• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.125-138
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• 2021

This paper analyzed the body images of the posthuman characters in digital games and the nomadic subjects formed through gameplay. Nomadic Subject is the subject with a complex and non-single identity that appears as a posthuman identity. The player experiences posthuman subject directly in the process of controlling characters. Body images of posthuman characters are categorized into three types that imitate idealized bodies, deform the bodies through articulation, and extend the bodies through equipment. The player builds ethical identity by making choices under the constraints of the game.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.83-94
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• 2019

This paper analyzed the posthuman features of the open-world adventure game. These games represent the player character as Posthuman Subject through the restrictions of information and body. The player explores all of the spaces to perform the quests due to nonlinearity of open-world. The interactions are restricted conflicts and it reveals through gameplay. The experiences as Posthuman Subject allow the player to embody the Hybrid Subjectivity and think about coexistence of human and inhuman.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.145
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• pp.45-69
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• 2018

This is an attempt to reflect on humanity in the post-human era. Here, I think that the question of future human beings should be critically raised in the following two meanings. First, can post-humans recover the body, emotions, nature and women's voices suppressed by modern enlightened subjects? Second, can post-humans preserve humanity by fighting inhumanity without presupposing human essence or immutable foundations? In answer to these questions, I will have a dialogue with M. Heidegger(1889-1976), W. Benjamin(1892-1940), Th. W Adorno(1903-1969). The three philosophers looked at the inhuman world situation brought about by modern subjects and technology, and found the possibility of new human beings. The three philosophers' new human image are the three possible models of post-humanism, 'a human being as ek-sistence' (Heidegger, Chapter 2), 'the man who restored the similarity with the other through innervation' (Benjamin, Chapter 3), 'A human being who negates the inhuman society' (Adorno, Chapter 4), and examines the current status of each. In conclusion, as long as the fourth industrial revolution is developed as a system of digital capitalism that controls the world as a whole from human senses, impulses, and unconsciousness, the necessity of the post-human era is aesthetic authenticity.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.95-102
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to seek a new understanding of human beings by examining, through the various types of futuristic humans in SF narratives, the changes of human condition and identity, raised by the discussion on the posthuman today. The rapid development of science and technology blurs the line between humans and machines, predicting the birth of the 'new human posterior to the human'. The advancement of technology enables the production of 'human beyond the biological human' through the combination of humans and machines, and humans are becoming more mechanized. On the other hand, machines are gradually developing to the stage of resembling not just the exterior body structure, but the thinking abilities and emotions of human beings. However, by colliding with the traditional view of human beings, artificial changes to the human condition as a result of cutting-edge technology demand a new perspective on the meaning of a new being and changes in human conditions. Therefore, the study examines how human conditions and perceptions have changed in accordance with the evolution of science and technology, and then explores the direction of co-evolution between humans and machines through the various types of futuristic humans that appear in the SF narratives, as well as the potential of futuristic humans as the new subject.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.50
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• pp.53-75
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• 2018

It is commonly emphasized that the metaphor of the monster is a rhetoric universally used to identify the "main enemy" of a society, for its effective function is seen as useful for the uniting of citizens to bend together to survive or succeed before the external threat. The problem of this metaphor is that it homogenizes and dehumanizes the heterogeneous individual members of the subsequently identified enemy group. This study emphasizes the importance of some traits of the posthuman subject, such as the flexibility and the multiplicity of consciousness, to overcome the otherizing binary perspective which is commonly held regarding the concepts of good and evil. To observe specific dimensions of the posthuman consciousness, we analyze three films based on Spanish history and reality: The Spirit of the Beehive, The Day of the Beast and Pan's Labyrinth. All of these films progress around the figure of the enemy-monster(s), showing how to transgress the dichotomous structure of consciousness that defines the self/good dividing it from the other/evil. The heroes in the films seek to overcome the fear about the monster, and approach him to discover new ethical horizons, that can emerge only when an individual's consciousness chooses to stay on the border between the established beliefs and the unfamiliar voice of the dangerous stranger(s).

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.49
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• pp.267-297
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• 2017

This paper attempts a close-reading of Michel Ocelot's short animation film, (1979), and proposes it as an available text in art appreciation class for young students. stimulates the students' attention and intellectual curiosity thanks to the exotic and fantastic atmosphere, beautiful mise en scene, and intriguing plot. Ocelot's technique of decoupage used in this film rejuvenates both the traditional folk art and Lotte Reiniger's early experiments in the history of animation film. Ocelot subverts the ideal of modern male adult subject as unique possessor of scientific knowledge and technology, by adopting a female figure and a young child, who is also female, as main characters. The imaginative and subversive power of animation contributes to creating posthuman beings beyond the homocentric figure of Vitruvian Man. The posthuman condition supposes that human beings have the equal relationship of continuum with not only other humans but also non-human beings like all living things and inanimate matters. In order to teach and learn the posthuman condition, it is necessary to conceive an interdisciplinary and integrated curriculum including art, science, philosophy, history, and social sciences. Animation film serves excellently as educational text for the integrated curriculum of the posthuman.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.50
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• pp.77-101
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• 2018

Even in our modern era, the projection of monsters in the recent literature contains the critical imagination of human existence for the posthuman age. The meaning of the monster-abject, especially as from the perspective of feministic criticism, contains criticism of the violent and oppressive patriarch as observed in the modern times. This article focuses on the gendered imagination of the discussions of the "abject" discussed by Julia Kristeva, and the "monstrous femine" discussed by Barbara Creed. Kim Eon-Hee's poems and Han Kang's novels, which have been examined extensively for analysis, show that the practical strategy of abject that goes beyond hate and sublime, wonder and joy through the imagination and concepts of monsters. The monster-abject strategy of Kim Eon-Hee's poem can be summarized by the narrative method of mirroring and the imagination of the truncated body. Mirroring falsification, which mimics the male speaker, is a method that some feminists strategically utilize in relation to the problem of female aversion in recent years as noted in the literature. In Kim Eon-Hee's poem, "becoming a man" and "imitating a man," through the method of mirroring appear as an image of cutting to dismantle the body. In that way, the narrative strategy of the abject that draws out abominations and bizarre effects which contains a strong critique of the patriarchal dominant ideology. The monster-abject strategy of Han-Kang's novel is embodied through the being of plants and the process of vegetarian-anorexia process. The world of the adject which was oppressed in the Han-Kang's novel, returns to the senses of the body through the symbol of the body. It is noted that the fictional characters who realize the repressed desire through the pathological symptom expressed by the female, go on to body perform active transformation. The sense of a body in a novel is not only a rejection of the world of animalman-civilization, but also a radically questioning of the noted and recognized boundaries between human beings and non-human being entities. The two writer's works show that the imagination of the monster-adject is not limited to rejecting the existing gender categories, but also goes in the direction of exploring the possibilities of various associated gender actions.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.52
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• pp.277-312
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• 2018

First-order cybernetics during the 1940s and 1950s aimed for control of an observed system, while second-order cybernetics during the mid-1970s aspired to address the mechanism of an observing system. The former pursues an objective, subjectless, approach to a system, whereas the latter prefers a subjective, personal approach to a system. Second-order observation must be noted since a human observer is a living system that has its unique cognition. Maturana and Varela place the autopoiesis of this biological system at the core of second-order cybernetics. They contend that an autpoietic system maintains, transforms and produces itself. Technoscientific recreation of biological autopoiesis opens up to a new step in cybernetics: what I describe as third-order cybernetics. The formation of technoscientific autopoiesis overlaps with the Fourth Industrial Revolution or what Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee call the Second Machine Age. It leads to a radical shift from human centrism to posthumanity whereby humanity is mechanized, and machinery is biologized. In two versions of the novel Demon Seed, American novelist Dean Koontz explores the significance of technoscientific autopoiesis. The 1973 version dramatizes two kinds of observers: the technophobic human observer and the technology-friendly machine observer Proteus. As the story concludes, the former dominates the latter with the result that an anthropocentric position still works. The 1997 version, however, reveals the victory of the techno-friendly narrator Proteus over the anthropocentric narrator. Losing his narrational position, the technophobic human narrator of the story disappears. In the 1997 version, Proteus becomes the subject of desire in luring divorcee Susan. He longs to flaunt his male egomaniac. His achievement of male identity is a sign of technological autopoiesis characteristic of third-order cybernetics. To display self-producing capabilities integral to the autonomy of machinery, Koontz's novel demonstrates that Proteus manipulates Susan's egg to produce a human-machine mixture. Koontz's demon child, problematically enough, implicates the future of eugenics in an era of technological autopoiesis. Proteus creates a crossbreed of humanity and machinery to engineer a perfect body and mind. He fixes incurable or intractable diseases through genetic modifications. Proteus transfers a vast amount of digital information to his offspring's brain, which enables the demon child to achieve state-of-the-art intelligence. His technological editing of human genes and consciousness leads to digital standardization through unanimous spread of the best qualities of humanity. He gathers distinguished human genes and mental status much like collecting luxury brands. Accordingly, Proteus's child-making project ultimately moves towards technologically-controlled eugenics. Pointedly, it disturbs the classical ideal of liberal humanism celebrating a human being as the master of his or her nature.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.133-185
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• 2021

This study is an attempt to connect television drama M, which deals with abortion issues, with theoretical focus such as materiality, relativity, and agency, to understand diffractively as an cartography of agential reality. According to Karen Barard's Agential Realism, Television drama M is a sociocultural phenomenon produced by the agential intra-actions of material-discursive apparatuses such as medical technology, ghost stories and legends, and male-affect. The 1990s repeatedly revealed "hate" through apparatuses such as technology, discourse, and affect, which are directed at women's gendered bodies. The material -discursive practice of plastic surgery and abortion proves that the agential reality surrounding the body is closely intertwined with medical technology, as well as with the genderized hate. Another related material-discursive phenomenon is rediscovery of the legend and fad of the ghost story, which is also produced from the hate of the denaturalized body, which is once again expanded and reproduced. Appearing in this environment of affect, M enacts diffraction, which is based on backlash, lacking posthuman implications for the materialization of the techno-body. M puts humanistic assumptions about "Man" as a universal definition, historically framed and defined in context. But it is not universal and it is gendered. The current time when the political turmoil surrounding medical technology, discourse, and bodily matters is violently intra-acted is the time to carefully account and respond to the alternative definitions of human beings that M has rejected.