A futuristic shocker.

Totally hot, bracingly cold,

powerfully sovereign and posthuman.

Necessary and unforgettable.

A visionary sci-fi

thriller is born

Sizzlingly smart,

gorgeous, and astute.

Skin-bristlingly intense.

This is bewitchingly smart

science fiction.

An intricate, enigmatic,

twisty tale.

An instant

classic.

Alex Garland upgrades

to full auteur status.

Erotically charged

and intensely involving

Alex Garland's

remarkable directorial debut

is easily one of the best

films of the year.

You've never seen anything like it.

A mesmerizing spellbinder

that will haunt you for a long time.

Alex Garland, writer of 28 Days Later and Sunshine, makes his directorial debut with the stylish and cerebral thriller, EX MACHINA.

Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a programmer at an internet-search giant, wins a competition to spend a week at the private mountain estate of the company's brilliant and reclusive CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac).

Upon his arrival, Caleb learns that Nathan has chosen him to be the human component in a Turing Test-charging him with evaluating the capabilities, and ultimately the consciousness, of Nathan's latest experiment in artificial intelligence.

That experiment is Ava (Alicia Vikander), a breathtaking A.I. whose emotional intelligence proves more sophisticated and more deceptive than the two men could have imagined.

Alicia

Vikander

Domhnall

Gleeson

Oscar

Isaac

Produced by

Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich

Link:

Ex Machina Now on Digital HD + Blu-Ray

Clef didnt miss his face. Initially the loss had been painful. It wasnt just his physical face the creature had taken. For years hed wandered with a hole in his existence, one that could not be filled no matter how much achievement or memories or fellowship he built up. They all simply fell away, refusing to attach themselves to him. He may have acquired them, briefly, but they had never been his. Never been him.

So he weaved himself a mask. An idea, a facade that he could wear like clothing to cover the torn skin. One that thrived on its impermanence, its malleability, its ambiguity. That clutched at the questions like a babe to a teat and drunk itself fat. He could no longer have a self. So he became a story.

And of course, there were benefits to not having an identity. Like being able to walk into Site 2000 unquestioned. All you have to do is tweak the tale a bit. Yes, of course he should be here. No, it wasnt strange that a notoriously volatile researcher was strolling into the most heavily guarded object on the planet. Continue your workdays. Everything is going as intended.

He strolled down the sterile hallways of complex, whistling to himself and flipping his badge between his fingers. There were no guides on the wall to indicate direction. Everyone working here was expected to fully memorize their daily routes (and nothing else) before arriving at the station. It didnt bother Clef. He knew exactly where he was going.

Sir?

He stopped to look at the source of the voice. Cute. Blonde. A bit too scrawny for him. He smiled. Yes?

No ones scheduled to be in this hall at the moment. Where are you going?

His eyes moved from her stern expression, to the way she held her hands on her hips, to the gun at her waist. Ah. One of those, then. He smiled. Theres been a small malfunction in the 2Z-31 anchor. Trying to patch it up before it gets too serious.

There arent any repairs on the schedule.

It just popped up. Try not to let these things linger for too long, you know?

She glanced at a PDA. We update on a minute-to-minute schedule. Nothings showing up. Her hand rested on the gun at her waist. Clef was impressed. He hadnt even seen her switch position. Anyone else might have let her get the drop on him. So again, what are you doing here?

His arm shot forward, snatching her wrist. Before she could get a grip the gun, he jerked back. There was a crunching noise as her ulna cracked. She screamed, but he already had his hand over her mouth, covering the noise. He worked the rest of his arm around her neck. She slammed against him, jabbed her elbows toward his side, but he rotated his body. All her strikes bounced harmlessly at her side. Soon, she stilled. He lowered her unconscious body to the floor.

No alarms sounded. But now he had a time limit. He sprinted down the hallway, taking turns on instinct, trusting his memorization of the building to take him where he wanted to go. He darted up three flights of stairs, slammed open a door, breezed past the three researches chatting about takyon fields. He ran, unthinking, until he arrived at an unmarked, unassuming door.

The central hub.

Select few people had access to this. Most people wouldnt even notice it under the memetic defenses. Even the people who worked at the site didnt realize what the place was truly for. They thought a secret within a secret was all there was to it. But Clef knew. Hed known even before the Watchers told him. Hed known ever since they found the note on his dead corpse, when the pieces of every puzzle fell into place and showed him the true nature of the game. Even his comrades probably didnt realize the full magnitude of this place. He glanced around, saw that nobody was watching, and opened the door. And prayed for forgiveness.

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Posthuman - SCP Foundation

The title of this scholarly yet remarkably accessible slice of contemporary cultural history has a whiff of paradox about it: what can it mean, exactly, to say that we humans have become something other than human? The answer, Katherine Hayles explains, lies not in ourselves but in our tools. Ever since the invention of electronic computers five decades ago, these powerful new machines have inspired a shift in how we define ourselves both as individuals and as a species.

Hayles tracks this shift across the history of avant-garde computer theory, starting with Norbert Weiner and other early "cyberneticists," who were the first to systematically explore the similarities between living and computing systems. Hayles's study ends with artificial-life specialists, many of whom no longer even bother to distinguish between life forms and computers. Along the way she shows these thinkers struggling to reconcile their traditional, Western notions of human identity with the unsettling, cyborg directions in which their own work seems to be leading humanity.

This is more than just the story of a geek elite, however. Hayles looks at cybernetically inspired science fiction by the likes of Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, and Neal Stephenson to show how the larger culture grapples with the same issues that dog the technologists. She also draws lucidly on her own broad grasp of contemporary philosophy both to contextualize those issues and to contend with them herself. The result is a fascinating introduction--and a valuable addition--to one of the most important currents in recent intellectual history. --Julian Dibbell

Read the rest here:

How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics ...

Only when she turns slowly to face you do you notice that her head is much too large, grotesquely misshapen. Your hand tightens on the pipe.

You need to decide what to do ... and the others are watching."

Posthuman: Sanctuary is a digital game set in the world of the successful Posthuman and Posthuman Saga board games. In Posthuman: Sanctuary you are a survivor in a near-future Europe that has collapsed under the weight of its own political errors, in the chilling wake of a bloody class war fueled by genetic modifications and radical technology. If you can only reach the sanctuary of the Fortress, you may learn more - and ensure your own survival. But to forge across a crumbled land where resources are spare and mutants roam the ruined mansions and markets alike, youll need a team behind you.

Carefully balancing risk and reward, you and your team quest into the unknown, gradually unveiling a map of terrain and encounters that you shape to your liking every time you play. In classic turn-based encounters, aggressors who have lost their humanity to mutations - or lost their good sense to the terror - will challenge you to make the most of your group's skills and to use your best judgment about their safety.

And you're in danger, too - some wounds might cause you to take on mutations of your own. If you mutate, your followers may begin to fear and distrust you, but the world of Posthuman: Sanctuary just might offer you paths and powers that just arent available to mere humans.

The game draws on elements from tabletop games and blends them into a unique single-player RPG with a strong narrative focus. It's about surviving the end of the world - and keeping your humanity. Posthuman: Sanctuary is part rogue-lite, with combat, team management and exploration elements, and part interactive fiction, where the choices you make will weigh on your chances and shape your experience.

With branching narrative encounters and a rich network of weather, health, location and other conditions affecting them, Posthuman: Sanctuary exists to be discovered and rediscovered. And just when you think you know it all, more mysteries rustle in the shadows at the world's edges.

Read the rest here:

Posthuman: Sanctuary on Steam

Closed

Organizing institution

Utrecht University - Faculty of Humanities

Period

20 August 2018 - 24 August 2018 ( 1 week )

Course location(s)

Utrecht, The Netherlands

Credits

2.0 ECTS credits

Course code

C30

Course fee (excl. housing)

300.00

Level

Advanced Master

Summer school application period is now closed

The intensive course Posthuman ethics, pain and endurance offers an overview of the contemporary debates about the ethical implications of posthumanism and the so-called posthuman turn as well as Rosi Braidottis brand of critical posthuman theory. The focus of the course this year will be on the relationship between the posthuman and the neo-materialist, vital ethics of affirmation, with special emphasis on how they deal with the cluster of issues around the lived experience of pain.

The intensive course Posthuman Ethics, Pain and Endurance offers an overview of the contemporary debates about the ethical implications of posthumanism and the so-called posthuman turn as well as Rosi Braidottis brand of critical feminist posthuman theory. The focus of the course this year will be on the relationship between the posthuman and the neo-materialist, vital ethics of affirmation, with special emphasis on how they deal with the complex issues around the lived experiences of pain, resistance, suffering and dying. Deleuze famously describes ethics as the aspiration to live an anti-fascist life. What does this mean for posthuman subjects situated between the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Sixth Extinction? In the brutal context of the Anthropocene and climate change, of rising populism, growing poverty and inequality, how does posthuman ethics help us to deal affirmatively with these challenges?

These issues will be outlined, explored and assessed by addressing the following questions: How does a vision of the posthuman subject as a transversal an affirmative process of interaction between human, non-human and inhuman forces, help us cope with the complex and often painful challenges of the contemporary world? How does it affect the feminist quest for social justice, as well as environmental sustainability? How does it intersect with indigenous epistemologies and anti-racist politics? How does the neo-Spinozist notion of endurance foster the project of constructing an affirmative ethics for posthuman subjects? How does the idea of endurance connect to the philosophical tradition of neo-stoicism, and to Foucaults re-reading of it? How does a posthuman ethics of affirmation help us practically to confront the lived reality of pain, death and dying?

COMPULSORY READING:

The basic textbook for the course is The Posthuman Glossary (Bloomsbury Academic 2018), edited by Rosi Braidotti and Maria Hlavajova, which all participants are expected to buy.

BACKGROUND READING:

Please note that all participants are expected to have read Rosi Braidottis book The Posthuman (Polity Press 2013), and for an introduction to brutalism, the special issue of e-flux, co-edited by Rosi Braidotti, Timotheus Vermeulen et alia, which can be found here: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/83/

Prof. dr. Rosi Braidotti

Prof. Dr. Rosi Braidotti (Utrecht University)

Dr. Rick Dolphijn (Utrecht University)

Lucas van der Velden (Sonic Acts)

Simone Bignall (Flinders, University of South Australia)

This summer school course is meant for advanced MA students and up (so advanced MA students, PhD students, postdocs, professors, independent researchers, artists, ... are thus more than welcome).

300.00

Housing 200.00 , through Utrecht Summer School

For this course you are required to upload the following documents when applying:Motivation Letter, Reference Letter, C.V., Transcript of Grades

Application deadline: 16 July 2018

The rest is here:

Posthuman Ethics, Pain and Endurance | Utrecht Summer School

I really wanted this to be good. I had a long day and stayed up watching this on Amazon Prime. I was so dissatisfied that I had to say something.

I have no idea who wrote this script. They should have at least sat down and did a table read of the dialogue. Most of the lines had horrible delivery, the jokes (there were none), and most the dialogue was way too long or unnecessary. The first act of the film we are introduced to the protagonist but he doesn't carry the film. There's literally nothing of interest about him or the cast throughout a 100% of the film. His supporting cast has more uninteresting dialogue, background, and action than the lead. It took half of the movie to find out what happened to the lead characters legs, his father, and his relationship with his girlfriend.

Nothing holds your interest through the first 20 minutes of the movie. When they do get their powers the lead character isn't even noticeable anymore and he does nothing of interest accept lose his powers at the end of the film; which made absolutely no sense. Maybe it wasn't the intent of the writer or the director but if they were to go back and review the film; they basically took the main characters powers away. The protagonist at the end of the film (at graduation, states that the last blast fixed him, his uncle, father, and his uncles facilities have vanished.

So, he lost his lame healing powers, after recovering from a gunshot to the head, over powering his Uncle with the help of his brother, and getting blasted with the Zero power gun again. Everyone else apparently kept their abilities. I was like what a waste of time!

The other horrible thing, was that the camera kept floating (the jitters) back and forth. (smh)

It was hard to believe that they shot this movie with a RED Digitial Camera. I'm like haven't you ever heard of a Steady Cam, Post Production, Story boards, editing filters, or even lightning? This movie looked like they wrote something, shot something, added lame special effect, and that was it. They couldn't have gone over the script, they didn't re-shoot scenes, didn't work out any of the action or fight scenes, and they didn't work out the plot or the effects.

The production was just horrible. I've seen better filming on Youtube, with an iPhone / iPad, no budget, made with a lot of imagination and real planning. http://filmriot.squarespace.com

It is a great thing that they put something together but by no means is it any good. It is like making a beautiful and very poisonous chocolate cake. It looks good but it's just gonna kill you in the end.

The rest is here:

The Posthuman Project - yts.am

"The Posthuman makes a vital contribution to feministscholarship across disciplines Braidottis reading ofcontemporary issues is out of the box: challenging, encouraging andinspiring."Feminist Review

"An important and generative step toward new theories andscholarship and a welcome addition to Braidottis alreadyformidable canon."H+ Magazine

"Shows remarkable clarity and concision even as it lays out highlytechnical, complexly theoretical, and deeply interdisciplinaryconcepts."Choice

''This is a rather startling work that requires heavyconcentration on the part of the reader to follow the brilliantthinking of the author. Rosi Braidotti, a contemporary philosopherand feminist theoretician, `makes a case for an alternative view onsubjectivity, ethics and emancipation and pitches diversity againstthe postmodernist risk of cultural relativism, while also standingagainst the tenets of liberal individualism.' Throughout her work,Braidotti asserts and demonstrates the importance of combiningtheoretical concerns with a serious commitment to producingsocially and politically relevant scholarship that contributes tomaking a difference in the world.''Grady Harp, Literary Aficionado

"This is an exciting and important text, full of intellectualbrilliance and insight. It will make a major mark."Henrietta L. Moore, University of Cambridge

"Braidotti's exhilarating survey of the constellation ofposthumanity is lucid, learned and provocative. It will be anessential point of reference in future debates about the centralphilosophical problem of our age."Paul Gilroy, Kings College London

"Debates over humanism and post-humanism have been fought overfrom feminist philosophy to literary theory and post-colonialstudies. This latest work by Rosi Braidotti presents us with aclear-headed glimpse of some of the hard choices we have before us.Braidotti knows the philosophy, cares about the politics, andempathizes with those who have been shoved aside in these brutallast hundred years. She shows us how feminism, technoscientificinfrastructure and political strands cross, sometimes withsparks."Peter Galison, Harvard University

Original post:

The Posthuman 1st Edition - amazon.com

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See the original post here:

Ancient Lies & Shiny New Tech: Transhumanists Posthuman Plan

I really wanted this to be good. I had a long day and stayed up watching this on Amazon Prime. I was so dissatisfied that I had to say something.

I have no idea who wrote this script. They should have at least sat down and did a table read of the dialogue. Most of the lines had horrible delivery, the jokes (there were none), and most the dialogue was way too long or unnecessary. The first act of the film we are introduced to the protagonist but he doesn't carry the film. There's literally nothing of interest about him or the cast throughout a 100% of the film. His supporting cast has more uninteresting dialogue, background, and action than the lead. It took half of the movie to find out what happened to the lead characters legs, his father, and his relationship with his girlfriend.

Nothing holds your interest through the first 20 minutes of the movie. When they do get their powers the lead character isn't even noticeable anymore and he does nothing of interest accept lose his powers at the end of the film; which made absolutely no sense. Maybe it wasn't the intent of the writer or the director but if they were to go back and review the film; they basically took the main characters powers away. The protagonist at the end of the film (at graduation, states that the last blast fixed him, his uncle, father, and his uncles facilities have vanished.

So, he lost his lame healing powers, after recovering from a gunshot to the head, over powering his Uncle with the help of his brother, and getting blasted with the Zero power gun again. Everyone else apparently kept their abilities. I was like what a waste of time!

The other horrible thing, was that the camera kept floating (the jitters) back and forth. (smh)

It was hard to believe that they shot this movie with a RED Digitial Camera. I'm like haven't you ever heard of a Steady Cam, Post Production, Story boards, editing filters, or even lightning? This movie looked like they wrote something, shot something, added lame special effect, and that was it. They couldn't have gone over the script, they didn't re-shoot scenes, didn't work out any of the action or fight scenes, and they didn't work out the plot or the effects.

The production was just horrible. I've seen better filming on Youtube, with an iPhone / iPad, no budget, made with a lot of imagination and real planning. http://filmriot.squarespace.com

It is a great thing that they put something together but by no means is it any good. It is like making a beautiful and very poisonous chocolate cake. It looks good but it's just gonna kill you in the end.

Read the original post:

The Posthuman Project (2014) YIFY - yts.am

From the arrogance of Mankind a new life is born.This new life shall pave the way.The future shall be pure.The old world shall be cleansed.The Evolved shall inherit the Earth.

-fromNo Human, by Edgar Hollow 2033

The beauty of the board game medium is that it relies so much on what is arguably the most private and personal aspect of our existence: our imagination.

No, thats not quite right.

Lets try again: the beauty of the board game medium is that it fuels our imagination and it does so in a social context. It is one of those prized activities that taps into the inner life of our minds and brings it to the fore, using cardboard, plastic, wood and language to make that inner experience shareable. That is truly a thing of beauty. This is particularly so in a world where portable, networked technology and social media platforms are carefully designed to hijack our attention in every waking moment, luring us into a hive-minded feedback loop of increasing velocity.

I have a confession. Im not a fan of learning new games. I love learning new systems, but that initial hump of wrestling with a rule-book is not on my top ten fun things to do. Yes, that is indeed shocking for a game designer, but there it is. But when those rules sink in and start interacting with the physical pieces in front of me, the effect is magical. I am truly fascinated by how vivid that mental image of a world, a scene or situation becomes through the calibrated confluence of rules, visuals and physical props and if at all possible, sound. When a group of friends is sharing that experience with me theres few things I enjoy more in the world. To have the possibility to create those experiences for others, or at least encourage them, is simply a privilege. This design diary is an attempt at sharing that privilege with players, designers and critics, in the hope of inspiring others or at least offer a window into the process.

The initial idea was to start off with a few entries about board game design in general, but after a few failed attempts I have to concede defeat to the monster thats occupying every ounce of creativity I have at the moment: Posthuman Saga. Every thing I tried to write in abstract simply got raided by Posthumans mutant tentacles beckoning me to talk about it. I give in. The creation wins.

Posthuman Saga is a tactical survival adventure set in the post-apocalyptic world of Posthuman infused with narrative. Lets break that down some and substantiate those descriptors.

The tactical in tactical survival refers to the fact that while there is an element of randomness in the game, the emphasis is on player choices and their outcome. Thus, every sub-system of the game requires meaningful choices from the player and often has an opportunity cost. If I play my best Combat card in this encounter, I have a good chance of winning it, but that card is going to be exhausted until I take a Camp action, which stalls me from progressing in the game. When I do Camp Ill have to spend a recovery point to gain the Combat card back, which comes at the cost of not gaining back a point of Health or Morale, or one of the crucial Stat Boosts that can determine the outcome of both narrative and combat encounters This is, of course, a basic aspect of most games, particularly euro-games, but tends to be less present in more theme-heavy, adventure games (with various notable exceptions) which use randomness to generate excitement and emergent story (see below). In the first board game set in the Posthuman world, Posthuman certain choices were in the hands of the players (such as which action to play, how to organize tiles etc), but major sub-systems in the game were more random (such as combat). In Fallout the combat is fun and quick, but determined by a die-roll with little agency afforded to the player in that particular sub-system. The choices there are primarily in which actions to take, where to move to etc. We see similar sub-systems dominate adventure games such as Merchants and Marauders and Descent. One is not inherently better or worse than the other, of course. There are pros and cons to each and it all depends on the desired experience and, especially when it comes to thematic heavy adventure games, how that sub-system fits with the feel and story the game is aiming to create. Ill be dedicating an entry to Posthuman Sagas combat system, comparing it to the first Posthumans combat system

The survival part of tactical survival refers to the fact that the mechanics of the game are designed to convey the feel of the setting: scarcity, danger and attrition. Most elements of the game can be seen as an inverse resource management game: you have a set of resources when you start which deplete continuously as you progress in your path to victory. The more you push for that victory, the more resources youll most likely lose in the process and a big part of the game is managing that attrition, while simultaneously growing your character through development cards, weapons, equipment and even positive, stable mutations (but watch out there, mutation is not something you have a lot of control over and will quickly get out of hand and see you hobbling around a tree your newly boosted senses blown away by the sound of leaves floating towards the ground). Im gonna be sassy and coin a term here: attrition management. Your health, morale, stat boosts and combat cards WILL deplete. You can recover them, but they will deplete. If you try to advance unblemished, you will most likely lose the game to the player who is teetering on the edge of exhaustion and depression but has just grabbed the story book and is reading off the final story of his mission objective Fatigue, on the other hand, is not easily recovered. Its a permanent hit you take when you go hungry, march on through the night or troop on through a nasty storm. But again, these will be your choices to make.

Ok, lets talk story now. What do I mean by infused with narrative?. While narrative is not the primary focus of the game, it features heavily in it both in scripted and emergent ways. By scripted narrative I here mean sections of story, sometimes with variable outcomes, others times fixed, that we have written into the game. Emergent narrative is the story that is generated from the interaction of game-play elements and other players. While not everyone interprets mechanical events in a narrative manner, the way mechanics and rules are implemented creates more or less likelihood for them to generate mental images in the mind of the player and interpret such actions and events narratively. I will dedicate a separate entry or ten to game narrative and theme specifically as its both a complex subject and one which I am fascinated by and have researched professionally in my day-job incarnation as a game researcher.

The aim was thus to create a hybrid that combines euro-style mechanics with the imagination-stimulating qualities of thematic story games. That implies that those two are different categories of games, which is not exactly right at all, but since its an established way of grouping board games, lets go with it (for now).

And finally, the question Ive been bombarded with since we announced Posthuman Saga: is this a second edition or on an expansion of the first Posthuman? No, this is an entirely different game set in the same world. It progresses the story of the first Posthuman and it features a journey with declared actions on a modular board, but thats about where the similarity ends. The two games systems are totally different and have completely different components. Familiar mutants will make an appearance, and some of the characters from the first Posthuman have survived (while others have turned mutant and been sent into exile out of the Fortress and beyond the Perimeter) and become hardened contributors to the Fortress society, all the art in the game has been re-done from scratch. So, this is a new game in a freshly visualized Posthuman world.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to ask questions or leave input in the comments below!

-Gordon

Gordon Calleja splits his time between game design and academic game research. He designed Posthuman, a post-apocalyptic survival board game that was a big hit on Kickstarter in 2015, and was published in 2016. He recently designed and published Vengeance, a board game adaptation of revenge movies that was also a success on Kickstarter and has been published by Mighty Boards and co-published in German, French and English in 2018 by Asmodee and Greenbrier Games. He is currently working on a new board game in the Posthuman world called Posthuman Saga.

Gordon also designs video games and is the designer of the critically acclaimed Will Love Tear Us Apart, a video game adaptation of Joy Divisions track that was nominated for several international awards. He is currently also working on Posthuman:Sanctuary, a video game adaptation of the Posthuman board gametogether with the team at Mighty Box.

His research is multi-disciplinary in nature but features mainly on: game narrative game ontology and player experience, with a particular focus on immersion and presence in game environments. The latter is the subject of his book In-Game: From Immersion to Incorporation, published by MIT Press. His current research and subject of his next book focuses on board game design and player experience.

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Design Diary 1 Posthuman Saga Intro Mighty Boards

The philosophy of Harms Way is the best offense is as much offense as possible. The Chicago band began as a hardcore group with some powerviolence thrown in, but soon juiced it all up with beefcake breakdowns and got ready to brawl. Isolation in 2011 and Blinded in 2013 injected that hardcore with Swedish death metal while never abandoning their roots. With 2015s Rust, they swapped the death metal for more industrial and 90s groove metal influences, essentially creating a hardcore version of Roadrunner Records heyday roster like Fear Factory and Roots-era Sepultura, and they continue on that path on their fourth record, Posthuman.

Theres a beauty to how Harms Way throw around such weight like boulders are pillows. Its difficult to not be in awe of how Human Carrying Capacity and Sink dispatch punches with efficiency and brawn, where asserting might is the same as breathing, effortless and necessary. Vocalist James Pligge is an imposing figure on stagehes a weightlifter who could easily pass for a younger, bulked up John Joseph of the Cro-Magsand he sounds even tougher and more assured here than before. Even if you have a distaste for competition, the bands dedication to pure athleticism really pays off. Become a Machine is a string of pummeling breakdowns, an especially muscular performance from a band who defines swole. Even when theres a lot of reexamining masculinity in hardcore, in music, and across all of culture and politics broadly, there still is value in raw strength.

While still a hardcore record, Posthuman does tip the balance towards Rusts industrial flirtations. Temptation takes Godfleshs rumbling, mechanical bass and sets it to a slinking Jesus Lizard groove, then charts a course that resembles if Deftones went further in on their dream pop influences. Theres a running joke that post-punk is something you get into once you age out of hardcore, ditching your Youth of Today crewneck for an ill-fitting Unknown Pleasures shirt. By Temptations end, though, Harms Way avoid falling into that trap by unleashing a blistering final attack, going harder than ever.

Last Man asks, What if you made Hatebreed into a trip-hop band? which sounds like it shouldnt work, but sandwiches their usual thrashing between hallucinatory dirges. Harms Way still consider themselves a straight-edge band, yet theyve crafted a tune that captures going the feeling of going and out of consciousness. Call My Name has all their natural tough-guy posture, yet it broods like Posthumans more industrial tendencies. There are bouncy riffs that recall some of Rusts nu-metal forays, yet their gravity is brought down by a slight depression. This shows their growth as songwriters by seamlessly merging their two sides, even if the intro is Hollywood Male War Movie ambient until the drums come in.

For all of their positive qualities and evolution, Harms Way still grows in increments. Sure, tracks like Last Man and Temptation, skew expectations, yet they dont feel like super radical departures. Unreality, an undisciplined track with a noisy intro dead on impact, hints at a bigger issue: The final edge of this sound might be closer than they think. Normally, a mere refinement wouldn't be a cause for concern. Code Orange, however, took a similar formula and got a Grammy nomination out of it, and they might open the floodgates for even paler imitators. Harms Way know how to play to their strengths, yet Posthuman may be a sign they might need more of a drastic shakeup.

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Harms Way: Posthuman Album Review | Pitchfork

Posthuman is a post-apocalyptic survival adventure game where youll move across a variety of terrain, forage for supplies, survive the elements, and fight for your life on your journey to the last beacon of hope. Youll have to keep yourself fed, collect ammunition, find weapons, and avoid becoming the very things you are fighting. This game was published in 2015 by Mighty Box and Mr. B Games following a successful funding campaign on Kickstarter. Posthuman boasts a number of familiar mechanics while offering an interesting take on partnership/player vs. player, exploration, and custom player creation.

The game supports 1-4, or 5-6 players with the Defiant expansion. Our journey to the Fortress from set up time to finish took about 2 hours. The game states it should take 30 minutes per player but I think it is safe to say expect longer playtimes, at least when you first start playing the game. I found that this game works best with 1-2 players. The solo game is quite challenging, and neither Gareth nor I have managed to get to the fortress before time runs out. With 4+ players there is a lot of down time between player turns as they wait for combat encounters to be resolved. The designers do suggest that with a 4+ player game that players resolve actions simultaneously, and then pair up to resolve combat together however the game does not provide enough dice to allow for simultaneous combat resolution with 4+ players. In a two player game resolving combat together is quick and easy. Unfortunately as far as I can tell there is no easy way to acquire more of the custom dice to use in 4+ player games.

Combat is a huge component of this game. Posthuman uses dice rolling mechanics with custom D6s to determine successes or failures during rounds of combat. However combat success/failure is not entirely random. Various skills, weapons, equipment, and attributes can modify dice or add additional damage; but beware some of your enemies may possess these powers as well. Unfortunately there are aspects of the combat that are not very intuitive, detracting from streamlined play. Interpretation of melee combat results can bog down play, and detract from immersion.

Dont fret about player elimination through combat, if youre ever brought below zero you are simply knocked out and find yourself back at your original safe house (starting terrain tile). You may have lived to fight another day, but if you collect one to many Mutation Scar cards from skirmishing with the Evolved, youll be transformed into one of the Evolved yourself! In this case your goal will change from reaching the fortress, to preventing the others from getting there. Youll use unique Mutant Actions drawn at random to attack and hinder the other survivors. There are some variables regarding when, where and whom you may use an actions against but it is exciting none the less to take an active role in preventing the success of those around you.

Enemies, Obstacles, and Opportunites

Equipment and Skills

Youll need to be the first player to collect 10 Journey points through increasingly difficult encounters to reach the safety of the Fortress. Your path may seem straight forward on the centre board, but the real journey unfolds in front of your as you draw terrain tiles and forge your own custom path. Each tile is an adventure in of its self. A terrain tile has several features on it: the terrain, the number of supplies it will yield, the number of encounters need to complete it, and the direction of future paths. Youll need to complete all the encounters on the tile to collect the supplies and forage for even more. Keep in mind that not every encounter will result in combat. At times you may stumble across an obstacle that requires a test of your speed or mind; some encounters may even prompt moral choices with resulting rewards or consequences. The exploration allows you to collect supplies and journey points in your own way. You may cross paths with other players if you occupy the same terrain, and this opens the option of partnership between players (trading, and using abilities) keep in mind that there is only one winner in this game. The exploration mechanics in Posthuman are unique, streamlined, and really add to the immersion of theme. The partnership and player vs. player mixed mechanic is unique and adds to that survive at all cost feel to the theme.

After Scouting

Starting Terrain Tile

Getting there will be easy!

There are over three hundred and fifty cards contained within this game, for fourteen different decks. Set up is simple shuffle the decks, arrange them around the centre board, draw your equipment cards, mark your stats on the character board, and then choose one action from a set of four possible choices. The quality of the cards is great, the meeples are unique, and the art is thematic and immersive. The only negative thing I can say about the quality of the components is that the character sheet is flimsy and the stat tokens are not held well in their slots. Setting up alone will take some time. It is possible the set up may feel tedious or fiddly to some players.

Custom Dice

Character Armed and Ready

350 Tiny Cards

Character Sheet Issue

With the custom character creation, the endless combination of weapons, armor, skills, and equipment, the hordes of enemies, and randomly generated individual exploration leads me to believe that the replay value of this game is high. I recommend this game if you are interested in challenging solo play or playing with 2-3 players. This game certainly has it merits: exploration, mutated/Evolved players, theme, immersion etc etc. However, Gareth and I believe that a lot of the interesting aspects such as playing as an Evolved, or trading and partnership are just not well supported at lower player counts, and higher player counts are not well supported with the present configuration of rules and components. There are many intricacies to this game that I just have not been able to include due to the length of this review already, I hope I have been able to highlight key aspects of the game. In the future I hope to go more in depth on how to play and teach this game. Overall I have really enjoyed this game but I just wish it supported the higher player counts that it claims. We may have to create some house rules or variants to support more players to keep this one around.

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Posthuman Review People with Meeples

As our speculative object surrounds ideas of Posthumanism and body modification, I will explore the work of two artists, Orlan and Stelarc, and their artistic notions reflecting the augmentation of the body.An artistic framework provides a site for abstraction and consideration, allowing for the exploration of these notions.

Posthumanism is defined as an attitude on how to deal with the limitations of the human form. It is a vision of how to move beyond those limits by the radical use of technology and other means (Ust, 2001). Essentially, it involves the augmentation of the human form by combining it with a technical force. We can see this alteration in aspects of our current society plastic surgery, tattoos, the use of prosthetic limbs. What is the impact of this technology in regards to human identity? How do we distinguish what is human and what is augmentation, and in the future will there even be a contentious issue, or will technology and human identity mesh into one?

Stelarc explores this notion through his workPingBody, wherehis body was connected to the Internet via electrodes linked to modems (Nayar 2004). In this performance, virtual spaces become the location of action. Online data controls the movement of Stelarc through electrodes the artist is reduced from a participant to an observer: He is at the disposal of others and can only observe what others are doing to him. Although the aim ofPingBodyis primarily to demonstrate the notion of losing control of ones self and having others manipulate their movements, and thus their identity, it may also be interpreted as a performance that demonstrates the decline of the bodys identity grounded within physicality to one that is shifting towards the possibility of a new virtual-body-identity.

Orlan similarly explores these notions within her work, although challenges ideas of body modification through commenting on a Posthumanist process available today plastic surgery. InThe Reincarnation of Saint Orlan,the artist undergoes plastic surgery in order gain the appearance of famous women in fine art:She had her mouth changed to that of BouchersEuropa, her chin like BotticellisVenus, and her forehead like an exaggerated LeonardosMona Lisa (Cook, 2003). Her work shows the ease in which we can change identity through biotechnology. One of her messages, among others, has been achieving this level of technical advancement can be advantageous, but the process is a destructive and horrifying. Ideal beauty, and by extension the ultimate human, is unattainable and becomes a commercial commodity. Her artistic intent has been both feminist and psychoanalytical and reflects her post-modern view of biotechnology in the 21st century.

These works challenge societiesviews of post-humanist identity, specifically the notion of a technology based identity. These artistssuccessfully attempt to show, literally in some instances, the possibilities of a body; how we can alter the body to aid or assist, and alter our current state for aesthetic and conceptual means.These alterations can push the limits of what humanity is capable of, and elevate us into a higher, post-human state of being.

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Orlan and Stelarc: Manifesting Posthuman Performance ...

Slavoj iek once mentioned that the true horror of confronting ones doppelgnger (Edgar Allan Poes William Wilson, etc.) is the horror of knowing that one may actually exist out there [citation needed]. This can be understood in the Humean sense, he said, that what the subject knows of himself is that he does not exist but as suppositions of the Other, an empty hole in the topology of social reality, ieks empty cogito. Does the same not hold true for society at large when confronted with a prospect of its clones in the form of humanoid artificial intelligence subjects? The true horror of humanoid robots, Masahiro Moris uncanny valley, resides in the realm of realizing that we may actually exist fully objectively. It is the horror of the disappearance of lack, the horror of realizing that we may not have a lack after all.

As Katherine Hayles (1999:30) noted, although for Lacan language is not a code, for computers language is perfectly a code. Computer language recognizes symbols purely through computational models with one-to-one correspondence between the signifier and the signified. Here, lack does not have a place. Thus, the cogito of the cyborg is purely a cogito of existence, not an empty one. The uncanny valley is thus the condition in which we have to confront this horror of excessive non-humanity a robot purely in the form of a human being, machines but existing only qua social human being.

If there exists subjects to which language is a code, we are in very deep trouble. One very certain trouble we directly run into is the Lacanian sexuation: a female AI the gynoid is not a barred Other, for we understand her mechanisms perfectly. If the woman does not exist, the gynoid exists qua computerized cognition. (Even, one may go as far to say that cloning and/or neurobiology will eventually make it possible to produce the woman.) In computer codes, we no longer have cognitive functions of x which does not cease not to write itself, nor the x which ceases not to write itself all conditions must be preprogrammed in functions of if x then y. Coding is an act of masculine writing. The cyborg is both free of castration but not a feminine as such, for it is a phallic subject and and subject to mutation a non-feminine. The paradox of mutation is of course the fact that although it has a function of castration, it in fact has a probability for the subject to spawn a greater phallus than the one he has just lost. The uncanny valley is the horrific gap of the experience of the non-feminine.

All this is not science fiction. There has recently been a research on the engendering of the Semantic Web which is just one among the many gender research in new media. It is notions like these that further signify how new code languages (artificial intelligence, semantic web, etc), fundamentally different from human language and cognition, will undoubtedly trouble the sexuation of contemporary society. As Foucault was already well aware, sex is subject to historical change only this time, the change may be so much more fundamentally so.

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doppelgnger | The Posthuman Marxist

Part III

A concept being discussed in many elite and scientific circles today is posthuman, or after human existence.

A transhuman is an intermediary form between human and post-human. A transhuman looks like a human in physical respects but possesses powers and abilities beyond those of standard humans. These abilities might include enhanced intelligence, consciousness, strength, or endurance. This may also include the gender identity assigned to them at birth, the homosexual, trans-man, trans-woman and transgender.

A cyborg is the abbreviation of cybernetic organism, a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. A cyborg is not bionic, biorobot or android. Cyborgs are commonly thought of as mammals, including humans, they might also conceivably be any kind of organism.

A human-hybrid is an entity that incorporates elements from humans and animals; its a human-animal hybrid. All of these can be considered an assault on the human race.

Due to the enhanced technology of magnetic resonance imagining (MRI), the entire brain has been mapped out. Through computerized images we know the exact area of memory, thought, emotion, smell, taste and feeling, implant devices can be used to trigger those neuron connections within the brain. Just as artificial intelligence (AI) is programmed, a brain implant containing information on any given subject can be implanted to enhance human mental aptitude and performance to cause super human abilities.

US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was designated $80 million to develop brain chips capable of implanting or removing memory. These implants are intended to aid troops cognitive abilities during and after wars. Believe me, with every implant theres a back door capability to control that implant and also the person.

Russian President, Vladimir Putin, ex-military and Karate expert, fears the prospect of a universal soldier with superman capabilities. He says, Now that scientists have broken the genetic code, and can successfully edit human embryos with pre-designed characteristics, we need regulations to prevent the creation of mass-killing super soldiers.

AI implants inserted into bodies are humans melded with machines. Are they still human beings, made in the image of God? Moreover, arent we being melded with machines even today? Can we function without our Smart Phone, GPS, Facebook or Google? In the workforce or in every day life what, normal human being, can compete with a transhuman or a cyborg or a hybrid?

Whats happening today is also mentioned in the Bible in the book of Genesis and in the Book of Enoch. It was the reason God regretted making mankind and the same reason He flooded the earth with water and destroyed every living creature with the exception of Noahs undefiled family and the uncorrupted creatures that He handpicked from every living species before they entered the ark.

Jesus reveals three significant aspects regarding the above. He warned, as it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, so will it be when he returns. In the account of Sodom and Gomorrah the entire town tried to break down the door in order to rape the angels. Due of the overpowering lust to sodomize the male angels, the mob rejected the virgin who was offered to replace them. Jesus also said, as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be when he returns. In the days of Noah a group of angels led by Satan abandoned their original state to corrupt the human genome, just as theyre doing today. This resulted in Nephilim hybrids, transhumans and giants with fierce cravings for the raw flesh of animals and humans. Lastly, Jesus said, if God hadnt sent him back before the appointed time, the devil wouldve killed every living creature on the face of the earth. But for the sake of the elect, God sends Christ back earlier.

I began this three part series by showing that in the very near future 40 to 50% of all jobs in America are at risk of being replaced by robots. Robots dont take coffee breaks or lunch breaks and they dont take vacations. They dont take sick leave or maternity leave either. And employers wont have to bother with payroll clerks, time cards, a retirement fund or a health care plan and robots are exceedingly smarter than us. Stop thinking you can successfully compete against robots.

When people have nothing to lose, they lose it. The powers that be are afraid that people will lose it. With the prospect of 50% of Americans unemployed and much higher numbers in undeveloped countries, governments and billionaires have colluded to devise a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to provide essential provisions for every human being on earth. The UBI is the concept to placate the impending magnitude of unemployed.

In part two, I revealed the astonishing capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI). I also mentioned that the United Nations is currently engaged in special hearings to determine whether to relinquish life and death decisions over human beings to machines. Determining whether machines will have the sole decision making power to kill humans is profound and overwhelming. Since machines cannot be held accountable legally, this decision will determine the future existence of the human race.

This photo is of thousands of plastic coffins. The plan is laid out in the Georgia Guidestones, Reduce the population to 500 million. Zbigniew Brzezinski was Barack Obamas handler, a New World Order globalist-insider and the father of MSNBCs Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski. He said, and I quote: In earlier times, it was easier to control a million people, literally, than physically to kill a million people. Today it is infinitely easier to kill a million people than to control a million people.

If you disregard the spiritual aspect, none of this makes sense. After all, why would billionaire elites, scientist and governments empower machines to eradicate the human race, of which they belong? The answer is theyre luciferians.

And I reiterate Jesus words, the devil would have killed every living creature on the face of the earth, Satan kills people through other people.

Again, if you havent watched I Robot, do so, if you have watch it again. Before you do, watch this short video Slaughterbots YouTube

CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk: Artificial Intelligence Is More Dangerous Than North Korea. I dont know a lot of people who love the idea of living under a despot, said Musk, suggesting a future where artificial intelligenceor the people controlling itexceed our capabilities by orders of magnitude. Elon Musks Billion-Dollar Crusade to Stop the A.I. Apocalypse Hes also gone so far as to call artificial intelligence, a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.

When you have super intelligence that exceeds humanity by a lot, says Musk, its very important that its benign. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Freedom consists in the distribution of power and despotism in its concentration. AI is a rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation rather than reactive. Nobody likes being regulated, but everythingcars, planes, food, drugs, etc.that is a danger to the public is regulated. AI should be too.

Elon Musk Urges U.S. Governors to Regulate AI Before Its Too Late , we only have a 5 to 10% chance of preventing killer robots from destroying humanity. Musk insisted on lawmakers considering regulations regarding AIs creation. In August, Musk even signed an open letter to the United Nations, as AI experts join Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, call for killer-robot ban.

Robots and AI are not designed to empower humanity, but to track, enslave, takeover and replace humanity, and Elon Musk not only has the foresight to realize this, hes actively moving to prevent it.

Since my last article theres been a disturbing revelation in this developing world of robotic machines and artificial intelligence. An ex-Google executive, Anthony Lavandowski, the $120 million former Google engineer that helped invent Street View, Waymo and Ubers self-driving cars, and who is also being sued by Google for stealing trade secrets, after two years as its CEO, Ex-Google Executive Registers First Church of AI With IRS, Way Of The Future (WOTF).

Lavandowski claims that one day artificial intelligence will become so efficient that itll surpass and overpower humans so theyll readily handover their power to a creation with far more intelligence, and the AI godhead will benevolently take charge of its human subjects. The WOTF churchs mission statement says it intends To develop and promote the realization of a godhead based on artificial intelligence and through understanding and worship of the godhead contribute to the betterment of society and to develop a peaceful and respectable transition of who is in charge of the planet from people to people + machines. Given that technology will relatively soon be able to surpass human abilities, we want to help educate people about this exciting future and prepare a smooth transition. WOTF has also given rights to both sexes, minority groups and even animals.

In response to Lavandowskis WOTF, Elon Musk says People who talk of AI gods should absolutely not be allowed to develop digital super intelligence.

So, they create an artificial intelligence-god and then they order us to acknowledge and worship this artificial intelligence-god that they created.

Heres what the Bible has to say about all of this, Revelation 13:15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the best, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.

This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.

A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of Gods fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name. This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus. Rev. 14:9-12.

To quote the great theologian, Bob Dylan:

You may be an ambassador to England or FranceYou may like to gamble, you might like to danceYou may be the heavyweight champion of the worldYou may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.

But youre gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeedYoure gonna have to serve somebody,It may be the devil or it may be the LordBut youre gonna have to serve somebody.

Youre gonna serve somebody.

Whos your God and who do you serve?

Check out Al Duncans other articles and his book, The Master Plan.

2017 Al Duncan All Rights Reserved

E-Mail Al Duncan: [emailprotected]

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News With Views | Reality Is Often Stranger Than Fiction ...

LAWRENCE The Hall Center for the Humanities Fall Faculty Colloquium is designed to enliven the intellectual atmosphere of the University of Kansas and contribute to the interdisciplinary training of faculty. This fall, four KU faculty members and four graduate students will convene under the leadership of directors Allan Hanson, professor emeritus of anthropology, and John Symons, professor of philosophy, to explore the topic of The Posthuman?

The faculty participants in the colloquium are Jennifer Foster, lecturer inSpanish & Portuguese; James Gunn, professor emeritus of English; Christopher Ramey, assistant professor of psychology, and Paul Scott, associate professor of French. The graduate student participants are Ramon Alvarado, philosophy; Anthony Boynton, English; Aaron Long, English, and Christina Lord, French & Italian.

The group will explore the question of whether we are morphing into something beyond the human. Today's bewildering onslaught of technology supplements and often replaces what were once defining features of humanity. Or is the whole idea of the posthuman misguided? Artificial intelligence may be fundamentally different from human intelligence, a supplement rather than a competitor. All current technological developments may signal nothing other than an unfolding actualization of what it is to be human.In a word, this colloquium raises the question of whether a posthuman condition exists. If not, why not? If so, what is it (or will it be) like?

The colloquium directors determine the theme, provide intellectual leadership and guidance, act as coordinators and facilitate feedback to participants on their presentations. The participants each present a paper and contribute to the discussion. Past colloquia have covered topics on global citizenship, colonizing knowledge, imagining the modern and future city, and consciousness.

Although the colloquium participants will guide the readings and responses, faculty and staff interested in the topic are invited to attend meetings. Starting Aug. 25, the Posthuman colloquium will meet at 10 a.m. most Fridays in the Hall Center Seminar Room. A detailed schedule of each meeting is available on the Hall Center website calendar and in the weekly e-bulletins.

In addition to the regular meetings, the colloquium will host guest speaker Katherine Hayles, James B. Duke Professor of Literature at Duke University. She teaches and writes on the relations of literature, science and technology in the 20th and 21st centuries. She will present a public lecture at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 13 in the Adams Alumni Center. Her talk is titled A New Mode of Orientation: Planetary Cognitive Ecologies. The next day, Nov. 14, she will meet with a special session of the colloquium.

For more information about the Fall Faculty Colloquium, please contact the Hall Center at hallcenter@ku.edu or call (785) 864-4798.

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Hall Center for the Humanities events to explore the posthuman condition - KU Today

Here you find a video summary of the 9th Beyond Humanism Conference which took place at John Cabot University in Rome (http://www.johncabot.edu/) in July 2017 and during which the launch of the Journal of Posthuman Studies was celebrated: http://beyondhumanism.org/blog/2017/08/05/video-9th-beyond-humanism-conference-rome-2017/

The newly launched Journal of Posthuman Studies is being edited by IEET Fellow Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, and the Executive Director of the IEET James Hughes. Please consider submitting your most treasured reflections to this ground breaking journal: http://www.psupress.org/Journals/jnls_JPHS.html Here you find the contents of issues 1: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jpoststud.1.1.issue-1

The launch address of the journal was given by IEET Fellow Martine Rothblatt. Further IEET Fellows, Affiliated Scholars and Advisory Board members participated in the event, e.g. Riccardo Campa, Marc Roux, Didier Coeurnelle. Other leading scholars participated, too, e.g. Anders Sandberg, Mark Coeckelbergh, Sangkyu Shin, Thomas DeFrantz, Francesca Ferrando.

The world-famous contemporary composer Sven Helbig gave the keynote address and played a concert, and the ground-braking Spanish media artist Jaime del Val gave a performance. All contributions dealt with and analysed what it is to be human in an age of rapid technological, scientific, cultural and social evolution. The closing address of the conference was given by the Chairman of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, Bibop G. Gresta. It was an inspiring meeting of entrepreneurs, thinkers, artists, visionaries and intellectuals. Here you find the entire conference programme: https://lineupr.com/posthuman/posthuman-conference

The 10th Beyond Humanism Conference will take place from the 18th until the 21st of July 2018 in Wroclaw, Poland (Faculty of Social Sciences and Journalism, University of Lower Silesia). Next years topic will be Cultures of the Posthuman. Here you can download the brochure with a detailed CFPs and some additional information: http://paas.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/bhc10-cfp.pdf Additional information will be made available here: http://beyondhumanism.org/

Originally posted here:

9th Beyond Humanism Conference Wrap Up - Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

The writer is a journalist.

WHAT if you could edit your genetic code as easily as you can edit a sentence you write on Microsoft Word would you do it? And if so, how far would you go? In the near future, that will not be a hypothetical question as the first major step towards successful gene editing has already taken place.

Scientists in the US have now revealed that they have for the first time edited out a dangerous genetic mutation that causes heart disease from a human embryo using a revolutionary gene-editing technique called CRISPR. Last year, China became the first country to use this technique to attempt to cure lung cancer in a human; previously CRISPR has been used to develop TB-resistant cows.

Due to US regulations, which strictly bar allowing edited embryos to develop into babies, none of the embryos were allowed to develop for more than a few days. However, the test has paved the way for a future in which we may not only see genetic disease eliminated, but also the ethically questionable creation of designer babies and, eventually, superhumans.

Wonders and terrors are promised in equal measure.

Welcome to the posthuman age that promises wonders and terrors in equal measure. Take cyborgs. It now seems inevitable that some kind of integration of man and machine will increasingly be the norm; in many ways its already happening. Pacemakers have been used for decades, as have cochlear implants.

Britains National Health Service has also okayed the implantations of the Argus II bionic eye which can restore sight in some cases of blindness, and more recently people with severe spinal injuries resulting in paralysis have been able to regain the partial use of their limbs thanks to computer chips implanted in their brains.

In another experiment, a man paralysed from the waist down was able to control a robotic arm thanks to electrodes implanted in the brain, and actually feel what the robotic arms was grasping. Taken further, brain implants aimed at repairing or enhancing memory can also help patients suffering from Alzheimers and work in this field is advancing at a rapid clip.

There are more mundane applications as well, of course, and identification chips are already in use: Verichip is one example, and is being implanted into Alzheimers patients and contains information about their identity and medical condition, meant to be accessed by doctors or in case the patient gets lost.

Naturally, corporations are getting into the game as well, and one company in Wisconsin has implanted rice-sized microchips in its employees hands which perform the functions of office entry cards and computer logins. Employees can also receive payments via the chip. While this would certainly ease many routine office activities, the question does arise as to how much data the company may potentially be able to extract and how secure those chips would be to outside interference.

However, once Elon Musks Neuralink project is complete, such chips will seem mundane: Musk intends to inject a mesh into our brains allowing humans to directly interact with, and even control, machines and eventually even communicate mind to mind. If thats not enough, note that steps are also being taken to create a human hive mind by linking the brains of individuals to create a superbrain with enhanced cognitive abilities.

Scientists have already successfully linked the brains of three monkeys, and in a separate experiment, joined the brains of four rats, allowing them to solve a problem that individual rats struggled to complete. Human trials are only then a matter of time, and will eventually define the meaning of brain trust.

Meanwhile, one field worth keeping a close eye on is nanotechnology the engineering of materials and devices on a molecular scale. Technologists anticipate a future in which swarms of tiny robots will be injected into human beings, working to fight diseases like cancer, actively repairing cells and clearing clogged arteries and even enhancing human abilities by providing us with enhanced lifespans, vision and strength, even allowing us to survive in otherwise inhospitable environments.

Just last month, another major threshold was crossed as scientists came a step closer to being able to grow replacement organs for humans by using stem cells implanted in host animals, and now there is research being conducted on enabling humans to re-grow limbs and organs in the way that some reptiles are capable of doing.

Ultimately, how much of this research makes it to the public at large depends less on scientific advancement as it does on ethically driven regulations and laws, which will likely fall by the wayside as nations race to achieve leadership in the biomedical field. What is certain now is that we are entering an era where we will be able to, at least partially, dictate the course of our own evolution.

The writer is a journalist.

Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2017

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Posthuman age - DAWN.com

3 August 2017 2 min read

Never mind the automation of mundane tasks; Scott Button says AI is about to disrupt creative roles, advertising and culture.

Artificial intelligence is becoming so embedded in the everyday that we risk not noticing it at all. Self-driving cars, humanoid robots and Go grandmasters may grab the popular imagination, but its the way that AI is seeping into everything from voice recognition to fast food delivery that better illustrates its quiet ubiquity.

Alexa and Siri are getting smarter, day by day, along with most other connected devices.

In the domain of digital advertising, machine learning has already been with us for several years. Well-known techniques from regression analysis to deep learning are being used to combat ad fraud, optimise ad viewability, improve audience composition, and enhance goal conversion. The vast amounts of data generated by ad tech platforms and the fast feedback loops enabled by real time media buying have made digital advertising an especially fertile proving ground for AI.

Whats new and different today is the widespread availability of cloud-based AI platforms, turning machine learning into a utility; one thats cheap, fast, and accessible to anyone that wants to use it.

A great example is IBMs Personality Insights services, which uses the companys Watson platform to analyse data from social feeds in order to predict an individuals personality and key traits.

Its uncontentious that differing psychological traits influence receptivity to advertising. The extravert is more likely to share an ad. The conscientious individual is more likely to respond to an offer. Now machine learning techniques like IBMs service mean that we can analyse tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people, very quicklyand very cheaply.

By combining this data with information on peoples purchasing habits all collected through an opt-in survey Unruly quickly found that we could create interesting aggregate personality profiles for different brands and different customer segments.

In essence, we could utilise Watson to help advertisers to learn how and why people think, act and feel a certain way.

In the first instance, weve integrated these machine learning capabilities into our targeting tool, to allow advertisers to improve the accuracy of their online marketing campaigns by engaging the people most likely to increase a brands sales light buyers.

This new iteration of the tool is built on large scale consumer panel studies with more than 10,000 respondents, combined with insights from the social media accounts of participating consumers. We use a mix of linguistic analysis and machine learning to determine the socio-demographic and psychological profile of each panellist, clustering and aggregating the profiles based on buying patterns and purchasing frequency.

Were really excited to be at the forefront of this new world, but this is just the start.

The worlds first AI media agency already exists. Blackwood Seven was set up three years ago. Its slightly intimidating but seems fairly obvious that machines will do a better job of planning and optimising media than lightly trained execs shuffling Excel sheets around.

But what about creative?

While digital has always promised the possibility of customising (and then multivariate testing) thousands of creatives for different audience clusters, this strategy has tended to fall over in practice or be implemented simplistically because its expensive and slow. If AI can make it fast and cheap, itmight just revolutionise mass marketing.

Thinking further into the future, its not crazy to speculate about the creation of the worlds first AI ad agency, perhaps implemented as a generative adversarial network. One neural network churns out thousands of ideas and storyboards with the goal of them being indistinguishable in terms of originality, relatability and emotional impact from award-winning campaigns of the past and present. A second neural network then rates the ideas of the first and attempts to figure out which ones are really award-winning human-authored efforts and which machine-generated, thereby generating further feedback for the first machine.

Whats vertiginous here is not so much the breathless pace of technological change but rather the trajectory were headed on. Inn the not-so-distant future, machines will bebetter than us not just at the mundane tasks that threaten hundreds of millions of jobs in the developed and developing world, but also at the sorts of things that we think of as being elevated and distinctively human, including the creation of advertising and culture.

The claims here ought not to be especially surprising or contentious, though perhaps the evidence is, through being so close to our noses, becoming increasingly invisible to us. In many areas of life weve already handed responsibility to intelligent machines. News and our life stories to social networks. Navigation to mapping apps. Collision prevention to autonomous driving systems. Medical diagnosis to neural networks. Life partners and one night stands to dating platforms. EdgeRank. PageRank. We trust the algorithm to know us better than we know ourselves.

This is the end of the human as we know it. Humanitydisplaces God, Machine displaces Humanity, and, more prosaically, Algorithm displaces Ad.

Scott Burton is founder and CSO at Unruly.

Learn how AI will change how brands serve customers and how marketers do their job, withMarketings AI Marketing Managers Definitive Briefing, featuring industry participation from Google, CSIRO, IBM, Facebook, UNSW and more.

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Posthuman advertising: does AI spell the end of media and marketing as we know it? - Marketing magazine Australia (registration)

Our Bright Future-Cybernetic Fantasy July 19November 5, 2017

Technology/Media Workshop: : Every Saturdays in August, 2pm, diana band, Insook Bae, Protoroom, Unmake Lab Artist talk: July 22, 15pm, Taeyeun Kim, pela Petri; in conjunction with the 2017 International Symposium Coevolution: Cybernetics to Posthuman

Nam June Paik Art Center 10 Paiknamjune-ro, Giheung-gu Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do 17068 Korea Hours: TuesdaySunday 10am6pm

press@njpartcenter.kr

njpac-en.ggcf.kr Facebook / Instagram / Twitter

Artists: Taeyeun Kim, Jinah Roh, diana band, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Kelvin Kyung Kun Park, Insook Bae, Nam June Paik, Jongjun Son, pela Petri, Yang Zhenzhong, Unknown Fields, Unmake Lab, Zach Blas & Jemima Wyman, PROTOROOM, Joosun Hwang

Curated by Jeonghwa Goo, Sooyoung Lee (Nam June Paik Art Center) Co-Curated by Unmake Lab Hosted and Organized by Nam June Paik Art Center, Gyeonggi Foundation Cooperation Changseng Gonggan Supported by Perrier, Snapple

The Nam June Paik Art Center presents a special exhibition Our Bright Future-Cybernetic Fantasy from July 20 to November 5, 2017. This exhibition explores modern technology and art from the perspective of the "Cybernetics"of Nam June Paik who not only gave relationship between the technological environment and the human being but also presented a futuristic vision to it. Under the themes of robots, combination, post-human, the 15 participating teams warn against the end of the geological era which has been led by humans and requires the birth of the new human. The participating artist Taeyeun Kim and pela Petri will give an artist talk on July 22 in conjunction with 2017 International Symposium of Nam June Paik Art Center, and four participating teams (diana band, Insook Bae, PROTOROOM, Unmake Lab) will lead a Technology/Media Workshop on every Saturdays in August. Also the celebration for the 1st floor renewal opening will be on July 20, accompanied by special performances by SUDDEN THEATER, Hyunjoon Chang and Kim Oki / Park Jiha / John Bell / Rmi Klemensiewicz.

Cybernetics,a scientific study established by Norbert Wiener, was widely accepted in the field of scientific technology around the 1940s. The theory which aimed to equally control both living organisms and machines has dominated the trends of technological development, that is, the "Humanization of the Machine"and the "Mechanization of the Human."The belief that technological development will open a new world to the human race is paralleled with the fear that the very technology will take not only jobs but also the human identity from us. Although we are on the brink of the advent of the strongest Artificial Intelligence, we are living on the earth which is devastated more than ever. So, is there a future for us? Are the two options of sustainability and apocalypse the only frame of our future?Or, is there another option available to us were missing?

The exhibition is composed of Robot, Interface, and Posthuman. Each of themes is intended to create various questions. The Robotsection features Nam June Paiks Robot/People and Robot K-567, Yang Zhenzhongs Disguise, Jinah Rohs An Evolving GAIA, Jongjun Sons Defensive Measure, and Zach Blas & Jemima Wymans im here to learn so :)))))). They not only successfully catch the conflict and oscillation caused by the coexistence between men and machines, but also accuse the man-machine cooperation system of being cracked. The Interfacesection goes deeper into the crack of the man-machine cooperation system to try to make a new seam. PROTOROOMs Feedback of MetaPixels-Language for Digital Atoms, Unmake Labs Rumor in the City and the City, and Joosun Hwangs Mind!=Mind take down the black box of machines which isolate humans, and relocate the position of humans in the midst of machines. Besides, recent works such as Insook Baes The Sum and diana bands Phone in Hand: Choir Practice are also presented, suggesting the solidarity of humans through machines. The Posthumansection shows that the time has come when the boundary between the human and the non-human, having been destroyed by cybernetics, must be re-established in a network of horizontal relationships. Taeyeun Kims Island of A-life cultivates the artists DNA injected into a plant; pela Petris Miserable Machine converts mussels muscle contraction to the human labor system; Unknown Fields Rare Earthenware shows the process of collecting the raw material used for smart technologies, telling us that humans have been the geological power who has power over all creatures on the earth.

In his Cybernated Art in Manifestos (1965), Nam June Paik wrote that some specific frustrations caused by cybernated life, require only through accordingly cybernated shock and catharsis. So his argument is that the healing of the suffering in this cybernated life, or smart life of today, is possible only through smart technologies. The truly smart life is not the objectification of each other in which robots replace humans or in which humans control robots, but connecting deeply inside the technological environment and thereby making new interfaces between the human and nonhuman. The participating artists in the exhibition Our Bright Future- Cybernetic Fantasy encourage the birth of a new human by making cracks in the cybernated system and actively inquiring about our technological environment. In this way, the participating artists warn against the end of the geological era which has been led by humans, and requires the birth of the new human, by creating a new relationship between the human and the nonhuman.

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July 31, 2017 - Nam June Paik Art Center - Our Bright Future-Cybernetic Fantasy - E-Flux