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Stefaan van Ryssen

Leonardo, Volume 37, Number 4, August 2004, pp. 348-349 (Article)

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/len/summary/v037/37.4ryssen.html

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Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia). E-mail:

<recluse@lis.net.au>.

This is a highly readable and thought-

provoking book. Pepperell’s research is

extensive and covers many quite dis-

parate disciplines such as art, technol-

ogy, culture, history and religious

politics. All these are relevant to the

posthuman condition.

Just what is meant by posthuman?

Brieﬂy, three rather different notions

apply to posthumanism. Firstly, it

means the end or demise of “human-

ism.” Secondly, it embraces a new way

of understanding that which constitutes

being human. Thirdly, it “refers to the

general convergence of biology and

technology to the point where they are

becoming indistinguishable” (p. iv).

The book expands and carefully investi-

gates these deﬁnitions. The questions

asked are profound, and the answers

provided, in some cases speculative,

delve into the deepest and most sacred

beliefs of the waning humanist epoch.

The Posthuman Condition: Conscious-

ness beyond the Brain

is challenging, and

for stalwart, recalcitrant humanists I

think it will be most confronting. Pep-

perell is not a fanatic, nor is he a table-

thumping techno-evangelist. In fact, his

approach is gentle, perhaps somewhat

understated. I was delighted in reading

this book not to have to endure the

over-enthusiastic, overly sensationalized

techno-hype that is evident in quite a

few books dealing with cyborgs, trans-

humanism and Extropianism. The lack

of techno-hype and pseudo-scientiﬁc

jargon tends to belie the extreme im-

portance and relevance of Pepperell’s

work.

This is not a manual for building

intelligent robots nor a primer for

creating a conscious (of self) artiﬁcial

intelligent entity. I believe, however,

that anyone who does not embrace the

fundamental concepts outlined in this

book will never create such entities. AI

researchers generally have grossly un-

derestimated the complexity, essential

embodiment and interconnectedness

with the environment of complex dy-

namical systems (ants, humans, plants).

Hence the failure to produce anything

except apparently smart machines.

There are exceptions to this ignorance

(and arrogance), such as the work of

Brooks et al. at M.I.T. [1], whose work I

have also drawn on and cited exten-

sively in my own research [2].

The Moody Blues created an album

in 1969 entitled

On the Threshold of a

Dream;

Pepperell’s book is about emerg-

ing from such a threshold into the

reality of a new epoch—the posthu-

man. Elements of this dream are an

understanding of existence without the

fear and prejudice perpetrated by

religious dogma, a holistic intercon-

nectedness of all living things (includ-

ing this planet), and the possibility of

subsuming the life-destroying humanist

worldview (humans as the measure and

pinnacle of all things) that has brought

us towards the brink of extinction. This

book advocates nothing less than a

major paradigmatic shift in our under-

standing of existence.

The book has an extensive bibliogra-

phy and eight chapters; Appendix II

contains “The Posthuman Manifesto.”

The chapter titles give the prospective

reader a good idea of the scope of

Pepperell’s investigation: 1. Conscious-

ness, Humans and Complexity; 2. Sci-

ence, Knowledge and Energy; 3. Order

and Disorder, Continuity and Dis-

continuity; 4. Being, Language and

Thought; 5. Art, Aesthetics and

Creativity; 6. Automating Creativity;

7. Synthetic Beings; 8. What Is

Posthumanism?

Chapter 5, especially the section

discussing good and bad art, seems

somewhat ineffectual compared with

the rest of the book. I found

Pepperell’s notion of “aesthetically

stimulating” and “aesthetically neutral”

art unconvincing (pp. 103–106). This

section could perhaps have been re-

placed with an overview of Eastern

philosophies that have had much of

importance to say about consciousness

and the nature of “the self,” which is

now being acknowledged within the

ﬁelds of quantum mechanics and cul-

tural studies (deconstruction). This is a

minor criticism, though—maybe some-

thing to look forward to in a future

edition.

Possibly the greatest contribution this

book makes to our future is the exten-

sive attempt to clarify the relationship

between us (male and female humans)

and the rest of the “stuff” of the uni-

verse, from rocks to plants to

our

tech-

nology. Computers and mobile (cell)

phones are not devices foisted upon us

by some alien visitors; they are created

and utilized by us as extensions of

ourselves. That is, from the beginning

of our existence we have attempted to

“extend our physical abilities with

tools”; this is the “extensionist” view of

human nature (p. 152).

As Pepperell eloquently puts it,

“where humanists saw themselves as

distinct beings in an antagonistic rela-

tionship with their surroundings,

posthumans regard their own being as

embodied in an extended technologi-

cal world.”

References

R.A. Brooks et al.,

Alternative Essences of Intelligence.

COG Project, <http://www.ai.mit.edu/COG/

project>.

R.F. Harle,

Artiﬁcial Intelligence: Is It Possible?,

<http://www.lis.net.au/~recluse/harle>;

and R.F.

Harle, “Cyborgs, Uploading and Immortality—Some

Serious Concerns,”

Sophia

41,

No. 2, 73–85 (October

2002).

UDIO

OMPACT

ISCS

BSURD

UMMER

by Koji Asano. Solstice, Barcelona,

Spain, 2003.

Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen,

Hogeschool Gent, Jan Delvinlaan 115,

9000 Gent, Belgium. E-mail: <stefaan.

vanryssen@pandora.be>.

Japanese composer Koji Asano (cur-

rently based in Barcelona) has docu-

mented his musical journeys in a series

of over 30 self-produced recordings.

Absurd Summer

is a suite of 11 care-

fully arranged parts, each in its own

mood and character but sharing ﬁl-

tered and distorted piano ﬁgures drift-

ing in and out of a background of

almost white noise. Sometimes an ab-

stract melody peeks out from under the

cover, hiding again as soon as it takes

form and shape. Sometimes there are

bells or metal plates. Sometimes the

wind seems to be moving loose parts of

some long-forgotten metalworks, play-

ing a rhythm of its own. It is summer,

after all, and it is, as the title suggests,

absurdly hot or threatening or lan-

guishing. Then again, in the

background, a melody is played, in the

right hand, gravely accompanied by a

repeated note in the left hand.

At the level of composition, there is

no unifying mood or overarching struc-

ture apart from the sheer consecutive-

ness of the different sounds. Only the

second and the very last parts show a

resemblance in texture and melody. So,

Asano is exploring the different shades

of the distorted piano, sent through

seriously mangled speakers and aug-

mented with a choice of electronically

generated hisses, scratches, screeches

and unnameable sounds. The overall

348

Leonardo Reviews

effect of these 30 minutes is to raise

listener eyebrows, make us shift un-

easily and ask the very old question:

Why should I listen to this? Why is this

ever recorded? Why should I bother to

listen to this again? There is no reason,

apart from the exploration of the ex-

tended sound palette. It is a CD to be

scavenged by sampling wizards and

professional sound effect hunters.

INGT

HANSONS POUR

EAN

OCTEAU

WENTY

ONGS FOR

EAN

OCTEAU

)

by Maurice Methot. CONR Music,

Providence, RI, U.S.A., 2002.

Reviewed by Chris Cobb. E-mail:

<ccobbsf@hotmail.com>.

Maurice Methot’s 20 quiet songs are

full of ephemeral references to Erik

Satie, Claude Debussy and other

French or “impressionistic”-sounding

piano works. Methot’s trick, however, is

that this sweet and meditative CD was

derived and shaped all on a computer,

not on a piano.

The liner notes barely mention the

music, however. Instead they concen-

trate on the MIDI interface, the com-

puter and the technical way it was

created. But don’t let me give the

wrong impression here—the songs,

despite being made from samples of a

real piano, are soft and a little moody,

which I like. But the audience for this

seems unclear. Is it for other so-called

digital composers who like to experi-

ment with new software? Is it for those

who like “all things French”? I think

this is a fair question, because people

who are drawn to “all things French”

are also drawn to ideas such as passion,

beauty, nobility of cause and the exalta-

tion of desire that is often associated

with Frenchness.

So I am not sure what to make of the

quiet music on this CD. At ﬁrst I think

of the difference between the tension

contained in the pause of a piano

player and the simulated tension made

on a computer. Whereas live music

could be seen as a conversation partly

with the audience and partly between

the musician and the instrument, what

happens when the music is completely

derived from a program? What be-

comes of the conversation that makes a

piano player’s skill affect people emo-

tionally? Jean Cocteau is not

mentioned in the liner notes and so I

am also not sure what connection he or

his work has to Methot’s work. So I

wonder if this is informed by the now-

classic image of Baudrillard’s “simu-

lacra,” where the map is considered

more important than the landscape it

describes? The landscape we are deal-

ing with here is music.

Even though the meditative sounds

Vingt Chansons pour Jean Cocteau

are

nice to listen to, its process and lack of

clear audience bring up a lot of artistic

issues, especially those of authorship

and inspiration. I feel a little let down,

because the liner notes give little sense

of the composer’s perspective or pur-

pose. It is intriguing to think of a group

of compositions dedicated to Cocteau,

but I want to know what the connection

is. Did he meet Cocteau as a child? Was

Methot inﬂuenced by certain works of

Cocteau, or is he simply trying to evoke

the music of an era long gone and just

using Cocteau’s name to create con-

text? Rather, this appears to be a kind

of experiment or one-off idea. Music,

like other art, needs a context, and it is

unclear what that is on this CD.

ple, Foster’s 30 St. Mary Axe tower sits

next to the sponge,

euplectella,

and we

are told,

The building’s shape, structure and

ventilation scheme all ﬁnd a parallel in

the class of sea creatures known as glass

sponges. These have delicate, elon-

gated exoskeletons. They ﬁlter nutri-

ents from water they suck in at their

base and expel from a hole at the top,

just as Foster’s tower circulates air.

XHIBITIONS

LTRES

RQUITECTES

THER

RCHITECTS

)

Museu de Zoologia, Barcelona, Spain,

3 June 2003–15 April 2004.

OOMORPHIC

RCHITECTURE

NIMAL

RCHITECTURE

Victoria and Albert Museum, London,

U.K., 18 September 2003–4 January

2004.

Reviewed by Dennis Dollens, Department

of Genetic Architectures, Universitat Inter-

nacional de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain.

E-mail: <exodesic@mac.com>.

Less internationally publicized than the

Zoomorphic

exhibition at the Victoria

and Albert Museum in London, but

more intently focused, the show

Els

Altres Architects

at Barcelona’s Zoologi-

cal Museum is by far the more satisfying

of the two.

Zoomorphic

presents beautiful archi-

tectural projects, yet only weakly illus-

trates the relationships between natural

organisms and the works paired with

them. In most cases projects are repre-

sented by models and drawings, then

merely set next to natural objects, as if

juxtaposition alone explains similarity

or architectural evolution. For exam-

Well, yes. But “parallel” is imprecise,

and many sponges look nothing like

elongated exoskeletons. Did Foster

actually study

euplectella?

The tower has

a beautifully engineered structural

braid, while

euplectella

is also beautifully

composed of spiraling strands com-

plexly cross-braced from within. So,

indeed, visual biomimesis exists, but it

is not analytically considered—was the

sponge a visual, mnemonic device or an

inspirational, biological one? The show

provides little guidance to such rela-

tionships.

Furthermore,

euplectella’s

siliceous

ﬁbers are currently under intense

biomimetic observation (Lucent Tech-

nologies), since its glassy material is

identical to manufactured ﬁber optics.

Yet this animal grows under water—at

low temperatures, and subject to low

pressure—a process that, if under-

stood, could provoke a revolution in

engineering and architectural materi-

als. Is it possible that Foster was look-

ing to such qualities of growth and

being? Did he study the sponge’s algo-

rithms? It is important to know, be-

cause new architecture is not going to

arrive on the basis of visual “parallels.”

If, for example, you could secrete

sheets of material the way the sponge

grows, you could create a chance of

developing an architecture more at-

tuned to biology and hence more

attuned to the environment. Because

Zoomorphic,

subtitled

New Animal Archi-

tecture,

lacks sufﬁcient biological infor-

mation and speciﬁc connections to the

generation of architecture, it fails to

make more than tenuous, pictorial use

of biology and results in an intellectual

tease.

The Barcelona exhibition in the

Zoological Museum takes us into a

19th-century naturalist’s environment.

A beautiful enigma in relation to mod-

ern museums, this institution’s second

ﬂoor retains a core collection in origi-

nal cases, traditionally displayed, that

now biomimetically supplements the

intelligence of the

Altres Arquitectes

work

downstairs.

Leonardo Reviews

349

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