Is mankind being updated, as prosthetist Hugh Herr predicts with his formula of »Humans 2.0«? The discussion about the high tech prosthetic limbs of Oscar Pistorius or about exciting, body contact media like Google Glass show a shift in concepts of physicality: an improvement procedure in or around the body is no longer considered a necessary compensation of deficits, but a desirable optimization and enhancement. Are bodies becoming »makeable«? Karin Harrasser situates these current discourses and practices of the body and designs a different view of them. How can we speak about technologies, media, and bodies from the perspective of partially sovereign action and para-humanity?

Karin Harrasser (Prof. Dr.) ist Professorin für Kulturwissenschaft an der Kunstuniversität Linz. In den letzten Jahren hat sie an einer Kultur- und Theoriegeschichte der Prothese gearbeitet.