The exhibition is a proposal that gives continuity to the project «Human +», presented at the Science Gallery in 2011. The exhibition explores the possible future roads for our species taking into account especially emerging technologies and our cultural and ethical context. What does it mean today to be a human being? From Assisted Reproduction Techniques and incipient experiments in synthetic biology, to the possibility of perpetuating ourselves through the digital sphere, our lives are conditioned and defined by scientific discoveries and the technologies deriving from them.
«Humans +» makes inroads into the limits of what being a human being means: the limits of the body, the limits of the species, the limits of what is socially and ethically acceptable. Do we have to improve ourselves? Or must we try to modify our descendants? Are we approaching the singularity of a man-machine hybridisation, or are we losing faculties because of the increasing dependency with respect to technological extensions of the body? Is lengthening human longevity a magnificent aspiration or a terrible threat for the planet?
Some of the artistic projects included in the exhibition are: Portraits of Aimée Mullins (Howard Schatz), Oblique. Images from Stelarc’s Extra Ear Surgery (Nina Sellars), Strategies for Copy Prevention (Center for PostNatural History), The Human Pollination Project (Laura Allcorn), Tardigotchi (S.W.A.M.P., Tiago Rorke), Foragers (Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby), Area V5 (Louis Philippe Demers), Human Version (Yves Gellie), Euthanasia Coaster (Julijonas Urbonas); Optimization of Parenthood (Addie Wagenknecht), Semi-Living Worry Dolls (Tissue Culture and Art Project- Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr), Transfigurations (Agatha Haines), AfterLife (Auger / Loizeau); Misbehaving Machines (Heidi Kumao), The Machine to Be Another (BeAnotherLab) and Cyborgism (Cyborg Foundation).
