The ‘unfinished’ subject: Pedagogy and performance in the company of copies, robots, mutants and cyborgs

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe posthuman perspective, which suggests that the boundaries of the human being are undergoing constant revision, has grown as a paradigm for analysis of the connection between technology and the body in contemporary performance practice. This article explores the potential of a ‘posthuman pedagogy’ and its relation to practices of multimedia performance. It suggests an approach to learning that considers specific manifestations of the posthuman being within pedagogical process, encourages students to examine their own existence within a ‘posthuman condition’, and positions the learner as part of a network of material and mediatized components. Various manifestations of ‘posthuman bodies’ within performance are identified such as the ‘copying’ of the body, robotic or cyborg bodies, and ‘mutating’ bodies. To explain the position of the human body within a posthuman world, it is asserted that the posthuman does not involve the ‘death of self, nor the death of the liberal humanist subject, but the re-conception of the self as ‘unfinished’. Finally, posthumanism is framed as a perspective on education that shifts the direction of learning from the traditional doctrine of internalizing knowledge, to a model of experience and practice that connects the student with the material world, and is particularly relevant to drama and theatre studies.