Context: Written to reflect on a post-Coronavirus future
Style: Essayistic - Excerpt from the book, Brave New Human: Reflections on the Invisible, edited by Alexander Mouret 
Author: Mashya Boon
Bio: Mashya Boon is a Dutch international Ph.D. student in the department of English at Michigan State University, specializing in Film Studies. Her research interests lie at the intersection of film-philosophy, posthumanism, and the genres of SF and horror. 

In light of the global crisis caused by the Coronavirus, I think it is fruitful to reexamine our frames of reference concerning our notions of radical transformation as well as our perception on viruses. To help us reframe and perhaps even reinvigorate these concepts within these confusing times, I believe that one recent film can productively fracture conventional patterns of thought when it comes to reconfiguring our outlook on destruction and disease. The film in question envisions a life-altering alien force that crashed onto earth and devours the world as we knew it. While the title might suggest otherwise, Annihilation (Garland, 2018) is not about the nullification of life. Rather, it ferociously deals with a refractory re-creation of reality. 

The fashion in which Annihilation figures a novel kind of being human opens up avenues for exploring how ‘the posthuman’ is imagined within contemporary cinema while forwarding a salient stance about mutation and life. Posthuman literally means: an entity which is beyond the human as we know it. Posthuman theory in accordance generally questions the perception of human nature as universal and hegemonic, while overthrowing Enlightenment-legacies which ingrained a discourse of exceptionalism of the rational human subject into our society’s fabric of thought. This paper analyzes the ways in which Annihilation’s iridescent ‘Shimmer’ with its viral-like growths produces evocative instances of terrifying transformation, which seem painfully poignant in times of our current COVID-19 crisis. This film poses a philosophical thought-experiment by questioning “what counts as life?” By scrutinizing Annihilation’s viral tendrils in light of Karen Barad’s and Donna Haraway’s theories, this paper highlights how we might benefit from a transformation in anthropocentric thought. The film’s stance can be aligned with a new-materialist view of nature: a strange (re)turn to an otherworldly nature where the boundaries between technology and the organic are mixed on a cellular level, where hybridity and impurity prevail as the formerly discrete units of human life are scattered across a novel posthuman mosaic of convalescing mutation. 

“It wasn't destroying. It was changing everything. It was making something new.”
​
This line, uttered by protagonist Lena (Natalie Portman) in a final scene, explicitly verbalizes that Annihilation is not about absolute destruction. In this scene, a military official interrogates Lena, after returning from the Shimmer. This alien environment came into existence after a meteor crashed onto a lighthouse at the southern coastline of Florida. The Shimmer expanded exponentially, threatening to take over the entire globe. The ‘infected’ area which it spread to, is designated as ‘Area X’. The military took great precaution to prevent the general public from knowing about it. Still, the military can only guess as to what the Shimmer’s nature entails: a religious event, an extraterrestrial event, a higher dimension? They have many theories, but few facts. 

The entire environment within the Shimmer has gone berserk: different species of plants intermix their usually distinctive structures into one new conglomerate whole. Not only plant life took on this hybridizing quality; also fungal, animal and even human lifeforms are affected by the Shimmer’s transmutations which produce stunning new composites of life. Faun-like deer with bark-like antlers endowed with fluorescent flowers and prehistoric bear-like monsters with exposed craniums who adopt their victim’s last cry populate Area X. The way the Shimmer operates is explained halfway by expounding that magnetic forces within this zone literally refract all particles present in the environment. Not only light gets deformed into fantastical rainbow hues that seep into mother nature, but also all previously discrete units of DNA of various species are scattered and remixed into new syntheses by the Shimmer’s prism. All matter becomes susceptible to radical change within its ontological core. Humanoid shaped ‘plants’ and crystalline ‘trees’ only seem to be the beginning of this planetary metamorphosis. All living species are refashioned, immanently altering the traditional categories of what life on earth entails.

Tracing the etymology of the word ‘annihilation’, it is composed of two parts which in a contradictory sense annul each other while fortifying the word's meaning too. Annihilation in its primary definition indeed means “to reduce to utter ruin or nonexistence”: to annihilate is to reduce something into nothing. However, although the main component of the word consists of the Latin word ‘nihil’, which denotes ‘nothing’, the prefix ‘an-’ designates that the word behind it is not (or is without) the thing that is stated behind it. So in fact, ‘an-nihil-ation’, literally means ‘not nothing’. The word seen in this way rather encompasses a lacking of nonexistence. It connotes something that is without emptiness. Therefore, in its origins, the process of annihilation entails more ‘a becoming of something’ than ‘a reduction to nothing’. Aphoristically speaking, within the mechanisms of destruction resides the potential for unbridled creation itself; the making of something radically new. 

​Yet the common connotation of ‘annihilation’ does signify the state of being annihilated, the utter extinction of absolutely everything. This linguistic and philosophical paradox that underpins the word ‘annihilation’, also lies at the heart of the film’s core concept. Annihilation intricately conceptualizes a more-than-human, other-than-human, inhuman, posthuman state of existence which relentlessly refracts each and every aspect of life and calls into question what it means to be human or nonhuman, animate or inanimate, dead or alive. The film savagely systematizes an almost cancerous and even viral structure of being which exudes a towering form of growth and mutation of everything that is present or that has a presence in our earthly existence. Within the Shimmer, the undiscriminating force projecting out of the lighthouse encapsulates all life with its megalomanic metamorphosis. It is this kind of extreme presence of a lacking of nonexistence which annihilates the rational world and our human selves. Yet this an–nihil–ating force does not reduce reality to sheer nothingness, it in reality entails a radical state of being immanently without emptiness. 

​Mashya Boon

In modern society, we are incessantly inundated with stimuli. Text messages, emails, advertisements, news stories, push notifications, television, podcasts, social media, and radio are but some of the distractions to which we have grown accustomed. This leaves little room for stillness in one’s daily routine. In fact, it appears that humans, in the midst of modern technological stimulation, have developed something akin to a fear of stillness. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, this fear of stillness and, more specifically, loneliness, has become more evident. As people are forced into social isolation, the pain of loneliness and boredom inevitably arise, necessitating a confrontation with stillness and the resulting discomfort. But why are we afraid of being alone with ourselves? Why must we seek constant stimulation and distraction as a form of “escape”?

This fear is indeed related to sitting alone with oneself. But meditation and stillness enable us to potentially look beyond the self. Much unhappiness and emotional distress can be attributed to an obsession with oneself. Humanity—myself included—is terribly egotistic. But by adopting methods to help us escape from a self-centered approach to life, we can learn to live happier, more fulfilling lives. Additionally, in doing so, we can improve the quality of life for other species, both plants and animals. Moving beyond a human-centered approach to life reflects posthuman philosophical beliefs, which discourage the strict, human-defined hierarchical designation of life on Earth, with humans conveniently placed at the top. 

Meditation and self-reflection may seem like indulgent practices, but they actually aid in emulating posthumanist values during one’s daily life. Mindfulness meditation allows one to examine their emotions and feelings in the present moment, allowing them to recognize what brings one joy, fear, or anxiety. 

On his Making Sense Podcast, Sam Harris recently interviewed Laurie Santos, a cognitive scientist and professor at Yale University. Santos focuses on the science of happiness, and talks about the power of mindfulness as it relates to living a fulfilling life. She admits that most people eventually grow bored of their routines and possessions, promoting the desire to constantly acquire more possessions or partake in novel thrills. But with mindfulness, one is able to find joy and gratitude in the present moment. By fully immersing oneself in the here and now, boredom is rendered inert, and the full experience of living can be completely appreciated—even amidst a pandemic. Stillness cultivates awareness, and awareness brings with it the possibility to live more fully and to understand ourselves more completely. This too reflects posthumanist values because by relishing the present, we more readily recognize the beauty in nature, for instance. With greater appreciation comes the desire to treat all forms of life with respect. Gratitude drives us to look beyond our own species and instead learn to live in a way that benefits all forms of life.

Sam Harris himself also stresses the importance of meditation. In recent episodes, he highlights this importance during such unprecedented times as these. Harris acknowledges that anxiety can indeed be useful, as it prompts us to take certain steps to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and others, but when the majority of our thoughts are consumed by anxiety, it ceases to be a viable tool, only adding unnecessary suffering. But when we are able to be still, Harris explains, and notice the thoughts that arise, we can make rational, healthy decisions in the midst of this anxiety. 

Peter Attia, a well-known and well-respected doctor with his own podcast, The Drive, has also articulated meditation’s effect on his mental health. He describes the practice as offering a pause between an initial thought or emotion and his response. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we are most certainly inundated with uncomfortable and anxiety-provoking thoughts. We may also be experiencing more tension and anger if we are quarantined with our families, or if we are searching for someone to blame for the mishandling of the situation. Meditation, as Attia and Harris explain, creates distance between these negative emotions and the responses we have to them. It allows us to choose how to react in a measured, non-impulsive way. With meditation, especially during these difficult times, we can cultivate greater self-awareness and use COVID-19 as a unique exercise in becoming more self-reflective and thus a more empathetic and helpful member of society.

If you feel moved to try meditation, below is a 10-minute guided session. Please enjoy! ​

​10-minute_guided_meditation_.m4a

"Gift" from the book “Sociology and Anthropology”, to define the forms of interchanges, exchanges, or relationships between Melanesian groups, approaching our time lived in our current cultures.

As Mauss reveals, “it is clear that, in Maori rights, the bond of right, bond of things, is a soul-bond, because the thing has a soul by itself, it is the soul. Meaning that “to present something to someone is to present something about yourself” (Mauss, 2003, p.200). These forms are included in what he calls “total prestation”: “The system that we propose to call the system of total prestation, from clan to clan - the one in which individuals and groups exchange everything between themselves - constitutes the oldest system of economy and law that we can observe and conceive. It forms the fund on which it stands out the morality of the gift-exchange” (Mauss, 2003, p. 299).

The term reciprocity seems to be in evidence in this period of the Corona Virus Pandemic, in the sense of solidarity between people, nature, art, science, and technology. At the same time, we experience the uncertainty of ideological truth (or truths), in the sense of reciprocity in different senses of communication between people. The understanding of what is presented in terms of the production of scientific knowledge in relation to the public that receives it is being evidenced from a virus, which, just as it is promoting many deaths, suffering, and uncertainties, is bringing scientific knowledge in medicine, sociology, statistics, public health, and technology closer in the common world. The news around the world emphasizes that the everyday world needs researched and analyzed information to learn or relearn how to live.

What we are currently living in is founded on the reciprocity of scientific knowledge production that, before this virus, seemed to live for itself and in itself, removing the knowledge of the other - Nature/Culture. This knowledge remained for the Academy (in this text I do not intend to go into the economic aspect involved in scientific research and its possible problems), and especially for the medical sciences, which are our total support to live with the Coronavirus. We realize this in the current situation in which we find ourselves: we need scientific knowledge and the reciprocal is unequivocal. Therefore, we have to ask ourselves, What is the sense of reciprocity between Nature/Culture and scientific knowledge for the production of post-human knowledge?

In the research with the Kaingang Indians in Brazil, already in progress, it was revealed to us that the democratic and shared form has provided an integration between the “subjects” of the research. The non-hierarchical dialogue, reflected among the group's participants, has expanded itself among the research participants in the needed time. It is important to emphasize that the opening to dialogue is also a learning process among the research subjects because, for the indigenous people, their voices have always been the last to be considered. The voices of researchers and teachers, for the indigenous subjects participating in the research, represented the decisive voice, not always open to dialogue, historically speaking.

Therefore, I consider it necessary to think about post-humanism from Braidotti (2013) and her view that post-humanism means thinking about community and the interconnections between ethics, people, and the environment. In other words, to be posthuman does not mean to be indifferent to humans, or to be dehumanized: “On the contrary, it rather implies a new way of combining ethical values with the well-being of an enlarged sense of community, which includes one’s territorial or environmental inter-connections” (Braidotti, 2013, p. 190). Furthermore, “Becoming-posthuman consequently is a process of redefining one’s sense of attachment and connection to a shared world, a territorial space - urban, social, psychic, ecological, planetary as it may be. It expresses multiple ecologies of belonging while it enacts the transformation of one’s sensorial and perceptual coordinates in order to acknowledge the collective nature and outward-bound direction of what we still call the self” (Braidotti, 2013, p.193)

I would like to expand the meaning, questioning the forms of reciprocity between Nature and Culture, which imply human, environment, science, technology, subjectivity (individual/conscious/unconscious/social/collective) and underline the collective aspect undertaken in the Shared Production of Knowledge (Bairon; Lazaneo; 2012). In the proposal of this methodology, subjects live together, donate knowledge to one another, and provide gifts, which I can call the joy of sharing, turning both the researcher into the subject and the subject into the researcher. It transforms the indigenous people since they perceive themselves as protagonists in their own culture when teaching the researcher to see and experience the indigenous cultural sense. Thus, the indigenous look does not need the researcher's filter; and, on the other hand, the researcher, using his tools of scientific knowledge, shows the possibilities of systematization and appropriation of traditional knowledge based on the actions of the indigenous people themselves, who are involved in this process of communication and sharing. In the moments shared on the Kaingang land in Palmas (PR), I understand the joy of this exchange of knowledge for the students and this researcher, without trying to explain this emotion scientifically. But I can connect this exchange from this experience with the indigenous people to the relationship that the philosopher Gadamer (1999) presents concerning the aesthetic experience the viewer undergoes when facing a piece of art: the joy of knowledge.

To what extent do we think of reciprocity in the production of knowledge, to go beyond Humanism?

In this sense, we are experiencing the concepts of the shared production of knowledge and post-humanist reflections, and, therefore, feeling, experiencing first-hand, that the dominant position of the white, European researcher - as cited by Braidotti (2013) and Ferrando (2012; 2016) - or the subject who has scientific knowledge - cited by Bairon (2019) and Lazaneo (2015) - is deeply rooted in the perception of the indigenous native. But I believe that it is possible to predict, with situated inclusivism (Ferrando, 2012), the opening of knowledge and revelations - reciprocity - in which we envision an experience between different cultures, between subjects that try to live according to “post” humanism.

Therefore, I propose thinking about scientific knowledge as a form of sharing, as a form of reciprocity between the ordinary world and the scientific world, providing such knowledge to the ordinary world, however, and acknowledging it. I believe it is a way of offering gifts, offering knowledge in a broad way to the built world and the given world, going beyond humanism and towards posthumanism.

Context: Recorded in May 2020 in Canada, during the (prolonged) lockdown due to the Covid-19 Emergency
Style: This Video is part of the Youtube Channel "Posthumans Go Viral".
Author: Christine Daigle, Director, Posthumanism Research Institute, Brock University

1. Luxurious Quarantine, Suffering Masses: Transhumanism as Oppressor and Liberator, in ‘Elysium’

IntroductionThe pandemic crisis of 2020 brings to mind multiple facets of the movie ‘Elysium’. Although the reviews of the movie were in the mid-range – neither gloriously celebratory nor atrociously bad – the present moment demands a relook at the multiple novel aspects of the future that the film imagined. For those who have not seen the film, or whose memory of it is hazy, let us start with a summary of the plot.

The Plot of Elysium

In the year 2154, planet Earth is nearly ruined and humanity is divided sharply – even more so than in 2020. The ultrarich live aboard a luxurious orbiting space station called Elysium, with amenities comparable to the most opulent gated communities of 2020. The vast majority, the rest, are reduced to a wretched humanity, living a hardscrabble existence in Earth's ruins.

The luxurious space station Elysium is technologically advanced. It has devices such as Med-Bays that can cure all diseases, reverse the aging process, and regenerate body parts. By contrast, the planet Earth, hundreds of miles below Elysium, is a writhing and smoldering cauldron of disease and deprivation. Suffering residents of planet Earth want Elysian technology to cure their illnesses. The curative-restorative technologies, however, are only available to citizens of Elysium. Jodie Foster, playing the role of Defense Secretary, the stern protector of the privileges of the residents of Elysium, takes all actions to guard the technologies of the space station, to preserve the pampered lifestyle of Elysium's citizens, and to prevent the leakage of the fantastic Elysian technologies to Earth.

Matt Damon, playing a brash character called Max, exposed to deadly massive radiation poisoning, and also moved by the disease and suffering of a friend’s daughter on Earth, agrees to undertake a dangerous mission that could access the medical technologies of Elysium and bring equality to the population of Earth. The mission is to jack into the central computer on Elysium, and reprogram it to recharacterize all the residents of Earth as citizens of Elysium.

There are many plot twists and turns, severe and savage battles, but ultimately Max manages to jack into the computer at Elysium, and reprograms it, even as this act kills him. The impact of reprogramming is instantaneous. The robotic entities, earlier used by their masters in Elysium to suppress and contain the population of Earth, now automatically turn into helpers and saviors of all – including residents of Earth, now granted Elysian citizenship and privileges. Hundreds of Med-Bays are dispatched to relieve the suffering on Earth.

Prescient Tropes?

We do not have to wait till 2154; many of the conditions of the movie Elysium started appearing in 2020, and accelerated suddenly with the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the luxurious space colony, separated and insulated from a wretched Earth, is still not a reality, major entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are working with technologies and systems that would create such escape abodes in outer space. In the meanwhile, luxury quarantine in 2020 takes the forms of private planes, private or access-controlled islands, fantastically equipped and opulent survival bunkers, and more.

The Med-Bays are not here yet, but the medical-technological research frameworks for reversing aging, restoring lost senses and organs, rebuilding body parts, sentient prosthetics, and other steps toward – Singularity? Convergence? Tran-Posthumans? – are already in place. We can expect to see major acceleration in these.

The robotic police is not here yet, but a robotic dog is patrolling the parks in Singapore, warning folks to keep the 6-feet/2-meter distance from each other. And of course, drones that could kill and contain troublemakers are ready – used to combat terrorism so far, but fully capable of doing anything that they are commanded to do. More mundanely, hypersurveillance – so far used to nudge customers to buy promoted brands (except in China and a few places, where it also assigns social scores and categorizes people) – is evolving rapidly into ways to classify and trace individuals and their contact networks.

There are discussions afoot on developing privilege and certification cards of various kinds: cured, immune, asymptomatic, symptomatic, vulnerable, indispensable, super-privileged, essential-and-protection-worthy, essential-but-disposable, etc.

The big political-philosophical questions that are emerging are obvious: Will we move toward a world that has privileged Elysians, with fantastic technologies and massive robotic power, escaping from and seeking to keep under control the seething, suffering masses? Or, will brave heroes emerge to jack into cyber-networks of privilege, and push the buttons to declare all of us as card-carrying folks with equal access to curative, restorative, salubrious, caring, income-providing transhuman technologies?

2. Post-Pandemic: "Screen New Deal" instead of "Green New Deal"?
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Editorial Comment:
The critique Naomi Klein offers is insightful. What is needed, to go beyond critique, are ways to bring the entire technology cycle, from creation to deployment, under democratic cooperative control. Naomi Klein hints at this... A lot of intense work is needed.

Link:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/may/13/naomi-klein-how-big-tech-plans-to-profit-from-coronavirus-pandemic

Excerpts [of Naomi Klein essay]:
... pre-Covid, this precise app-driven, gig-fuelled future was being sold to us in the name of friction-free convenience and personalisation. But many of us had concerns... That was the ancient past, also known as February [2020]. Today, a great many of those well-founded concerns are being swept away by a tidal wave of panic, and this warmed-over dystopia is going through a rush-job rebranding. Now, against a harrowing backdrop of mass death, it is being sold to us on the dubious promise that these technologies are the only possible way to pandemic-proof our lives, the indispensable keys to keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe... At the heart of this vision is seamless integration of government with a handful of Silicon Valley giants – with public schools, hospitals, doctor’s offices, police and military all outsourcing (at a high cost) many of their core functions to private tech companies...
... we [are made to?] face real and hard choices between investing in humans and investing in technology. Because the brutal truth is that, as it stands, we are very unlikely to do both. The refusal to transfer anything like the needed resources to states and cities in successive federal bailouts means that the coronavirus health crisis is now slamming headlong into a manufactured austerity crisis. Public schools, universities, hospitals and transit are facing existential questions about their futures. If tech companies win their ferocious lobbying campaign for remote learning, telehealth, 5G and driverless vehicles – their Screen New Deal – there simply won’t be any money left over for urgent public priorities, never mind the Green New Deal that our planet urgently needs...
Tech provides us with powerful tools, but not every solution is technological. And the trouble with outsourcing key decisions about how to “reimagine” our states and cities to men such as Bill Gates and [Eric] Schmidt [ex-Google CEO] is that they have spent their lives demonstrating the belief that there is no problem that technology cannot fix.
For them, and many others in Silicon Valley, the pandemic is a golden opportunity to receive not just the gratitude, but the deference and power that they feel has been unjustly denied.
**********

Context: Recorded in 2020 in Canada, during the outbreak of the Coronavirus
Style: Video
Author: Dominique Leclerc

​Cytokine Storm

Treacherous flesh, cytokine flood,
I’d prefer to be a brain in a metal box,
Than choking on my defector blood.
How can you still defend the unity
Between the body and the mind?
Still believe in the system of immunity?
This fragile construct with all the stability
Of a homemade bomb, always ticking
And shuddering, with the possibility
Of imminent self-destruct, from a trace
Of inanimate proteins and basic code,
With somehow absolute power to erase,
Consciousness itself, most complex device,
By turning our flesh antagonist unto itself,
A substrate so unpredictable, imprecise.
You may find freedom in this fragility,
But for me this uncertainty is no liberation,
I will choose a vessel programmed with stability,
A synthetic fortress to shield my precious mind,
Under microscopic tyranny I will not be confined.