Abstract

In this essay I contest the view that evolution can be conceived as a cosmic entity working out a plan of increasing negentropic complexification. The problems associated with this view, characteristic of a great deal of contemporary speculation, are outlined in section I. In section II I go on to further problematise current constructions of technics and machines and provide an alternative ‘machinic’ model of the play of entropy and evolution. In section III I examine the aesthetic praxis of Stelarc as a site in which the ‘meaning’ of post‐human evolution can be productively contested and illuminated.