Reshaping posthuman subjectivity

Lu Yang’s representation of virtual bodies in the Covid-19 pandemic

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21875772
AutoresShiyu Gao (0000-0001-9715-9517, University of Edinburgh, autor de correspondencia)
Año2021
Volumen8
Número2
Páginas267-289
Fecha de publicación2021-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Contemporary Chinese Art (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2051-7041 • E-ISSN: 2051-705X
EditorialIntellect (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1386/jcca_00047_1
OpenAlexW3213667914
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas17

With the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, much of the world has been experiencing isolation and quarantine. Digital technology, especially the internet, has become the essential method of communication when social distancing measures constrain physical contact. The global health crisis leads to a dynamically increasing reliance on digital equipment contributing to a posthuman world. The article will take Shanghai-based multimedia artist Lu Yang (1984–) as a representative example to explore an alternative posthumanism subjectivity in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Built theoretically on Kathrine Hayles and Rosi Braidotti’s posthumanism concepts of virtual bodies, this article will examine how Lu Yang’s work articulates the interactive relationships between humans and the material world to go beyond the conservative corporeality and contribute to a renewal of posthuman subjectivity. In Lu Yang’s recent projects created during the pandemic, such as Doku × The 1975 ‘Playing on My Mind’ (2020) and the live-streamed piece Delusional World (2020), the artist experiments with different strategies to break down social-cultural constraints and transcend established dualisms of gender binaries, life and death, human and non-human. With a close investigation of Lu Yang’s multidisciplinary artistic practices, this article intends to argue how a new subjectivity emerges in contemporary Chinese art and its roles in the current COVID-19 pandemic world

Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Media studies · Pandemic · Posthuman · Posthumanism · Sociology · Subjectivity · Digital Media and Philosophy · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · History · Medicine · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Philosophy