Dissolution and Decay: Traits in the Posthuman Gothic
The posthuman search for ‘actual’ eternal life seems the opposite of the argument of this unhelpful book, imo https://thewastedworld.wordpress.com/2018/11/24/dissolution-decay/ https://paper.li/e-1437691924
Final remarks about the Posthuman Gothic. Under the Gothic sign, the Posthuman is far from the joyful celebration of vitality and agency that its advocates have proclaimed. Instead, it takes on an ambivalent nature. The Gothic is a look at a world that exists beyond us, without us or, at least, not for us. Without realizing it, Posthumans and Gothics are intertwined. Both are interested in the strange amalgamations between body and machine, dirt and spirit, and the eerie influence of systems that we do not understand. Posthuman is not only twisted in Gothic aesthetics and categories, but also Gothic commitments. It displays a mixed obsession with the spectres from the past, while looking forward to a future freed from the decayed rules of the dead.
The Posthuman Gothic is at a crossroads. The Posthuman Gothic is at a crossroads. On one hand, it sees a deep past emerging in the near future as circuits, be they technological or earthly put an end to the myth of the autonomous subject. It balances dehumanisation and utter privation with escape from human finitude. Two angles lead away from humanity, into the liminal space of the Gothic. The Gothic keeps one foot firmly planted in the human world, while the opposite hangs off the edge. Posthuman Gothic reveals its haunting human past in order to cast itself better into futures that are more or lesser joyful, or more or lesser terrifying. The Gothic’s mixed emotions seep into the Posthuman. The Posthuman Gothic acknowledges that there is a certain enjoyment in watching the conventional and familiar become outdated, and that only by the death of the past can other futures be imagined.
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https://thewastedworld.wordpress.com/2018/11/24/dissolution-decay/
