International Journal of Cultural and Creative Industries

Post-humanist Desire: Visualizing Cyborgs and the

Hybridized Body

Ming TURNER

Ming TURNER, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Ming Turner is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Creative Industries
Design at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. She lectured Critical and
Contextual Studies at De Montfort University in the UK in 2009-2012, and was
a visiting faculty member at Transart Institute in New York in 2009-2011. She
has published widely in many international journals and publications, and is
also an international curator. Her completed projects include Post-humanist
Desire (MOCA Taipei, 2014), Trans-ideology: Nostalgia (Berlin, 2013), Beauti-
ful Life: Memory and Nostalgia (UK and Taiwan, 2011-2012), 0&1: Cyberspace and the Myth of
Gender (Chongqing, China, 2010). Contact: mingturner@mail.ncku.edu.tw

ABSTRACT
The paper explores my recent curatorial project, Post-humanist Desire, an international exhibition staged
at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, from November 2013 to January 2014. This project challenged
the conventional methods of display, and introduced academic research as the curatorial consideration
when identifying and selecting artists and their works. This exhibition was curated in response to the
concepts of Post-humanism, which is a state somewhere between the human and the non-human,
demonstrating a sense of uneasiness and uncertainty. The show deals with the discourse of androgyny
and asexuality in contemporary society, and it also visualizes either an organic hybridized body or a non-
organic mechanized body.

Keywords: Post-humanism, Cyborg, Hybridized body, Contemporary art

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 Volume 1 | Issue 3 | July 2014

1. INTRODUCTION tal culture, genetically modified food, robots, and

The organization of the Post-humanist Desire ex-
hibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Art
Taipei (MOCA Taipei) extends from my curatorial
project 0&1 Cyberspace and the Myth of Gender in
Chongqing, China, in 2010 and incorporates my
ongoing research on cyborgs, hybridity and
the body1. The term Post-humanist is defined
and discussed in disparate ways in both academic
and artistic circles. Post-humanist Desire focuses
on the theme Post-human, but there was no
intention to provide a conclusive interpretation.
In this exhibition, I describe all modern people
as post-human; people who possess diverse and
complex identities. People today do not adhere to
singular values. Rather, we live in a world filled
with multiple, heterogeneous, and self-conflicting
sentiments2.
2. POST-HUMANIST DESIRE
Post-human (or Posthuman) as an academic
term has been debated widely since the late
1970s. Ihab Hassans Prometheus as performer: To-
ward a posthuman culture? (1977) contends that
technology not only influences medical sciences
but also governs our daily consumer culture 3 .
Meanwhile, Steve Nicholss Post-human manifesto
(1988) maintains that people today are already
living in a post-human condition. Critical theories
began to flourish in the West during the 1970s
and 1980s, and many academic terms with the
prefix Post- have been developed since then,
including postmodernism, post-colonialism, post-
industrialism, post-communism, post-feminism,
post-structuralism, post- Marxism. Terms pre-
fixed post- may all be related to philosophical
aspects of the post-human, is a notion that
concerns the other while containing a sense of
undecidability (Miah, 2008).
The various Post-human phenomena include the
Second Life virtual world in contemporary digi-
assisted reproductive technology, among others.
This exhibition responds to feminist philosopher
Donna Haraways concept of the cyborg. Here,
Post-human demonstrates a form of tension and
undecidability between human and non-human;
it also presents peoples ideas of the phenomenon
of combining the human body with technology. A
cyborg is an organism in a digital domain, as well
as the mixture of the artificial and organic life. It
is also both a social reality and an element of sci-
ence fiction (Haraway, 1991: 149-181). A cyborg
is an individual that transcends gender duality
in the material world, and by rejecting gender
dualit y, cyborgs further deconstruct gender
identification and re-present the bodily symbols
of post-humanist desire. This exhibition covers
digital technology (C-prints, multi-media inter-
active installation, and video installation), and
includes mixed media installations and paintings.
The three main themes of this exhibition the
cloned human, the transgendered human, and
the transformed human share overlapping
characteristics and implications. They are not
absolute categorizations of the exhibited works.
The Cloned human focuses on the theme of
cloning. A clone is produced asexually via tech-
nology or natural birth. In 1996, the creation
of the cloned sheep, Dolly, signaled that human
beings could become the subject of propagation
via biotechnology. The Cloned human discusses
the two phenomena of de-genderization and
androgyny in contemporary digital art. The
transgender human deconstructs the conven-
tional dichotomy of gender, and emphasizes such
topics as transvestitism, homosexuality, and
bisexuality. These topics analyze the often taboo
and suppressed issues of sexuality in our society
as well as the physicality of different genders and
their deconstruction and re-interpretation. The
transformed human responds to the concept of
the post-human body being a cyborg body exist-
ing in virtual domains on the Internet, including

1
0&1 Cyberspace and the Myth of Gender curated by Ming Turner was exhibited at the 501 Artspace at Chongqing,
China from April 10-22, 2010. For more information, please check Turner, M. (2010). 0&1: Cyberspace and the Myth of
Gender. Exhibition Catalogue. Leicester: De Montfort University.
2
Rosi Braidottis The Posthuman, a book published in 2013, offers profound philosophical analyses of Posthuman.
Beginning with viewpoints of humanism, she argues that the idea of Posthuman helps us to find a sense of
belonging and security in a world of diverse identification. Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press,
2013.
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 International Journal of Cultural and Creative Industries

the organic body of hybridized organisms Intersecting with the three main themes, the two
and the non-organic body stemming from the motifs of Yin and Yang and Adam and Eve are
combination of robots and technology. A cyborg visible throughout the exhibition. The Welcome
may be fluid and virtual without a physical form. Guest by Patricia Piccinini presents a peculiar
It may be an image that exists in digital technol- scene: a child who is about to embrace an alien
ogy, or it can be presented in concrete forms via creature on a single bed, while on the headboard
multi-media. stands a peacock with its colorful feathers. Pic-
cinini presents a surreal, intriguing creature of
The space of the MOCA Taipei is unique. As a the kind that would normally be found in science-
post-colonial building built by the Japanese dur- fiction films. According to Piccininis statement,
ing the colonial period and as the former Taipei The Welcome Guest (2011) (Figure 1) was inspired
City Government offices, the museum is divided by Goethes famous statement, beauty is every-
into several independent rooms, each of which where a welcome guest (Turner, 2013, p. 11).
has been used to display just one artists works.
Although most artists have their own separate The girl and the alien or the mutant-looking crea-
gallery room, Patricia Piccinini, U-Ram Choe, Yu- ture in this piece were presented as super-real-
Chuan Tseng and Jane Prophet share the same istic sculptures, through which Piccinini created
large gallery room on the first floor. The show a sense of bizarreness and surrealism that chal-
was exhibited in all gallery rooms of the museum,
with the addition of a large monitor outside of
the museums restaurant, which featured the Tai-
wanese artist Jia-Hua Zhans interactive digital
work, SOMA Mapping II (2012). In all, twenty-five
international artists were invited to participate
in the show and an international symposium was
organized to serve as the academic and intel-
lectual input of the project. According to a survey
conducted by Artist Magazine in November 2013,
the Post-humanist Desire exhibition was selected
as one of the top ten best exhibitions in Taiwan in
the year 20134.

Fig ure 1. Pat ricia Piccinini, The Welcome Guest . Figure 2. Patricia Piccinini, Aloft. 2010, fiberglass,
2011, s i l i c one , f i b e r g l a s s , hu m a n h a i r, c l o t h- stainless steel cable, felted human hair and wool,
ing , t a xidermied peacock s, dimensions variable. silicone, robotics, clothing , dimensions variable.
Image provided by MOCA Taipei. Image provided by MOCA Taipei.

3
Full detail of the reference is Hassan, Ihab. Prometheus as performer: Toward a posthuman culture? Georgia
Review, 31, 1977, pp. 830-850.
4
The best top 10 exhibitions in Taiwan in 2013, in Artist Magazine, Jan 2014, p. 179.
88

lenges our understanding of beauty. Aloft (2010)
(Figure 2), another work by Piccinini, extends
from the first floor to the second floor of MOCA,
Taipei. To install Aloft, the museum removed the
glass ceiling from the space, and the nest was
suspended from the ceiling of the upper floor. It
presents a small boy perched in a huge hairy nest
with five giant larvae, creating a sense of contrast
and tension between beauty and ugliness as well
as innocence and eccentricity. The Welcome Guest
and Aloft were created with similar motifs and
styles, and can be examined as a pair; i.e. a boy
and a girl. Accordingly, these two pieces of work
relate not only to the hybridized body but also to
the projects issue of sexuality.
Another pair of works composed of a male and
a female is Urbanus Female (2006) and Urbanus
Male (2006) (Figure 3), intricate metallic sculp-
tural installations by the Korean artist, U-Ram
Choe. By employing exquisite metalwork tech-
niques, incorporating complex models combined
with infrared sensors and motors, and by refer-
encing the inner structures and exoskeletons of
pre-historic plants, insects, and fish, Choe pres-
ents representations of the male and female. Both
Urbanus Female and Urbanus Male are large-scale
kinetic sculptures. They were created by Choe as
a deliberate response to sexuality, especially the
male and female sex organs. Urbanus Female and
Urbanus Male move, change shape and respond to
Figure 3. U-Ram Choe, Urbanus Female (lef t) and
Urbanu s Male (r ig ht). 20 06 , me t a l l ic m at er i a l ,
machiner y, metal halide lamp, electronic device.
Image provided by MOCA Taipei.
5
In an interview in Taipei on 20 September 2011, Pey-Chwen Lin indicated that God created Eve [but] humans
created the Eve Clone.
Volume 1 | Issue 3 | July 2014
each other, as if they were living creatures per-
forming to attract each others attention.
The project by Pey-Chwen Lin is also inspired by
the Bible. Revelation of Eve Clone III (2013) (Figure
4) tells the story of the Book of Revelation from
the Bible5. Eve Clone represents an existence that
is beautiful, dangerous, and worshipped. Her
body echoes the concepts of cloning, reproduc-
tion, and the cyborg. Post-human reveals a
state of anxiety and uncertainty resulting from
the conditions of being bet ween human and
inhuman. Post-human takes the shapes of our
bodies, but is a hybrid between our biological
forms and technology, a cyborg. Features of the
post-human in Lins work can be seen via her
imagined Eve, which is itself a cyborg, a mixture
of mechanical and biological organisms.
The adaptation of a cyborg-like body in Lins work
seems to relate to the technophile dream of up-
loading themselves to the internet, refashioning
their own bodies, or developing a perfect avatar
in cyberspace. Lins Eve Clone may appear to cre-
ate the perfect being in cyberspace through ar-
tistic aesthetics and new media technologies, but
at the same time, she shows its dark and strange
side. Eve is represented in Revelation of Eve Clone
III as a perfect female without any body hair, an
unreal and quasi body, created by the artist. It is
a digital human situated somewhere between the
Figure 4. Pey-Chwen Lin, Revelation of Eve Clone
III. 2013, interact ive inst allat ion, mov ing image
3D a nimat ion, int erac t ive s ys t em s, comput er s,
projec tors, stereo system, dimensions variable.
Image provided by MOCA Taipei.
89
 International Journal of Cultural and Creative Industries

real and the fake, between the organic and the
inorganic. The Eve Clone image is the result of
human creation through technology. The strange
beauty of the Eve Clone reflects the negative in-
fluences of artificial and technical civilization on
nature. In the meantime, Lin wants to express the
strange characteristics of Eve through a mix of
human and beast, and the evil symbolism of the
number 666 in Christianity.
Garden of Mullerian Ductsthe Lost Ghost (2013)
(Figure 5) by Shih-Fen Liu is a life-size silicone
sculpture of the artist herself. The sculpture in-
cludes the addition of a quasi-ape tail and is sur-
rounded by salt sculptures of goat skulls, while
the addition of the six images of androgynous
plants and insects conveys the idea of androgyny.
Jimson weed). It follows her style of producing an
asexual cyborg, but this time, the depicted object
is the artist herself.
Anne (2013) (Figure 6) by Zan-Lun Huang echoes
the concept of androgyny and displays a hybrid
body integrating human beings and animals a
female body with the antlers of a male deer and
turtle-shell protruding from her back. This piece
alludes to the cultural significance of Guilu Erx-
ianjiao, a kind of Chinese medicine made with
turtle shells and deer antlers that allegedly revi-
talizes ones health. Similar to Paccininis style,
Anne was created as a super-real sculpture, and
is a typical example of hybridity between human
and beast. The distinguishing part of this piece
is the employment of Taiwanese culture in tradi-

The other component of Garden of Mullerian

Ductsthe Lost Ghost is Lius previous piece, The
Clinical Path of the Sphinx. It consists of scanned
medical photographs of Lius inner organs, twelve
pieces of drawings, nine egg-shaped sculptures
made of macromolecule materials and a life-
size fiberglass sculpture in the form of the artist
herself. The work represents stories in the Bible
and de-codes religious symbols by juxtaposing
these images of herself with twelve kinds of herbs
and plants, including the opium poppy, agave,
datura stramonium (also known as datura or

Figure 5. Shih-Fen Liu, Garden of Mullerian Ducts
the Lost Ghost. 2013, silicone human body fabrication,
saline goat engrave, non-acidic aluminum frame, glass
wall, silicone tile, dimensions variable. Image provided
by MOCA Taipei.
Figure 6. Zan-Lun Huang, Anne. 2013, FRP, machine,
artificial fur, antlers, turtle shell, 90 x 150 x 90cm.
Image provided by MOCA Taipei.

90

tional Chinese medicine, which creates a sense of
authenticity and cultural identity in this unusual
and bizarre creature.
Chimera (2013) (Figure 7), a large mixed-media
installation by Saya Woolfalk, features a trans-
formed and symbolic body rooted in multiple cul-
tures. It contains colorful transformed humans
reflecting the idea of integrating what are com-
monly referred to as the white, yellow, and black
races and their cultures and further expresses
Woolfalks own hybrid cultural and hereditary
background. Woolfalk flew to Taipei to supervise
the installation her work and indicated that her
work was created to respond to her Japanese-
European-African-American and female perspec-
tives6. Chimera consists of one video and a large
multi-media installation, both of which include
videos of performances by people dressed in col-
orful costumes representing different cultures.
The sense of conf lict and confusion between
different cultures are explored via these highly
decorative patterns of images and performatic
bodily movement. According to the exhibition
booklet, the figure in Chimera is a post-humanist
hybrid of various species, which performs all
kinds of gestures and poses in a colorful room
to highlight the struggles of minds and material
bondage in contemporary society (Turner, 2013,
p. 49). Consequently, the people performing in
Figure 7. Saya Woolfalk, Chimera. 2013, mixed media
installation, dimensions variable, 4 min 12 sec, 2 min
49 sec. Image provided by MOCA Taipei.
6
Interview with Saya Woolfalk in Taipei on 20 November 2013.
Volume 1 | Issue 3 | July 2014
Chimera are post-humans who resemble complex
and heterogeneous contemporary lives.
Daniel Lees Manimals (2013) (Figure 8) incor-
porates Chinese elements into images of trans-
formed humans. Inside Lees gallery space stands
a folding screen on which he has fixed images of
a reclining nude woman whose body is seemingly
discontinuous and fractured. As viewers move
along in front of the screen, the fractured body
image coalesces and lengthens intermittently.
The exhibited porcelain sculptural pieces and C-
prints based on the hybrid images of humans and
the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac echo the
exhibitions theme of transformation and hybrid-
ization. Lee believes that peoples personalities
and physical characteristics can be linked to
the animals of the Chinese Zodiac, including the
rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep,
monkey, cock, dog, and boar. Chinese proverbs
describe people who are immoral or who have
bad personalities as beasts, and this linguistic
use of Chinese culture became Lees motivation
in creating Manimals7.
Also inspired by the Chinese zodiac, Hox Zodiac,
Taipei (2013) (Figure 9) created by Victoria Vesna
and Siddharth Ramakrishnan, consists of a board
game that interacts with the audience. The idea of
Hox Zodiac stems from the Hox gene that affects
Figure 8. Daniel Lee, Manimals. 2013, multi-media
installation, dimensions variable. Image provided by
MOCA Taipei.
91
 International Journal of Cultural and Creative Industries
and exists in all human beings and animals. The
work consults texts about the association be-
tween the twelve animal zodiac signs and human
organs from I-Ching, thereby showing its inclu-
sion of Chinese cultural elements and symbols.
Oil Painting Series and Sculpture Series by Yang Na
incorporate human beings (women) and animals
(e.g. rabbits, cats, and birds) to portray a mythi-
cal fairy tale.
Wanderlust (2008) (Figure 10) is a 3D single
channel music video by the Icelandic singer/mul-
timedia artist, Bjrk. In the video, she carries on
her back a mud figure cloned from herself. Bjrk
occasionally supports, caresses, and tangles with
Figure 9. Victoria Vesna and Siddharth Ramakrishnan,
Hox Zodiac, Taipei. 2013, fiberglass, stainless steel
cable, felted human hair and wool, silicone, robotics,
clothing, dimensions variable. Image provided by
MOCA Taipei.
Figure 11. Elizabeth King, What Happened. 1991, single
channel video, 1 min 34 sec, in collaboration with
Richard Kizu-Blair. Image provided by MOCA Taipei.
7
Conversations with Daniel Lee in his studio in Taipei on 25 June 2013.
92
the mud figure, signifying an entangled journey
and adventure without end.
Other works that center on the artists own
body are What Happened (1991) (Figure 11) and
Bartletts Hand (2005) by Elizabeth King, both
of which are stop-motion animations on 35mm
film. They project images of a handmade wooden
figure resembling the artists own countenance.
The two works demonstrate great delicacy and
sensitivity, as if breathing life into the wood by
showing its imitation of human movement and
behavior. Botanica Series (2008) (Figure 12) by
Janaina Tschpe is a meditative work based on
the form of the female body. By placing balloons
Figure 10. Bjrk, Wanderlust. 2008, 3D single channel
video, 7 min 39 sec. Image provided by MOCA Taipei.
Figure 12. Janaina Tschpe, Botanica Series. 2008, C-
prints, 50.8 x 61cm, 26 Pieces. Image provided by
MOCA Taipei.

filled with water in various natural settings
as if to create a secluded landscape, the work
forms a new kind of ecosystem. With a number of
unknown objects echoing the shape of embryos,
this work addresses issues such as the body,
landscapes, sex, and death.
Gender is another motif of the Post-humanist
Desire show. My Baby (2013) (Figure 13) by Ane
Lan features a video in which the artist cross-
dresses as a female nurse, working on a medical
procedure and singing a Norwegian folksong in
celebration of the unborn baby. Ane Lan raises
questions about artificial reproductive methods
and how we address modern concepts of repro-
duction, especially for homosexual couples. The
piece was created in a poetic manner with Ane
Lans composed lyrics and performance. Lan
Figure 13. Ane Lan, My Baby. 2013, single channel
video, 6 min 25sec. Image provided by MOCA Taipei.
Volume 1 | Issue 3 | July 2014
indicated that singing/chanting relates to his
heritage of Nordic traditions from the Viking age
(Turner, 2010). The fact that Lan is a man dress-
ing up as a woman to create his/her work has
embodied the artist himself/herself as a post-
human, who challenges the normality of sexuality
in society.
Another transvestite artist, Phil Sayers work Re-
turning the Gaze (2013) (Figure 14) is composed
of two parts of photographs: one half-naked
woman of the right side of the image exposing
her breasts and looking seriously at the audience,
while on the left side, three women dressed in
sexy lingerie also look directly at the audience
(the viewers). According to Sayers, the woman
on the right side was diagnosed with breast can-
cer and after having gone through the surgical
procedure of removing one of her breasts, she
decided to re-look at her body by posing herself
in the work 8 . On the left side of the work, with
a cigarette in his right hand, Sayers is dressed
in black womens clothing, wearing high-heeled
shoes and black underwear. Sayers and the other
two women in the image look as if they could be
three beauties, such as are regularly portrayed
throughout art history. Returning the Gaze ex-
presses the artists gender identity conflict by
showing his physically male body and his identity
as a female. The work also addresses issues of
the natural and the artificial, the male and the fe-
male, and the young and the old. Sayers performs
Figure 14. Phil Sayers, Returning the Gaze. 2013, gicle
print, 110 x195cm. Image provided by the artist.
93
 International Journal of Cultural and Creative Industries
a feminine masquerade in the photographic im-
ages, which question past and present culturally-
imposed gender stereotypes from a contempo-
rary feminist perspective9. Sayerss images in this
series of works resemble those of the goddess-
like cyborg delineated by Haraway.
Shell (2013) (Figure 15) is a series of six black-
and-white photographs by Ritty Tacsum referring
to the deconstruction of gender identification in
post-humanist desire. It also points to the post-
humanist interpretation of androgyny and gender
ambivalence. This responds to Haraways view
that the cyborg itself deconstructs established
genders. These photographs depict naked bod-
ies immersed in nature, including rocks, water,
weeds, and other settings. The contradictory
textures between the bodies and the natural ele-
ments become the strength of this series. Tacsum
deliberately hide the faces of the people in the
work, which dilutes their individual identities
and which means that the bodies themselves be-
come the absolute subject, depicting androgyny
and mixed sexuality.
In this exhibition, the only work that documents
real life is Beyond the Flesh (2013) (Figure 16)
created by Kevin Ryan. Beyond the Flesh is a
series of videos and photographs that documents
Figure 15. Ritty Tacsum, Shell. 2013, C-prints, height:
100cm, 6 Pieces. Image provided by MOCA Taipei.
8
Interview with Phil Sayers in Barrow upon Soar, UK on 26 July 2012.
9
Please refer to Sayers statement on his website, http://www.philsayers.co.uk/.
94
the street carnival in Notting Hill, London, in
2013. The work illustrates how carnivals can
reveal human desire. Ryan described this piece in
his paper delivered at the symposium in conjunc-
tion with the exhibition at MOCA Taipei on 24
November 2013, stating that: Our human and cy-
borg sexual identities boldly shift in many ways.
In this work I wanted to show and share the
socio-graphical and technologically altered real-
ity of an aspect of human sexual behavior (Ryan,
2013). With boisterous and unrestrained music,
exaggerated and flamboyant costumes, and danc-
ing bodies in public spaces, the work materializes
the maximal energy and force of human desire
and bodies.
In the book Our Posthuman Future (2002), Fran-
cis Fukuyama raises concerns about the potential
negative impact of the commercialization of
biomedicine. With Visible Human Project (VHP),
Catherine Waldby discusses how biomedical
techniques examine the human body and further
codify and digitize the same; she also discusses
how biomedical sciences influence human beings
in both medical and non-medical aspects (Waldby,
2010). Thus, the concept of the post-human is
also associated with medical topics. This exhibi-
tion features the topics of psychology, neurology,
and medical biology. Works by Jane Prophet re-
Figure 16. Kevin Ryan, Beyond the Flesh. 2013, C-
Prints, 60 x 90cm, 36 pieces. Image provided by MOCA
Taipei.

call her personal experience of being stalked by a
schizophrenic patient for over twenty years. She
describes the motivation of creating this piece,
explaining that,
Over the course of 25 years I have been the
unwilling recipient of hundreds of letters,
ranging in length from two words, to almost a
hundred pages long. All have been written to,
and about, me by a delusional stalker diagnosed
as suffering from psychosis (2011, p. 85).
The stalkers letters became the sources of inspi-
ration for her work. In these works she tries to
put herself in the state of mind of that patient, and
through artistic expression, attempts to release
the sense of oppression rooted in her experience
of being stalked for so many years. Prophets
work is composed of four pieces, Bad Hand: leave
me alone (2013), Manifestations (2013), Taking
Your Hand (2013) and Second-skin (2013) (Figure
17), all of which can also be seen as one whole
piece of work in her allocated space in the gallery.
Bad Hand: leave me alone is a multi-media instal-
lation that consists of an old scruffy desk, a chair,
a desk lamp and a projected image of writing. All
of the objects for this work were collected in Tai-
pei by Prophet herself. Bad Hand: leave me alone is
Figure 17. Jane Prophet, Bad Hand: leave me alone,
Manifestations, Taking Your Hand and Second-skin.
2013, multi-media installation, dimensions variable.
Image provided by MOCA Taipei.
10
Artists statement to Ming Turner via email, 10 April 2013.
11
Ibid.
Volume 1 | Issue 3 | July 2014
inspired by Emma Hauck, the allegedly psychotic
patient of a European psychiatric institution and
her penciled letters on which she wrote over and
over again the words Sweetheart, Come until
each single piece of paper became a dense layer-
ing of text10. Second-skin was presented via two
garments which act as a fetishistic surrogate
for the wearers own skin11. When introducing
Second-skin, Prophet stated that these two gar-
ments were produced according to her memory of
what the stalker was wearing when, many years
ago, she was grabbed from behind by the man. A
fear of the stalker can be seen in this piece and,
to some degree, it has become part of Prophets
therapy to help her overcome the trauma she suf-
fered earlier in her life.
Struck (2005) (Figure 18), a multi-channel video
and sound installation, by Anna Munster and
Michele Barker questions the imbalance of power
between doctors (subject) and patients (object)
within the medical system. Struck questions
whether medical imaging devices and the data
collected from diagnostic equipment can indeed
help patients and doctors to understand health
conditions. The installation of Struck seems som-
ber and gloomy, and comprises three projections
with blurred and monochrome images of moving
bodies, doctors clinical notes, and the patients
Figure 18. Anna Munster and Michele Barker, Struck.
2005, 3-channel video, 10 min 19 sec. Image provided
by MOCA Taipei.
95
 International Journal of Cultural and Creative Industries
own words, which illustrate the complexity of
feelings surrounding neurological disorders
(Turner, 2013). The work also presents MRI im-
ages of the brain; again, a digitized body.
Semi-Living Worry Dolls (2000) by Oron Catts and
Ionat Zurr consists of seven human-shaped dolls
created through the process of the self-repro-
duction of biological tissue. With these biotech-
nologically reproduced dolls, the work responds
to the idea that human beings can create other
organisms or quasi-organisms using technology
in a post-human society. The work also evokes
ancient Indian myths from Guatemala, giving it a
strong narrative. The Hypersymbiont Dress (2013)
(Figure 19) by Anna Dumitriu constitutes a life-
F i g u r e 19. A n n a D u m it r iu , T he Hy per s y mbiont
Dress. 2013, fiberglass, stainless steel cable, felted
human hair and wool, silicone, robotics, clothing,
dimensions variable. Image provided by MOCA Taipei.
96
size dress stained with bacteria which has spread
and formed beautiful colors and patterns. It ad-
dresses the inseparable, correlative relationship
between humans and bacteria.
3. VISUALIZING POST-HUMAN
Long before the terms Post-human and cyborg
had even been coined, artists, philosophers,
aut hors, and scient ist s have imag ined and
interpreted the phenomena in diverse, compli-
cated, and multiple ways. Examples include the
mechanical bird in the fairytale The Nightingale
(1844) by Hans Christian Anderson, the monster
in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein (1818), and the
robots in Isaac Asimovs science fiction novels.
Undeniably, the evolution of technology is still
an integral part of our interpretation of post-
human issues today. This exhibition displays the
artists interpretations of various aspects of the
Post-human, including the transformation of
the human body (mixed with organisms, robots,
or nature), the deconstruction of gender duality,
the representation of the impact of biomedicine
on our lives, among others. These interpretations
form the artists insights and documentations of
the complex idea of the Post-human. As tech-
nology takes our lives to a completely different
level, the interpretation of the various Post-
human phenomena in visual art will undoubt-
edly become more diverse. The realization of this
curatorial project serves as a visual format that
manifests the complexity of the Post-human.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express most appreciation to the
Director of MOCA Taipei, Jui-Jen SHIH, who was
fully supportive of the project from as early as
April 2011 when he first listened to my proposal.
I would also like to thank Taipei Culture Founda-
tion for their generous funding, with which I was
able to realize the exhibition.
 Volume 1 | Issue 3 | July 2014

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