Abstract
This thesis examines Post-Biological Identity and Augmentation Aesthetics through the DataBodyTrader Art project, the establishment of The Mixed and Augmented Reality Art Organisation and the iterative processes, outcomes and conclusions resulting from these endeavours. Specifically, this research presents a body of artistic practice that addresses the central research question of How can Art culturally reconfigure our understandings of Post-Biological Identity through Augmentation Aesthetics, and how can a practice-based, collaboratively transdisciplinary and iterative research methodology best facilitate this. This is achieved through the creation of artworks and practice-based research endeavours that focus on the relationship between bodies of matter, Data Bodies, and their augmentation in embodied, interactive scenarios.The augmentation of Data Bodies, defined in this thesis as data relating to a specific biological identity, has a history that predates our contemporary understandings of self, and it is argued here to be the very foundation of anthropomorphic representation. This thesis expands on this claim to demonstrate through art, how through having bodies that are both material and virtual, humans are bio-digitally convergent and therefore Post-Biological regarding the ways we understand contemporary identity.
This thesis presents a practice-based research journey through these discourses, with a particular focus on embedding Augmentation Aesthetics and Post-Biological Identity within the history of art, embodiment and media, identifying and addressing previous gaps in knowledge and practice-based research models. Following an introduction to the field and its place within artistic practice, a hybrid set of terms and a bespoke practice-based, iterative methodology that was developed will be presented, along with the outcomes of these being put into practice, specifically through the DataBodyTrader artwork and more expansively through marart.org.
Through a process of iterative practice-based research, several new conclusions are established and presented in the form of artworks, exhibitions, interviews, invited papers and panel discussions. Furthermore, by undertaking a socially engaged approach to the development and presentation of its outcomes through marart.org, this research pivots from historical examples and recent arbitrary iterations of3augmentation, towards a more expansive contemporary understanding of the term, to better define the field and the artist’s own practice.
These outcomes make several original contributions to knowledge, offering both anartistic project and an organisational approach that explore and present Post-Biological Identity through the lens of Augmentation Aesthetics, in other words, anaesthetics that focuses on entangling the physical and metaphysical, through liminal artistic practice. This allows not only for a better understanding of these fields, but also to function as a point of reference for further research and development.
By presenting methods of production and proliferation of bodies, as both data and flesh at the same time through Augmentation Aesthetics, this thesis offers a redefining of our understandings of human representation, more specifically trans-individuality, bio-digitally convergent bodies and this emergent concept of the Data Body
| Date of Award | Mar 2025 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Paul Sermon (Supervisor) |