Techno-Prosthetic Romantic Futurism

Mutate!

Are you human? Was Byron? We might take the imputation of his Satanism--and Blake's madness, and Equiano's subhumanity, and Barbauld's femininity--as a call to reinvent this category. More terror than charity has been committed in its name. [1]   As we turn toward our planetary futures, we turn away from our human pasts--in the spirit not of rejection but rejuvenation. They have served us well. New technologies are remaking us. New prostheses are enhancing us. Romantic futurism calls for mutation. [2]  

Notes

1. It's a heavy diagnosis, but still chimes: see Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Englightenment (New York, Continuum, 1969).

2. Witness Blake, Ballard, Burrowes, Butler, Dick, and Gibson on a good day.

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