Universitetsforlaget 171

misleading, if taken as its ultimate state: on a subatomic level, everything is in con-

stant vibration. As famously demonstrated by Einstein (1905), matter and energy

are equivalent. Energy is intrinsically relational, as well as matter is irreducible to a

single determined entity; any reductionist approach has scientifically failed. From a

physics perspective, anything which has mass and volume is considered matter:

humans, for instance, are made out of matter, as well as robots. Let's now go back to

our initial question: who am I? We are material networks of relations, fluctuant

becoming in symbiotic interaction with the others, the environment, our sur-

roundings; we are constant potentials. In nietzschean terms: we are a bridge

(Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 7). Human existence is related to any other form of

existence; nothing, in this dimension, is completely autonomous or totally inde-

pendent. In this sense, the field of epigenetics is significant, with its emphasis on the

heritable changes in gene expression caused by mechanisms which are external to

the underlying DNA sequence. Posthumanism approaches the potentials opened by

biotechnology, nanotechnology, cybernetics, robotics and space migration, in an

ontological way, through Heidegger: technology is no mere means, but a way of

revealing (1953:12). We can thus talk of technologies of existence. Posthumanism

has to do with theoretical philosophy as well as with applied ethics. More extensiv-

ely, posthumanism can be perceived as a path of knowledge, which may eventually

turn into full awareness: we literally are what we eat, what we think, what we

breathe, what and who we connect to. Currently, posthumanism seems the most

open and sensitive critical frame to approach intellectual tasks, as well as daily prac-

tices of being. Since any existential performance has interconnected agency, post-

humanism will add to your perspective as much as your perspective will add to the

posthuman shift. More than an exchange (ex comes from Latin, meaning out),

it is an intra-change, a fluid entanglement of being, an expansion of material aware-

ness, a fractal movement of energy which will have simultaneously affected your

existence as well as the evolution of spacetime. This is why I think posthumanism is

something you want to know about.

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Barad, Karen 2007. Meeting the Universe Half-

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Matter and Meaning. Durham et al.: Duke Uni-

versity Press.

Braidotti, Rosi 1994. Nomadic Subjec ts:

Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemp-

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Universit y Press.

Braidotti, Rosi 2013. The Posthuman. Cam-

bridge, UK et al.: Polity Press.

Butler, Judith 1999 [1990]. Gender Trouble:

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Crenshaw, Kimberle 1989. Demarginalizing

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Einstein, Albert. 1905. Ist die Trgheit eines

Krpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhngig?

Annalen der Physik 18 (13):639643.

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