Posthuman Romantics

An online art show & digital salon event by curator Jon Dawes, hosted by The Papercut Arcade. February 6th, 2021.


Welcome to the show!

Ways to interact with us tonight.

6:30 PM PST on Discord: We’re hosting a live chat on discord with our artists, creators, and curator. Our live tour video will be streamed at 6:15 PM and you can watch along with us there! Come join the conversation.

Click on the works below (bottom half of the page) to see the individual project pages.

Self-directed video tour of the works:
Our curator and collective gives you a tour through the works. [Spoken English, with Closed Captions in English]

Introducing the Theme: Posthuman Romantics

By Jon Dawes

“My challenge to our artists was to imagine themselves as such a Posthuman Romantic and see what they would create”.

If you look up the word “posthuman” on the Internet, you will probably find a lot of different definitions, the most narrow of which usually involve cybernetic enhancements to human beings. To give a wider range of focus to our artists, I went with a much broader definition: either an enhanced human being or a non-human being who was either created or enhanced into a sentient state and who, in some way, has become superior to humanity at large.

This would include not only the aforementioned cyborgs, but also uplifted animals, the undead, mutants, AIs, and many others.

The Romantic Movement was a philosophical and artistic trend that encompassed the approximate first half of the nineteenth century. Most forms of art bore its influence during this time, especially poetry, music, and painting. Its main attribute was the elevation of inspiration over formalism in art, but it also lauded medieval settings over the scenes of the then current Industrial Revolution.

A Posthuman Romantic artist, then, would be someone who could be classified as beyond human norms in some way or other, but who still found inspiration to create art and valued these feelings over strict form.

My challenge to our artists was to imagine themselves as such a Posthuman Romantic and see what they would create. I asked them to consider:

  • How does the fact that you were created by the artifice of humans inform your take on what is natural?
  • How does individual inspiration and originality come to one who inherits a background of mass production?

I think the results are exceptional and I hope you will enjoy them so much that you will be inspired to create your own Posthuman Romantic works.


Interactive Text
雷, Perfect 脑

Louise Chow

Project Photo - Edwin Painting
Painting
Deep Inside

Edwin Kumar

Project Photo - Aiden
Poetry
A Measure of Laughter or More

Christopher Alan Slater

Project Photo - Human Poetry
Performance (video)
Human, English, Romantic, Poetry

Kay Slater

Project Photo - Sutra
Interactive Game (Twine)
Sutra Sonnets

Lisa Smedman

Painting
Neither Are Human

Paris Kumar

Project Photo - Edwin Audio
Music Composition (soundcloud)
Deep Inside VI

Edwin Kumar

Project Photo - Brambles
Board Game
Brambles and Spores

Kay Slater

Project Photo - Cosmo
Photography
Cosmologist’s Portfolio

Kay Slater

Project Feature Image - Vaysha
Illustration
DENEGATIO TRASCENDENTIUM

Vaysha Hirsch Todorovich


Interested in participating in a future event? We host open call events throughout the year. Check out our forthcoming events and mark your calendar!

Thanks for joining us.


Note: The Papercut Arcade defines artist as a person who practices any of the various creative arts, such as but not limited to a sculptor, cosplayer, game maker, photographer, puppeteer, painter, novelist, screenplay writer, fanfic writer, poet, or filmmaker. The keyword is practice; therefore, if you make art or produce work with the intent of participating in a The Papercut Arcade challenge or exhibition, you ARE an artist. This was a curated exhibition, and the artworks were screened for harmful (illegal/oppressive/appropriative) content.

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