Transhümanizm Kavramı İçerisinde Değişen Beden Fikri ve Sanatta Yeri

Abstract

This Master of Arts Thesis Report focuses on the reflection of changing body perception with the concept of Transhumanism in contemporary art. Throughout history, human beings have produced various thoughts through their bodies, sometimes finding their bodies lacking, harmful, useless, and sometimes glorifying their bodies. he main reason for these sharp changes in body perception is usually sociological events. On the one hand, events such as epidemics and wars remind people how fragile their bodies are, while on the other hand, as in the Renaissance, people have glorified their bodies as they wanted to see them. The report focuses primarily on understanding and discussing the concept of Transhumanism, and examines the concepts of hybrid, Humanism and Posthumanism, which are influential in the development of Transhumanism, respectively. Therefore, the origin of the hybrid concept is given in the first part of the report. While examining this concept, various cultures’ mythologies are included and the hybrid bodies of mythological characters are described and the meaning of these mythological hybrid characters for humans is discussed. In the second chapter, the concepts of Humanism and then Posthumanism are investigated. While examining how these concepts affect society and their relationship with each other, their counterparts in art are explored with examples. At the end of the chapter, these concepts are linked to the concept of Transhumanism. The third chapter details the concept of Transhumanism. First, the sociological events and technological developments that play an important role in shaping the concept of Transhumanism are discussed. Then, the relationship between human body and technology is questioned and assumptions are reached. Contemporary artists who produce art through similar inquiries are exemplified in this chapter. The final chapter explains the artistic productions made in light of the information obtained throughout the research. The order of the produced works reflects the transformation process from identifiable bodies to undefined bodies. The works start with specific human limbs and end with undefined appearances that feel like human skin but do not have body integrity. This situation refers to the effects of Transhumanism understanding on the body and the transformation process.