the alien within us

"If the individual cannot take the realness, aliveness, autonomy, and identity of himself and others for granted, then he has to become absorbed in contriving ways of trying to be real, of keeping himself or others alive, of preserving his identity, in efforts, as he will often put it, to prevent himself losing his self." R.D. Laing (1965), The Divided Self.

In a world where we finally realize that madness is just a convention, created by a society that itself can be characterized by lunacy, people will feel freed to morph their bodies according to their mental self-image. For your friday night transhumanist flavours, here's the Museum of the Mad, the Macabre, and the Marvelous, featuring some fictitious creatures blurring the boundaries between the fleshly and the mechanical:



"Sir Gustav von Cancertonus [...] has disassociated feelings towards humans and feels closer along side the crustacean family. He underwent an unorthodox procedure to correct his perceived shortcomings."



"The hoax [...]. A crude and tasteless look into the imagination of man, discovered in an Old Antique Shoppe where it was used as a conversation piece."



"Aerwig Mechanism. [...] An alkaline powered amalgamation of functioning pocket watch components, tar paper, and porcelain doll parts."



"Cupid papillon ansestrous. [...] The cupid fly was found in a small remote village stricken by disease. Some suggest flies laid eggs in the departed and genes were crossed resulting in a hybrid."

Before we have found an extra-terrestrial civilization, we will probably already have become the aliens we used to project outside of us.

Useless Self-projections

'Doll Face' is an admirable, and just insanely cool, work of animation by Andy Huang. The movie and description speak for itself, and leave nothing to add for me:

"A machine with a doll face mimics images on television screen in search of a satisfactory visage. Doll Face presents a visual account of desires misplaced and identities fractured by our technological extension into the future."

So,

Are our self-projections our next natural enemies to overcome?