Abstract

Body hacking and transhumanism are about to change the way we see the body. If we used to consider it as a site for our identity and the expression of our culture, it now merely seems to be an architecture that we can change at will. In the field of biohacking, body hackers enhance the body using new technologies in order to introduce new capacities, new potentialities. For them, the body is « obsolete », which means it should no longer stay as it currently is. In the same way, transhumanism, particularly extropianism, allows us to think about the design of our future body. By the Primo Posthuman prototype, Natasha Vita-More wants to show us what we can expect for the future: a new body, «more comfortable, more performing, more beautiful», that would be enhanced, updatable and environmentally friendly. In other words, it seems that we are about to change our way of being, with the use of technologies and art. Biodesign and bioart are not only used to modify specific characteristics of a species, but also to create a whole new type of body for the « elevation of the human condition », a posthuman or a cyborg. Creating the design of our body would be a way to be more connected to the world and also more ourselves. Human enhancement seems to be the promise of being « truly » human and of improving ourselves physically and mentally. But the process of cyborgisation is not as simple as trans-humanists and body hackers consider it. It is a way to redefine what it is to be human, to think about what it is for us to be. Can we really consider the body as «obsolete»? What does it mean for us to be human? In other words, what are theethical and ontological issues that those projects are revealing about personal and social identity? In this paper, we will analyse the practices of the body hackers, and then the way transhumanists imagine the posthuman. Finally, we will examine the ethical issues that arise with the process of hybridation between the body and new technologies.