object. In this sense the new object created from a human would therefore change the understanding and perception of all other humans that went before it, ‘just one entity, the real other, the stranger, undermines the coherence of my so-called world’ (Morton, 2013, 127).

The chapter also discusses an interesting concept from philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, “there is”. This is the idea we are always being surrounded by sheer existence and if we begin by stating “there is”, by stating a specific object, this breaks through and shatters what is understood of the universe. ‘It’s so specific, it has no name (yet); it’s totally unique, it’s a kind of Messiah that breaks through the “homogenous empty time” of sheer repetition that constitutes everyday reality. The breakthrough of the plus-one shatters the coherence of the universe’ (Morton, 2013, 127).

‘Sublimity is the echo of a noble mind’ (Morton, 2013, 131).

In order to describe the aesthetics of beginning, we can use the sublime. Morton describes Emmanuel Kant’s version of the sublime in that it is an inner freedom based on some temporary cognitive failure, could this be the cognitive failure of the human in my question? This failure can then release an inner freedom in you that is open to the other. However, Kant’s sublime does not go far enough to explain co-existence between us and objects, or even objects and objects, Morton therefore proposes an ‘object-oriented sublime’ (Morton, 2013, 131). In this object-oriented sublime relating to the physical intrusion of an alien presence and asks the question of how to achieve sublimity, rather than looking at the sublime as a human experience. Sublimity here is linked to the mind, but not the mind in the way we understand it; mind is a solid substance that can ricochet of wall and extend to the sensuality of objects. The example given to explain this is that of a pen, a pen is not alive but everything meaningful about our minds resting on the pen can be said of the pen resting on the desk. Therefore a mind may simply be an interobjective phenomenon, whereby interactions occur between neurons and other objects i.e. desks, cats, hormones, other humans, cognition is simply the assemblage of unit operations that function. In this sense, the mind can be translated to any object and is not a reserved status only for the human. If an object has a mind, how much further does it need to go to be considered human? Any notion of AI and consciousness therefore becomes irrelevant.

Morton breaks down a set of basic properties for objects as developed from Longinus and Harman’s interpretation of Heidegger, this is very interesting once Morton than explains it:

1. Earth. Objects as secret “something at all,” apart from access.

Prior to all relations [eminence].

Hides objects – objects are inaccessible prior to its relations to other objects, we cannot perceive the object as itself.

Realm of the uncanny – the uncanny here relates to the idea that we realise something is already there but it is hidden from us.

2. Clarity: Gods. Objects as specific, apart from access.

Vividness that interrupts the flow of narrative and jumps out.

This however misses the secretive object, but in that act generates its own object in the process.

Details how objects move and have agency.

3. Transport: Mortals. Objects as something-at-all for another object.

This beams the alien object into another’s frame of reference.

Its machinery is amplification, not in the physical sense but in feeling that needs to be attuned to.

4. Phantasia: Heaven. Objects as specific appearance to another object.

Visualisation – producing an inner object.

Makes absent things appear to be present.

Generates an object like entity that separates us from the narrative flow and puts us in touch with the alien as alien.

It is the capacity of an object to imagine another, i.e. how paper looks to stone.

It describes how one object impinges on another – do objects dream? Do they contain virtual versions of other objects inside them?

Here 1 and 2 are the actuality of object – object encounters and 3 and 4 are the appearance of these encounters. These properties will be useful to keep in mind in the process of creation/actual objects as part of my experiments to answer the question, ‘can humans exists as other objects/ can other objects exist as humans?’.

I had a look around the recent exhibition held at Project Space Plus in the Art, Architecture and Design building, ‘British and European Receptions of China, 17th-21st Centuries’ as part of the Inaugural History and Heritage Symposium. One of the main parts I found the most interesting was a section related to 3D printing, this highlighted the restorative techniques used within reconstructing the Terracotta Army sculptures. You were able to touch and explore the objects, included were experiments and those where sections had gone slightly wrong and also one which allowed you to see the structural make-up inside. The objects were also accompanied by a video of the 3D printing process, effectively linking together the objects and their origin.

This related, for me, back to my perennial question ‘can objects exist as humans/can humans exist as other objects?’. These were 3D printed objects representing the human body, but in this process does the human aspect become lost? Are these now purely cold objects devoid of humanity?

Meeting with Clive McCarthy 30/09

What does it mean to be human?

Can human be measured?

• Human as a process
• Human elements highlighted externally
  • Prosthetics
  • Metal plates
• What passes for human – in a planetary sense i.e. the water found on Mars
• Illusions – human entities
• Postive/negative sides of being human
  • Moral compass – what makes up the moral compass?
• Joel Peter Witkin – Still lives including human body parts
  • Nazi death camps – lampshades made of human skin
    • Does this mean they are no longer human?
    • Should they be buried?
• Augmented reality – virtual human gallery
• 3D printing – human as object
  • Does this make it no longer human?

Research – Forum to pose questions:

Pose the question to participants ‘what does human mean to you?’, this could in the form of a workshop or using social media. This could also take the form of questions and a scoring system, does something qualify as a human?

To exist is to be in a context.

• Can other objects exist as humans?
• Can humans exist as other objects?
  • When placed in a context where these are facts
• Can a chair exists as a human in an altered version of reality? If human attributes are applied?
  • Sarcasm
  • Anger
  • Depression
  • Warmth/ability to love
  • Ability to hate
  • Ability to admit defeat
  • Communication
  • Body temperature – if a human body goes below a certain temperature signifies death and therefore no longer human?

Reflections on ‘Why the world does not exist’ TEDx Talk by Markus Gabriel.

This talk in essence posits that the notion of ‘the world’ does not exist, that it is an illusion. One of the interesting parts of the talk is Gabriel’s theoretical breakdown of ‘the world’; ‘the world’ is most commonly considered the totality of all spatially temporal things (planets, trees, grass, you, me etc) but within this there are also facts or concepts. Facts/concepts are things that are true of things, these are not spatially temporal and are not tangible objects, they have no physical location. Broken down as followed:

• Things – have certain properties
• Other things – have other properties and are distinguishable from ‘things’

• Concepts – characterise things

Therefore ‘the world’ cannot be a totality of all spatially temporal things as it cannot encompass facts, it is impossible to produce a list of all truths as we are constantly negotiating the limits of concepts and as such the world does not exist.

This then leads of to questions of existence, Gabriel throws up an interesting descriptor of what it means to exist: to exist is to be in a context. This opens up lines of thought in questioning what it is to be ‘human’, of the concepts of ‘I’/ ‘we’. If in this sense unicorns exist when they are in the context of a film where this is a fact, can other objects exist as humans and humans exist as other objects when placed in a certain context where those are facts? If witches can exist in Macbeth but not in Spain, can a chair exist as a human in an altered version of reality?

Following on from this, in my previous readings into philosophy the basis notion is of existing in an entangled mesh of relations where everything interconnects. Gabriel here states that we need to give up on the idea all things are connected, some things are and some are not. If we give up this idea of an entangled mesh we face the possibility that we are autonomous beings not determined by an overall structure, that we are alone but alone with infinite possibilities worth exploring.

Process is life < > Life as a process

• Exploring the processes of life – interaction of processes
• Molecular/biological processes
• Human activity as a process

• Movement
  • Human activity as a movement
  • Humans move through the world

Cutting time into solids

• Objects
• Slicing through objects
• Slicing through time

• Human events = a cut
  • Renders the world into an object/solid

Human < > ‘I’

• Challenges/struggles as a concept
• Human activity from a non-human perspective
• Non-human activity from a human perspective

• How human activity affects/ is affected by ‘others’
  • Challenging anthropic standpoints

Finding the spark

• Activates life
• Birth concept
• Life cycle
  • Experiments to find the life force in other objects/entities
  • What does it mean to have a life force?

Reflections on ‘Humanity’ Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene

‘I’.

‘We’.

‘Human’.

The concept of the human, human centricity and the use of ‘I’/ ’we’ sets up the issue whereby the more they are used the less convincing they are when talking about notions of philosophy, particularly the narcissism enfolded in the exclusion of non-human agents in any discussion of process, life and world. ‘I’ is fundamentally an entangled mesh of a network of relations, which are made temporarily singular through the addressing of them in an instance of ‘I’. The struggle of ‘I’ is interesting when considering aspects of human activity, or even humans as a whole.

‘The more I try to evoke where I am—the “I” who is writing this text—the more phrases and figures of speech I must employ. I must get involved in a process of writing, the very writing that I am not describing when I evoke the environment in which writing is taking place. The more convincingly I render my surroundings, the more figurative language I end up with. The more I try to show you what lies beyond this page, the more of a page I have. And the more of a fictional “I” I have- splitting “me” into the one who is writing and the one who is being written about— the less convincing I sound (2007: 30)’ (Zylinska quoting Morton, 2014, 64).

Perception then comes into play, if to explore the idea of the evidence of human activity is human centric, positing human activity as a separate process and as perhaps more important would the question be better posed as human activity from a non-human viewpoint or non-human activity from a human viewpoint? The exploration could then become how human activity affects and is affected by others, (others in a non-human capacity and including as described by Zylinska ‘the universe itself is our most pressing “other”). An exploration to challenge anthropic standpoints to ‘give an account of, and simultaneously counter, what astrophysicists call “the strong anthropic principle”, a tendency to explain the universe from our human standpoint, as if it existed uniquely for us humans’ (Zylinska, 2014, 67).

‘This kind of post-humanist, or better, non-anthropocentric standpoint poses a challenge to human exceptionalism, but it also remains accountable, to cite Barad, “for the role we play in the differential constitution and differential positioning of the human among other creatures (both living and nonliving)”… to give an account of the differentiations of matter, of which we are a part’ (Zylinska, 2014, 68).

There is also an interesting section positing a somewhat concept of birth outside of human/biological reduction, ‘we come into the world unformed, lacking the basic capacities to move within it, communicate with others and transform our surroundings… It is only through relationality with what is not in us – with other living beings but also with the widely conceived “environment” that consists of animate and inanimate entities and processes – that we can activate the life that moves us’ (Zylinska, 2014, 68). This process can then be transferred to other entities and objects and even to events or situations, forming a life cycle of bringing into being. Finding the spark that activates the movement that carries us through the world.