Category Archives: Posthuman

In the fall of 1998, pop music changed forever or at least it seems that way today, a quarter-century later. The epochal event in question was the release of Chers comeback hit Believe, of whose jaggedly fractured vocal glissando no listener had heard the likes of before. The glow-and-flutter of Chers voice at key points in the song announced its own technological artifice, writes critic Simon Reynolds at Pitchfork, a blend of posthuman perfection and angelic transcendence ideal for the vague religiosity of the chorus. As for how that effect had been achieved, only the tech-savviest studio professionals would have suspected a creative misuse of Auto-Tune, a popular digital audio processing tool brought to market the year before.

As its name suggests, Auto-Tune was designed to keep a musical performance in tune automatically. This capability owes to the efforts of one Andy Hildebrand, a classical flute virtuoso turned oil-extraction engineer turned music-technology entrepreneur. Employing the same mathematical acumen hed used to assist the likes of Exxon in determining the location of prime drilling sites from processed sonar data, he figured out a vast simplification of the calculations theoretically required for an algorithm to put a real vocal recording into a particular key.

Rapidly adopted throughout the music industry, Hildebrands invention soon became a generic trademark, like Kleenex, Jell-O, or Google. Even if a studio wasnt using Auto-Tune, it was almost certainly auto-tuning, and with such subtlety that listeners never noticed.

The producers of Believe, for their part, turned the subtlety (or, technically, the smoothness) down to zero. In an attempt to keep that discovery a secret, they claimed at first to have used a vocoder, a synthesizer that converts the human voice into manipulable analog or digital signals. Some would also have suspected the even more venerable talkbox, which had been made well-known in the seventies and eighties by Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder, and Roger Troutman of Zapp. Though the Cher effect, as it was known for a time, could plausibly be regarded as an aesthetic descendant of those devices, it had an entirely different technological basis. A few years after that basis became widely understood, conspicuous Auto-Tune became ubiquitous, not just in dance music but also in hip-hop, whose artists (not least Rappa Ternt SangaT-Pain) used Auto-Tune to steer their genre straight into the currents of mainstream pop, if not always to high critical acclaim.

Used as intended, Auto-Tune constituted a godsend for music producers working with any singer less freakishly skilled than, say, Freddie Mercury. Producer-Youtuber Rick Beato admits as much in the video just above, though given his classic rock- and jazz-oriented tastes, it doesnt come as a surprise also to hear him lament the technologys overuse. But for those willing to take it to ever-further extremes, Auto-Tune has given rise to previously unimagined subgenres, bringing (as emphasized in a recent Arte documentary) the universal language of melody into the linguistically fragmented arena of global hip-hop. As a means of generating digital soul, for digital beings, leading digital lives, in Reynolds words, Auto-Tune does reflect our time, for better or for worse. Its detractors can at least take some consolation in the fact that recent releases have come with something called a humanize knob.

Related content:

The Evolution of Music: 40,000 Years of Music History Covered in 8 Minutes

How the Yamaha DX7 Digital Synthesizer Defined the Sound of 1980s Music

What Makes This Song Great?: Producer Rick Beato Breaks Down the Greatness of Classic Rock Songs in His New Video Series

The Distortion of Sound: A Short Film on How Weve Created a McDonalds Generation of Music Consumers

How Computers Ruined Rock Music

Brian Eno on the Loss of Humanity in Modern Music

Based in Seoul,Colin Marshallwrites and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletterBooks on Cities,the bookThe Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angelesand the video seriesThe City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at@colinmarshallor onFacebook.

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The Surprisingly Long History of Auto-Tune, the Vocal-Processing ... - Open Culture

Melody Schwartz

GNYENG@proton.me

Night fell after a long day and I was spent. The light from my laptop glowing too bright white like that which is described as off in the eternal distance when one has a near-death experience. Except this was the never ending bright white light of my laptop symbolizing work past-due and future-due forever more work ever awaiting me. The day was already dedicated to an earlier shift of serving others at yet another obligation to myself and the world to keep the wheels turning and on this sputtering car, the machine that is me. I had school too so I could make more money working eventually, maybe. Ive been roadrashed and running down the road fueled by hope, following the promise of yet another light at the end of the tunnel. One I was having to practically squint to see. This evening though, I could suddenly no longer see this tiny light no matter how hard I focused. This promising light I was holding onto with my internal eyes for dear life WAS the fire inside of me I have felt dwindling for years. Blinding. Blinking. Blipping. Breaking.

Ive woken up every day for a while now, smelling smoke in my mind. I know something is burning and just keep my fingers crossed that the scent of swirling char can be traced back to a creative and fulfilling ignition of self burning off into the air but deep down I know it is simply the smell of me burning down and out. The flame has been blown low and almost out by the harsh winds of change, many a time over time and reignited, time and time again, by gasoline I barely had to spare for myself to keep moving forward.

On this weeknight the flame launched itself high, but this was a fire animated by rage. So I wrote down my rage trying to turn the accumulation of things inward outward. I had hit a wall, burnt toast now on fire was me now, on my couch sitting in front of my laptop trying to meet all of the requirements of living with purpose-ishness. To keep other, other lights on and the rest of the bills paid. Most of us dont get to grow past purpose-ishness into the real territory of pure unadulterated fulfilling purpose and I was pissed about that. What was I working for? Toward? Who was I working for? Why any of this? What did I have to prove except that I have the ability not to die? To be accountable for no worthwhile reason as seasons come and go. Unless of course I went through the mental gymnastics of injecting more meaning and value into the work I had little choice in doing. Be careful not to look at the variables which brought you to wherever you are too long, and dare not compare those variables to variables of others either. Comparison is the death of joy Teddy Roosevelt said. The kind of thing someone who is rich and tired of answering questions about how they have so much of that would say. This isnt about Teddy Roosevelt.

Working off of the rush of fire I wrote this. To cope, to spew, to put a hand out to you. Are you feeling how Im feeling? Do you see what I see? Are you hustling like Im hustling? Do you think about productivity? Are

you obsessed with maximizing your time and efforts here on planet Earth-America? Theres so much connected to this topic Its hard to know where to begin in pouring out what I see in front of me: productivity obsession, rampant achievement oriented action, the chokehold of personal responsibility, technological advancement and adjustment at top speed, the turtle speed of political progress (and not like in the story of The Hare and the Tortoise) couple with the inability of a government to offer support to a workforce it barely comprehends, general pressure to optimize, the baffling reality of the contents of something like an Underearners Anonymous meeting, best practices, life hacks, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Working off of the rush of fire I wrote the above and the below. To cope, to spew, to put a hand out to you. Are you feeling how Im feeling?

Holding the image of a visualized map of connection in my mind to lay out this topic, related areas, themes and data points would be so huge. It is overwhelming, frankly. I will do my best to lay it out a little with my words but please bear with me and remember I will be struggling to encompass the total scope of this collective frustration.

As Ive continued contemplating the topic of what Ill refer to as the phantom of productivity Ive heard various ads that feel relevant. One was for Calm Business which is an extension of the Calm app but geared toward people who need assistance in dealing with work related stress. Another one was a streaming ad for some eye drops with a script that included something like you could be doing MORE to alleviate your dry eyes. There would be so many data points one could thread and connect here eventually sewing things together into one fucked up quilt. Ive begun collecting pieces of related scrap fabric from the world to share with you. This quilt will cover my deathbed rather than keep me warm if the world doesnt change.

Before I continue let me just say that there isnt anything inherently wrong with feeling compelled to improve oneself. To be productive. It is a good thing to be motivated to do. I just want people to reflect on why they believe in their approach to productivity and optimization. I want people to explore and unpack their motivations and consider the driving forces behind hustle culture and its inevitable side effect burnout. Different people from different economic groups/classes are affected by these impulses and pressures in varied ways. I observe many people disproportionately affected by the pressure to do more than is humanly possible putting excess responsibility on themselves to personally improve in hopes that they may elevate themselves out of any variety of difficult situations they are facing. At the core the responsibility many of us feel around the need to be productive may be tied to a desire to feel in control in an out of control world. We want to have more opportunities and choices than we do so we try until we can no longer try anymore. To have a fighting chance we analyze, refactor, enhance and attempt to keep up with a global economy. We ask ourselves how to approach being our best selves more often? Living my best life. The gamification of everything. Comforting ourselves with actions that do (to a degree) improve our situations but also overwhelm us. Especially considering the increasing wealth gap. If these things are within our reach to improve it is maybe easier to cope with difficult realities and feel less crushed by the odds that are stacked against so many of us and the hard facts of life. Which as we all know, is unfair. Tough cookies. Too bad.

Unfortunately I notice a lot of people blame themselves unfairly for their failure to meet certain standards. We do of course have a part in the outcome of things, sure but absorbing so much of the responsibility for the outcome alleviates the powers that be because our rage about the unjust world turns inward first before it can manifest itself in the world and produce positive outward action for change. Before people feel confident enough to demand that they too matter. Often the community or society blames people for their rough circumstances too. Even portions of the community which pride themselves on their conscientiousness. If only they empowered themselves and improved it would change. Their lives would be better. Try harder! As if a possible tactic that moves you toward a hypothetical solution ALWAYS works out to solve the issue. It is a ridiculous lens many people do look through. This pulling yourself up by your bootstraps achievement society angle. The meritocracy of it all. All I can say is .. .theres a reason theres an asterisk on most things which lead to a footnote with the disclaimer results may vary.

As I type this I am reminded of an interaction I had with a student in a previous class I took who asked me what I was doing for the 4th of July. He phrased his question as such Are you going to BBQ with your family for the holiday? to which I replied honestly No, to be transparent I dont really have a family to BBQ with. I do like BBQ though. So maybe Ill have that. to which he replied Oh. No judgment.. This took me aback and I responded Thank you for not judging me for circumstances that were completely out of my control. Glad I wont be viewed poorly for pulling a bad hand. He added Yeah. Its not fair but people do judge. I could only say hmm from there as he was probably unfortunately right on some level about this kind of judgment but the absurdity of it and this interaction remained and the emotional gut punch it delivered sticks with me. By his logic the onus would be on me to not have had a parent who passed away early on in my life and another who suffered from extreme mental illness. Lest I be looked down upon or assumed to be xyz. This, that or the other thing.

What does that have to do with productivity? It may not seem an obvious connection, but I see one because it relates to the fact that people have these distorted viewpoints about what is within our control, the burden we must own and how to measure the world and the people in it according to that viewpoint. So my point here is that these sorts of worldviews directly impact how people navigate the world and the

likelihood that they will assume most things can merely be solved by simply trying harder. Its all within our power! Haha I wish.

Many shudder at the notion of AI but live in rejection of the many things that make us human. Life is funny that way. How we contradict ourselves. We strive to be some exceptional, synthesized version of ourselves We look inward and scrutinize. So many of us are affected by this pressure to be the best we can be. The opportunity to improve ends when were dead but maybe were closer to that much sooner than we think. Hands tied behind our backs by access to solutions to every problem under the sun. Too many options to exhaust to potentially change our lives ourselves before we look beyond. Little time to reflect.

Focusing on doing things just so to get particular results potentially arrests progress because we lose sight of so much. There isnt just one rat race. There are many and the wheels keep spinning. Where to draw the line? I like to challenge myself and find myself competing with myself whether I like it or not. Analyzing what I should do, what I could do, what I must do to empower myself, what is needed and non-negotiable so that I dont wither away It all creeps through my mind. Competition is fine and wanting to excel seems reasonable but I feel a bubbling anxiety all the time around this. I am burdened by guilt for not blocking my time better when it is already blocked to the nth degree. I reflect on how I could have utilized this, that or the other thing more intelligently. Time is running out. Bills are due. The only way up is to jump, jump, jump!

Why do we feel compelled to forever improve while we also lower our expectations for our lives?

We seek an optimal version of ourselves. You could even interpret this goal of self improvement to be in harmony with a Transhumanist philosophy which defines itself by advocating for the enhancement of the human condition by utilizing technologies that might eventually lead to expanding our capacities as human beings to the point that we would evolve past our current condition to become posthuman. A sprint toward the aspirational self. Utilizing technology to help us do more. Plagued by less overall. Achieving more. Less illness. Less bothered. Less poor. More sleep. More means. More muscles. More respect. More years to toil and boil. The aspirational self can survive AND thrive. A genderless Ubermensch for our age, if you will. From gym rats to mindful manifestors the path to your higher self can look different but productivity is key regardless of which expression of personal excellence you pursue.

We all take our vitamins to delay and decrease the suffering associated with our inevitable decline. Our bodies are as much our houses as the houses we cant afford to live inside of no matter how cleverly we schedule our weeks or the world we cant afford to neglect but cant afford to pay attention to either. The intangible house beyond our home. Our body is maybe a realm we have more control over than most. It is our machine even if it is rented out to pay the bills. We try, try, try to keep it well oiled so it may survive the symptoms of a conflicted time, society and world slipping away with the ice caps. Self care to prepare. Prepare to do more, and more. Sometimes when I think about productivity and hustle culture in The United States I cant help but imagine someone trying to get fit in a gym thats on fire. It makes me want to laugh and cry. It gives the feeling of smiling with a mouth full of blood.

I see our relationship with optimization in this country as a relationship with death, which is funny because on the surface it looks to be concerned with the opposite. Health and wellness, for one. For some in the extreme they may even be seeking immortality. In actuality or through impact. A song that will never die or a body that lives on through science. Whatever the personal goals are at play for the individual, it remains that the obsession with productivity and perfection often keeps us from living and being present. Disconnected and at a deficit. A rupture to repair mentality in tow, keeping us motivated but also disempowered.

Now is the time to shift our thinking before our actions seal our fate and declare one too many times that we are okay with living in this impossible way. We are willingly optimizing ourselves to fit the needs of this countrys machine rather than making IT optimize to accommodate the needs of the people. There is much good and plenty to be proud of here in The U.S.. Wepersevere, we compete and we fight to survive. We should be proud of our resilience but our pride should not blind us from the reality that most of us are suffering in this system. Or did we evolve to rise and grind? You tell me.

Again, Id like to posit to all of you that optimization obsession leads to the opposite because it keeps us from living and appreciating our imperfections. Our humanity. Not to mention optimization obsession or this perfect ideal people strive toward just puts us on a path toward perfection which isnt attainable or human and might even be in line with moving toward our replacement via AI or other Transhumanist outcomes and endeavors.

We are acting to almost unconsciously eradicate ourselves by rejecting our individual/ collective needs and interests as human beings with productivity obsessions that offer supposed worth, value and protection from decay. The anxiety to maximize every moment seems omnipresent. A ghost haunting us all. For what? For who? What is the benefit, really? Also theres an element of this obsession with productivity which feels related to our lacking healthcare system and the responsibility we put on ourselves since we cant count on our government to support us in attempting to cure what ails us so you guessed it we can continue to be viable in the workforce and as resources to society. Thats a whole other shit pie to chew on, though. I dont think any of us expect life to be a cakewalk but should we not be whipping things into shape as opposed to whipping ourselves?

Striving toward perfection and optimizing the self doesnt promise innovation, fulfillment or a better quality of life. It just moves the goal post and distracts us from the big picture, ourselves and each other. We cant find balance with it in this country because we arent afforded a reasonable work/life balance in the first place. Thats entitlement. Bratty. Maybe we dont even believe we deserve that subconsciously because of internalized programming about what is and isnt valuable, reasonable etc? We are failures if we arent doing the MOST at absolutely every moment so we lowball ourselves. Shoot the future in the foot. Act against our best interest as a collective people. Somehow the difficulties of life are totally our fault if we dont maximize opportunity from every angle. Even the ones we cant predict. In my opinion most people wont even acknowledge that the internal relationship to this is as harsh as I describe but I see faces that say otherwise every day even if they cannot utter out loud with their own mouths because we are after all lucky to be alive. The odds that any of us would even exist are so incomprehensible that maybe thats enough and maybe we should want for nothing more than to try? If we bring religious beliefs into this conversation it becomes even more layered. Regardless, we soldier on. We get a counselor, a psychiatrist, a friend who will listen. We do what we can. We dont want to feel or be seen as victims so we delete the contributing factors in favor of focusing on something within our grasp. The free will argument and grit! How very American. Well, let me just say maybe your free will isnt so free. Maybe your will is just willing. Too willing, perhaps. Creating value helps to keep us alive and feeling worthy which incentivizes being super productive to have the most perceived value and self worth. By that logic its kind of like lets all kill ourselves being well oiled machines so as not to die! lol

A better self for a better world? More like a better corpse.

What does our humanity mean to us? How much value does it hold?

Page 7 of 7 Melody Schwartz Drowning in Potential

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Drowning in Potential The Guardsman - The Guardsman Online

by Matteo Calla // Dec. 20, 2022

This article is part of our feature topic ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

In a sense, the set-up of Sprth Magers second floor gallery space in Mitte Berlin, in which Jon Rafmans Counterfeit Poast was exhibited this Fall, wasnt so different from the neoclassical rotundas of the Schinkel Pavillon, where the artists work can still be seen until January 22. A wallpapered, octagonal room with large-scale portraits mounted on all sides, it looked like the inside of the Greek tholos, the circular kind of temple made famous at Delphi. The mystical connotations extended to the title of the presentation, Chapel, but in place of images of the gods, however, this chapel featured a new type of secular art: a series of uncanny posthuman figures generated using a text-to-image AI algorithm.

Jon Rafman: (Mutant 1), 2022, inkjet print and acrylic on canvas, 186.7 134.6 cm // Courtesy of the Artist and Sprth Magers, photo by Etienne St. Denis

Among the characters encountered by the viewer was a diffuse brown blob with multiple eyes growing like a tree trunk from the bottom of the canvas, a fairy creature blending into the background of an impressionist forest, and a face composed of what appeared to be colored clay, vaguely reminiscent of Bob Dylan. The temple itself looked like it had been squatted by cyberpunks. The wallpaper depicted what appeared to be hallways full of computer servers, shiny and gleaming against a black backdrop. The ceiling was a pixelated vision of the heavens in yellow, white, and blue; on the floor burned digital hellfire. By exhibiting AI-generated works this way, Rafmans show at Sprth Magers asked crucial questions about how this new technology might transform our shared myths, in the process transforming our individual and collective identities themselves.

The portraits suggest that central to this transformation is the emergence of a new kind of representation that, even at the level of its production, belongs entirely to the intangible realm of the digital. In their content and materiality, these works stage a tension between a pre-modern notion of art as a uniquely human creation, and its existence as the product of an AI algorithm. As Rafman puts it, the allure of the objecthood of the paintings is a romantic longing for a kind of art or experience that is potentially obsolete. This tension between human and machine, concrete form and digital ether, is embedded in the materiality of the paintings, which after being generated by AI, are hand-painted and printed over on an ink-jet printer. It is also represented in the uncanny figures depicted in the paintings themselves. They are portraits of the posthuman reality that, with AI-generated art, has perhaps already arrived.

Jon Rafman: Chapel, 2022, digital print on vinyl, LED, total width: 20.184m, total height: 3.81m // Courtesy of the Artist and Sprth Magers, Photo by Timo Ohler

Like any epoch-defining technology, text-to-image AI has incited a considerable amount of utopian and dystopian punditry, from magazine articles praising its potential to unleash limitless human creativity to news reports claiming it will steal the jobs of working artists. Two claims are often made about the technologys posthuman radicalness. The first is that text-to-image AI removes the skill from the creation of visual art, or at least displaces it. Artistic ability no longer rests in making works themselves, but in coding them: writing a text to produce a particular image. This, in all fairness, is more difficult than it sounds. Rafman suggests that every portrait in Counterfeit Poast involved thousands of discarded attempts. The second claim is that this image itself is not new, or not a novel human creation at least, but an amalgamation of existing images in the dataset.

Practically the same can be said, of course, about photography, a technology that some would claim ushered in the era of modern art itself. The difference is that for photography, the skill doesnt involve coding for an image, but perceiving and framing it in space. Claims to the images lack of novelty arent based on its preexistence in a digital dataset, but as an object in the physical world. These differences make photography and AI-generated images parallel aesthetic innovations. If photographic art stakes an exclusive, totalizing claim to the physical imaginary, then AI-generated art does the same for the immaterial domain of the digital. Technologies like AI image generation open fresh territories where artists can reform previous aesthetic strategies to meet these new technological possibilities, notes Rafman. In doing so, a new culture is created, standards of aesthetic judgment and production are revised, and I hope questions about the broader historical implications of these developments are raised.

Jon Rafman: Counterfeit Poast, 2022, 4K stereo video, 23:39 min, film still // Courtesy of the Artist and Sprth Magers

AI promises to extend the scope of our already-extensive digital experience. Rafmans recent work uses AI technology to explore how this digital experience defines both our individual identity and, as shared experience, our sense of community. Counterfeit Poasts titular video installation assumes the form of a series of short films, in which voice actors narrate individualized stories of identity and alienation in a world transformed by these technologies. The narratives are inspired by postings on message boards such as Reddit, and visualized to uncanny effect using text-to-image AI. Many of the stories concern people who are convinced that they are their avatars: a boy who believes himself to be a walrus, a Texan man who is convinced he is actually a gay Somali pirate. For these individuals, the kind of imaginary identity they might assume in their digital liveson Facebook and 4chan, GTA 5 and Second Lifehas supplanted their physical selves.

Jon Rafman: Counterfeit Poast, 2022, 4K stereo video, 23:39 min, film still // Courtesy of the Artist and Sprth Magers

Punctured Sky (2021), a short film that still can be seen as part of his solo show and Grimoires at the Schinkel Pavillon, also examines how our collective memory, as that which binds us together as a society, is changed by digital technologies. Punctured Sky is digitally-animated cinema noir about two young men searching for a video game they remember playing as children, a game that seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. The story is similar to one of the shorts in Counterfeit Poast, in which a woman shares her absolute conviction that she has seen The Traveling Salesman, an obscure film starring Kevin Costner as a salesman attacked by a roving band of Satanists in a post-apocalyptic America, despite the fact that no one else seems to remember it. In both of these stories, belief in the obscure cultural object is existential, the difference between the alienation of madness and participation in society. Such is the risk in a world where cultural objects and narratives proliferate in increasingly fragmented online communities, their existence erased in the flash of a hard drive. In furthering the digitization of culture, AI will undoubtedly further its precarity and fragmentation. Whether it has the potential to reorient culture in other ways remains to be seen, and is one of the questions looming before artists such as Rafman today.

Jon Rafman: Punctured Sky, 2021, 4K video, sound, 21 min, video still // Courtesy the Artist and Spruth Magers

If history is any indication, AI doesnt mark the end of art, as alarmists might have us believe, but it does mark a profound shift. As before with photography, it is in all likelihood a keystone in a crucial moment of cultural transformation, perhaps even of societys transformation itself. Rafmans work points to potential aesthetics, narratives and identities that this emergent change might produce. The only thing clear at this point is that we are still at the nascent stage of artificial intelligence, perhaps comparable to the early daguerreotypes of the 1800s. The apex of its development is still to come.

John Rafman: and Grimoires Exhibition: Sept. 15 2022-Jan. 22, 2023schinkelpavillon.deOberwallstrae 32, 10117 Berlin, click here for map

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Portraits of the Posthuman: Jon Rafman and AI | Berlin Art Link

Some of the most provocative artists today deal with biotechnology. Working with scientists and engineers, these artists transform living tissue and even their own bodies into works of art. Here are seven bio-artists whose contributions you should know.

The legendary Cypriot-Australian performance artist Stelarc likes to consider how technology extends the capacities of the human body and how at the same time our bodies are becoming increasingly obsolete.

Neither a utopian or a dystopian, Stelarc's central claim is that were progressively extending ourselves into our environment and our technological artifacts, and as a result, are transforming ourselves into both cyborgs and zombies.

Stelarcs performances often involve robotics and other modern technologies. He has undergone voluntary surgeries, endowed himself with a third arm, and risked killing himself after ingesting a stomach sculpture.

In one performance, he allowed his body to be controlled remotely by electronic muscle stimulators connected to the internet. Most recently, he had a cell-cultivated ear surgically attached to his left arm.

Hes also famous for his suspension performances.

Shocking, controversial, and highly provocative, Orlan uses her body and especially her face as her canvas. She applies cosmetic surgery to transform her face into any number of forms, including The Reincarnation of Saint-Orlan piece in which she morphed herself into elements from famous paintings and sculptures of women.

Orlan used these surgeries to conform her face to the feminine ideal as depicted by male artists.

But by using cosmetic surgery as the means of her transformation, she shows the power of technology to transform our physical appearance. Whats more, her art shows how fungible the human form can be.

An English musician, poet, writer, and performance artist, Genesis Breyer P-Orridges work explores a diverse number of themes, including sex work, occultism, and gender issues. S/he is most famous for Project Pandrogeny a collaborative effort with his wife Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge in which the two tried to create an amalgam of their two selves. The project touched upon such themes as personal transformation, deep interpersonal coupling, and postgenderism.

The experiment to create a pandrogynous being named Breyer P-Orridge required the couple to undergo breast implants and other physical transformations. They also adopted gender neutral and alternating pronouns (e.g. s/he, h/er, and h/erself).

And then over the years, we transformed more and more until we were both running around in miniskirts, dressed the same, they noted to the Village Voice.

Brazilian-American "transgenic artist" Eduardo Kac uses biotechnology and genetics to explore and critique scientific techniques.

In his first work, "Genesis," Kac took a bible verse, translated it into Morse code, and then converted it into the base pairs of genetics. He then implanted the resulting genes into an unspecified bacterium that he grew in a petri dish. The idea was to create a dichotomy between biblical injunctions against tampering with nature with doing exactly that.

But his most famous work is Alba, the creation of a green-fluorescent rabbit. Kac took a rabbit and implanted it with a Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) found in jellyfish. When placed under a blue light, the rabbit glowed a bright, eerie green.

Kac says that the nature of his new art is defined not only by the birth and growth of a new plant or animal but above all by the nature of the relationship among artist, public, and transgenic organism.

Kac also has a microchip in his ankle, choosing that part of the body because slaves were often branded there.

A seminal figure in the transhumanist and extropian movements, Natasha Vita-More integrates her futurist visions and ethos into her conceptual art pieces. An advocate of human enhancement and morphological freedoms, her work explores such themes as biotechnology, robotics, information technology, nanotechnology, neuroscience and cognitive science, artificial general intelligence. Human nature, argues Vita-More, is predicated on the desire to solve problems through innovative methods and design.

Her best known work is Primo Posthuman, a project that proposes the possibilities of the future human one thats the product of intentional design rather than the forces of natural selection. The Primo Posthuman is a futuristic version of the human form thats overcome disease, aging and which features any number of new features.

Unlike the cyborg, Primos unfolding nature is based on expanding choices, she says, Unlike the transcendent, Primo is driven by the rational rather than the mystical.

She notes:

Primo is engineered like a finely tuned machine and displayed visually like a biological body to mirror the human shape for cognitive association, visual recognition, and aesthetic appeal. Yet, the Primo body does not age, is easily upgraded, has meta-sensory components, 24-hour remote Net relay system, and multiple gender options. Its outer sheath is primed with smart skin which vanguards practical designs purposes for communication. The model structure is composed of assembled massive molecular cytes or cells connected together to form the outer fabric of the body. The smart skin is engineered to repair, remake, and replace itself. It contains nanobots throughout the epidermal and dermis to communicate with the brain to determine the texture and tone of its surface. It transmits enhanced sensory data to the brain on an ongoing basis. The smart skin learns how and when to renew itself, alerts the outside world of the disposition of the person; gives specific degrees of the bodys temperature from moment to moment; and reflects symbols, images, colors and textures across its contours. It is able to relate the percentages of toxins in the environment and the extract radiation effects of the sun.

American performance and new media artist, Micha Crdenass work explores the impacts of biotechnology, wearable computing, and the intersection of the real and virtual worlds. Her work investigates the way technologies can both extend and morph the human body, particularly beyond conventional gender roles.

Back in 2008, Crdenas performed Becoming Dragon, a 365 hour mixed reality performance in Second Life. For the entire 365 hours, Crdenas took on the form of a dragon named Azdel Slade.

Shes also the co-author of The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities in which she discusses augmented reality, mixed reality, alternate reality approaches.

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Aimee Mullins is primarily known for her accomplishments as a Paralympian athlete, but in 1999 she collaborated with British fashion designer Alexander McQueen on a rather interesting project. Mullins, who had both of her legs amputated below the knee when she was one year old, posed on pair of hand-carved wooden prosthetic legs made from solid ash, with integral boots.

The BBC reported:

"You always expected the unexpected with Alexander McQueen," says Helen Boyle a fashion stylist and presenter. "Everyone was waiting to see who was on the catwalk, and what they were wearing.

"By putting disabled people on he was taking people out of their comfort zones, making people think, making people sit up in their chairs."

In 2003 she collaborated with director Matthew Barney for the Cremaster 3 project in which she posed for a series of provocative scenes, showing how the human body can be presented and extended beyond so-called human normalcy.

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7 Bio-Artists Who Are Transforming the Fabric of Life Itself - Gizmodo

A Disturbing, Delicious, Page-tuner, that pulls you and keeps you coming back for more.

SUSPENSE and HORROR at its best!

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Kaufman Striker spent his who

Kaufman Striker spent his whole life learning to be unfeeling; it took hanging himself to change that. Ten years ago, he thought he'd gotten away from being the town's peculiar celebrity; thought he'd gotten away from his father's warped ideas about self-mastery, but his dogmatic dear old dad has reached out from the past to continue his education with a letter encouraging Kaufman to take his own life.

For today in Decoy, Nevada, death isn't permanent.

In an underground military facility, a top-secret resurrection project has been sabotaged. Except scientific resurrection doesn't account for everything. Not the bipedal coyotes that stalk the streets or the thousands of missing town's people, nor Kaufman's own subtle enhancements.

Part psychological thriller, part dystopian sci-fi, Posthuman is a suspense-horror novel that probes what would happen if science discovered proof of life after death and then nudged evolution to take us there. With deep themes and a rich, intricate plot, Posthuman has enough twists, turns, and surprises that once you reach the last page, youll want to start reading it all over again.

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Book giveaway for Posthuman by M.C. Hansen Nov 14-Nov 30, 2022

Human with superpowers in DC Universe

In DC Comics' DC Universe, a metahuman is a human with superpowers. The term is roughly synonymous with both mutant and mutate in the Marvel Universe and posthuman in the Wildstorm and Ultimate Marvel Universes. In DC Comics, the term is used loosely in most instances to refer to any human-like being with extranormal powers and abilities, either cosmic, mutant, science, mystic, skill or tech in nature. A significant portion of these are normal human beings born with a genetic variant called the "metagene",[1] which causes them to gain powers and abilities during freak accidents or times of intense psychological distress.

The term was first used as a reference to superheroes in 1986 by author George R. R. Martin, first in the Superworld role playing system, and then later in his Wild Cards series of novels.[citation needed]

The term was first used by a fictitious race of extraterrestrials known as the Dominators when they appeared in DC Comics' Invasion! mini-series. The Dominators use this term to refer to any human native of the planet Earth with "fictional superhuman abilities". The prefix "meta-" simply means "beyond", denoting powers and abilities beyond human limits.[2] Metahuman may also relate to an individual who has exceeded what is known as "The Current Potential", meaning one's ability to move matter with mind. (See Telekinesis).

Before the White Martians arrived on Earth, Lord Vimana, the Vimanian overlord from the Xenobrood mini-series, claimed credit for the creation of the human race both normal and metahuman, due to their introduction of superpowered alien genetic matter into human germline DNA.[3] The Vimanians in the series forced their super powered worker drones to mate with humanity's ancestors Australopithecus afarensis (3 million years ago), and later Homo erectus (1.5 million years ago) in order to create a race of superpowered slaves.[4]

The Invasion! miniseries provided a concept for why humans in the DC Universe would survive catastrophic events and develop superpowers. One of the Dominators discovered that select members of the human race had a "biological variant," which he called the metagene (also spelled "meta-gene"). This gene often lay dormant until an instant of extraordinary physical and emotional stress activates it. A "spontaneous chromosomal combustion" then takes place, as the metagene takes the source of the biostress be it chemical, radioactive or whatever and turns the potential catastrophe into a catalyst for "genetic change," resulting in metahuman abilities. DC does not use the "metagene concept" as a solid editorial rule, and few writers explicitly reference the metagene when explaining a character's origin.

DC also has characters born with superhuman abilities, suggesting the metagene can activate spontaneously and without any prior appearance in the ancestry. One well-known example involves Dinah Laurel Lance, the second Black Canary. Although her mother (Dinah Drake Lance, the original Black Canary) was a superhero, neither she nor her husband Larry Lance were born with any known metagenes. However, Dinah Laurel was born with a metagene, the infamous ultrasonic scream known as the Canary Cry.

The prefix meta-, in this context, simply means "beyond"as in metastable, which is beyond regular stability and ready to collapse at the slightest disruption, or metamorphosis, which is the state of going beyond a single shape. In the DC comic miniseries Invasion!, the Dominators point out that the metagene is contained inside every cell of the human body.

In the DC Comics universe, metahuman criminals are incarcerated in special metahuman prisons, like the prison built on Alcatraz Island, which is outfitted not only with provisions to hold criminals whose powers are science- and technology-based, but even mystical dampeners to hold villains (including Homo magi) whose powers are magic-based. Prisoners in this facility are tagged with nanobyte tracers injected into their bloodstream that allow them to be located wherever they are.[5]

It is possible for individuals skilled in science and biology to manipulate, dampen or modify the activities of the metagene. During the Final Crisis, while the Dominators were devised a Gene Bomb able to accelerate the metagene activity to the point of cellular and physical instabilities, an anti-metagene virus was spread as a last-ditch weapon in the invaded Checkmate quarters. This metavirus has the opposite effects of the Gene Bomb, curbing and shutting down the metagene and stripping the metahumans of their powers for an unspecified amount of time.[6]

The genetic potential for a future metagene was discovered in ancient Homo sapiens' DNA (500,000 - 250,000 years ago) by the White Martian race. The White Martians performed experiments on these primitive humans, changing how the metahuman phenotype was expressed by the metagene.[7][8][9]

Due to their experiments, they altered the destiny of the human race. Whereas before, evolution would have eventually made mankind into a race of superhumans similar to the Daxamites and Kryptonians, now only a select few humans would develop metahuman powers. As punishment for this, the group of renegades known as the Hyperclan was exiled to the Still Zone, a version of the Phantom Zone.[citation needed]

The White Martians also created a metavirus, a metagene that could be passed from host to host via touch. This metavirus was responsible for the empowerment of the very first Son of Vulcan. From that time onwards, the Sons of Vulcan passed the metavirus down in an unbroken line, sworn to hunt and kill the White Martians.[9]

The terms "meta" and "metahuman" do not refer only to humans born with biological variants. Superman and the Martian Manhunter (aliens) as well as Wonder Woman (a near-goddess) and Aquaman (an Atlantean) are referred to in many instances as "metahumans." It can refer to anyone with extraordinary powers, no matter the origins and including those not born with such power. According to Countdown to Infinite Crisis, roughly 1.3 million metahumans live on Earth, 99.5% of whom are considered "nuisance-level" (such as kids who can bend spoons with their minds and the old lady "who keeps hitting at Powerball"). The other 0.5% are what Checkmate and the OMACs consider alpha-, beta- and gamma-level threats. For example, Superman and Wonder Woman are categorized as alpha-level, while Metamorpho is considered a beta-level and the Ratcatcher is considered a gamma-level. However, since the destruction of the Source Wall, the number of Alpha and Beta level metahumans, as well as the general metahuman population, were sharply increased by the new cosmic radiations affecting the universe.

The 52 miniseries introduced a toxic mutagen called the Exo-gene (also referred to as the Exogene). It is a toxic gene therapy treatment created by LexCorp for the Everyman Project, which creates metahuman abilities in compatible non-metahumans. It first appeared in 52 #4, with the first announcement of the Everyman Project in 52 #8. The project was controversial, creating unstable heroes that gave Luthor an "off switch" for their powers, creating countless mid-flight deaths.

In Road to Dark Nights: Metal, the Joker revealed to Duke Thomas that the term "meta" originated from a rudimentary hospital program used to automatically flag Nth metal toxicity found in a person's bloodstream, similar to iron or zinc, the meta being short for the "metal" it detected. This natural toxicity is the "variant" that changes the individual's DNA results in the metagene and its various heightened abilities and powers.

The lineage of metahumans and their origins can be traced by this Nth Metal connection, dating all the way back to three tribes from the earliest known era of humanity; the Bird Tribe, the Wolf Tribe and the Bear Tribe.

When the Totality crashed to Earth and introduced the various forms of Heavy Metal and other mysterious forces into the world, The Bear tribe and Vandar Adg of the Wolf Tribe were the first ones to encounter the Totality. They were all mutated by the radiation of the Totality, granting them immortality and making them the world's earliest iteration of metahumans.

The word "metahuman" is often attributed to the DC Universe, while superhuman beings in the Marvel Universe are referred to as either mutants or mutates. However, both DC and Marvel Comics have made use of the term "metahuman" and "mutant" in their universes. The first use of the term 'metahuman' in the Marvel Universe occurred in New Mutants Annual #3, written by Chris Claremont, published in 1987, in which a Russian security officer describes the protagonists as "metahuman terrorists".[10]

In the short-lived DC/Marvel Comics "Amalgam Comics" crossover event, in JLX #1 (April 1996) (combining DC's Justice League and Marvel's X-Men), metahumans are replaced with metamutants (a portmanteau of DC's metahumans and Marvel's mutants) who are said to carry a 'metamutant gene'.

In the animated version of the DC universe, the term metahuman is used in the animated TV series Static Shock.

On the television series Birds of Prey, metahumans included heroines the Huntress and Dinah Lance. New Gotham has a thriving metahuman underground, mostly made of metahumans who are trying to live their own lives, although a self-hating metahuman, Claude Morton (Joe Flanigan), tries to convince the police that all metahumans are evil. In Birds of Prey, metahumans are treated seemingly as a race or species; the Huntress is described as being "half-metahuman" on her mother's side.

On the television series Smallville, metahumans can occur naturally. However, the majority are the result of exposure to kryptonite, which in the Smallville universe can turn people into superpowered "meteor freaks", often with psychotic side effects. For many seasons of Smallville, all superpowered people other than Kryptonians were so-called meteor freaks, but as the show went on, it began to explore further corners of the DC Universe. Non-kryptonite metahumans include the Smallville versions of Aquaman, the Flash, the Black Canary, and Zatanna.

On the animated series Young Justice, the aliens known as the Kroloteans have frequently used the term and have even researched into the discovery of a "metagene" by abducting and testing on random humans. The alien reach conduct similar experiments and kidnap a cadre of teen runaways to test for the metagene, leading several of these individuals to develop superpowers. In the episode "Runaways," a S.T.A.R. Labs scientist surmises that the gene is "opportunistic" in as much as it causes its user to develop powers seemingly based on their personal experiences or surrounding depending on circumstances. In the third season a recurring plot-point is the trafficking of metahumans after humans learn to detect and activate metagene after the Reach invasion. In some cases, the metagene in some families is shown to be the source of similar abilities, as with Terra, Geo-Force, and their maternal uncle Baron Bedlam. In "Evolution", it is revealed Vandal Savage was the first metahuman because of the fallen meteor which bestowed him a healing factor and super-intelligence on Mongolia during the Pleistocene. Earth's metahumans, many Atlanteans, and all homo magi in Young Justice all trace their lineage to Savage.

In the Arrowverse family of live-action shows, "metahuman" is used more narrowly than in the comics, typically referring to a human being who becomes transhuman and has uncanny abilities, often acquired following some kind of strange accident.

In the television series Gotham, Professor Hugo Strange experiments with dead (and alive) bodies of criminals, Arkham Asylum patients, and civilians under the orders of the Court of Owls. There, Strange gives his victims superhuman abilities such as shapeshifting (Clayface), mind control (Fish Mooney) and super strength (Azrael). By the end of Season 2, Strange's victims escape and wreak havoc in the city. Throughout the series, the metahumans are commonly referred to as Strange's Monsters, simply Monsters (an allusion to the miniseries Dark Moon Rising: Batman & the Monster Men), or the Freaks from Indian Hill.

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Metahuman - Wikipedia

@book{braidotti2022posthuman, abstract = {The notion of the posthuman continues to both intrigue and confuse, not least because of the huge number of ideas, theories and figures associated with this term. More Posthuman Glossary provides a way in to the dizzying array of posthuman concepts, providing vivid accounts of emerging terms. It is much more than a series of definitions, however, in that it seeks to imagine and predict what new terms might come into being as this exciting field continues to expand.A follow-up volume to the brilliant interventions of Posthuman Glossary (2018), this book extends and elaborates on that work, particularly focusing on concepts of race, indigeneity and new ideas in radical ecology. It also includes new and emerging voices within the new humanities and multiple modes of communicating ideas.This is an indispensible glossary for those who are exploring what the non-human, inhuman and posthuman might mean in the 21st century.}, added-at = {2022-11-16T13:21:53.000+0100}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2acdf8a205e3dc5cd5e1b76d0efffb39a/limabla}, edition = {First}, editor = {Braidotti, Rosi and Jones, Emily and Klumbyt, Goda}, interhash = {78982a56850a43ae6452dd5e4e57d637}, intrahash = {acdf8a205e3dc5cd5e1b76d0efffb39a}, isbn = {9781350231443}, keywords = {gedispub itegpub}, language = {en}, publisher = {Bloomsbury Publishing}, series = {Theory in the New Humanities}, timestamp = {2022-11-16T13:21:53.000+0100}, title = {More Posthuman Glossary}, year = 2022}

%0 Book%1 braidotti2022posthuman%B Theory in the New Humanities%D 2022%E Braidotti, Rosi%E Jones, Emily%E Klumbyt, Goda%I Bloomsbury Publishing%K gedispub itegpub%T More Posthuman Glossary%X The notion of the posthuman continues to both intrigue and confuse, not least because of the huge number of ideas, theories and figures associated with this term. More Posthuman Glossary provides a way in to the dizzying array of posthuman concepts, providing vivid accounts of emerging terms. It is much more than a series of definitions, however, in that it seeks to imagine and predict what new terms might come into being as this exciting field continues to expand.A follow-up volume to the brilliant interventions of Posthuman Glossary (2018), this book extends and elaborates on that work, particularly focusing on concepts of race, indigeneity and new ideas in radical ecology. It also includes new and emerging voices within the new humanities and multiple modes of communicating ideas.This is an indispensible glossary for those who are exploring what the non-human, inhuman and posthuman might mean in the 21st century.%7 First%@ 9781350231443

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More Posthuman Glossary | BibSonomy

Paul Shapera writes pulp operas. Just as pulp fiction covered everything from hard boiled detective stories to Buck Rogers, Tarzan to Flash Gordon, Paul's albums fantasy musicals cover a 180 year span of history in the fictional city of New Albion.

Albums can shift genres from steampunk to dieselpunk, atompunk to weird west, psychedelic to cyberpunk, depending on where in the timeline the story is taking place. These strange tales are full of morally ambiguous characters, high drama, intricate world building, and soaring melodies.

"My work is very much like an epic science fiction book series, but told in highly emotive music, like an opera cycle made with various forms of popular music," says Paul.

He just released the latest continuation of Jill's story, Jill's Psychedelic Sunday, from his previous albums, The Dolls Of New Albion and the Posthuman War series. "This album lays off the linear storytelling, however. It's just snapshots of different scenes as opposed to the flat out storylines present in the albums before this." The album explores different sides of psychedelic music ranging from 60 psych folk to Floyd, 90s rave to jam bands, and creepy tech to Space Rock. Much like how shifting genres in his different albums reveal different parts of New Albion's history, the different ways he uses the psychedelic genre is a way to tell the listener where Jill is in her journey.

Jill's Psychedelic Sunday explores Jill's journey through ritual induced psychedelia. The album opens with "Coming Up," which sets up the rest of the album. It depicts a ritual initiation, with the leader telling Jill to drink something to complete her induction. The rest of the album is her journey through ten scenes from her life which have not happened yet. The music of "Behind the Midnight Scene" lays out the recurring musical motif of the album which shows back up along Jill's wild and wandering journey. You are on this trip with Jill.

Each song contains spoken snippets which describe small scenes, around which the track is occurring. They are meant to ground you and keep you and Jill together. "This album more than any other in recent memory was made because it was the album I wanted to listen to," shares Paul. "Other albums are the story I want to tell right then, or the music that I feel I need to express, or the style I most want to explore. This one was the one I just simply wanted to listen to. I wanted to be able to play it on Spotify."

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Track List

Coming Up

Behind the Midnight Scene

The Maze The Mirror

Cerebral Deep

Isabela

Jill's Tattoo

Duel of the Tarot

Fae Wather Way

Michael

The B.A.I.R.N.S.

The Cosmic Hoedown

Coming Down

Originally from Pittsburgh, Paul is an American living in a small village in Serbia, having moved there straight from New York City, creating sci-fi musicals in an old, Balkan farming village. His work has grown steadily due to online word of mouth and has a very active and enthusiastic fanbase that creates art, cosplay, and animatics of the characters and songs.

"I worked furiously on music for years with nobody listening, unable to figure out how to attract an audience and resigning myself to the reality that I would spend my life at a craft I would remain unknown for," reveals Paul. "Once I made peace with this, I was free to create exactly what I wanted and not worry about what people might like, and so I went back to making weird, story albums, sci-fi musicals, and lo and behold, then I made it."

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Paul Shapera Continues The Story Of The Fictional City New Albion In His Latest Concept Album, 'Jill's Psychedelic Sunday' - Broadway World

Scientists and tech dreamers often speak of a post-human future, in which technology reshapes the human mind or perfects the human genome, extending the average lifespan past a century. Radical environmentalists, too, imagine a posthuman future. But they mean a future after what some now call the Anthropocene Age, the era in which Homo sapiens significantly altered the Earths geology and ecosystems.

The Anthropocene Age is still being defined. Did it begin in 1945, with the Trinity atomic-bomb tests, or in the 18th century with James Watts steam pump, or even around 10,000 B.C. with organized agriculture and the first settled societies? Today, as Christianity weakens in the West, post-Christians are gripped by fears of natures revenge, the environmental apocalypse. The decline of traditional religion and a change in the weather is causing a sea change in our inner lives, our politics and our economies. What must we do to save our souls or the planet, which, we hear, are now much the same?

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Sacred Nature Review: Back to the Garden - The Wall Street Journal

American hardcore punk band

Harm's Way[N 1] is an American straight edge hardcore punk band from Chicago, Illinois, formed in 2006. The band started as a side project, but ended up becoming a more serious and full-time band in their later years. Harm's Way has since released four studio albums: Reality Approaches (2009), Isolation (2011) and Rust (2015) and several EPs. On February 9, 2018, the band released their critically acclaimed Metal Blade Records debut, titled Posthuman. They have been recognized for their unique blend of metal, industrial, and hardcore music.

In 2006,[5] the members of a straight edge punk band called Few and the Proud started a "side project-slash-joke"[1] band to have fun playing short-and-fast powerviolence songs influenced by Crossed Out and Infest.[6] Harm's Way drummer Chris Mills commented on the band's early days and progression, stating: "We'd play super fast powerviolence songs, and our singer would put on a mask and sing silly lyrics about beating up frat boys or whatever. Then, later as the band became more serious, we retired a lot of those elements and went in a more death metal directiondarker and less ridiculous, even if some aspects of it still weren't 100 percent serious."[1] Harm's Way released several albums, EPs and singles through Organized Crime Records and Closed Casket Activities in their early days.

After the release of their 2011 second studio album Isolation, Harm's Way emailed Jacob Bannon (Converge) and his label Deathwish Inc. after hearing that he was a fan of the band's music to ask if the label would be interested in signing them.[5] The band's signing to Deathwish was announced in March 2013.[7] Harm's Way released the EP Blinded on July 23, 2013 featuring artwork by Florian Bertmer,[5] and promoted it with a music video for the track "Mind Control" followed by a world tour.[7][8] Mills commented on their positive relationship with the label, stating: "It's been awesomethey've been really helpful, we have a bigger budget, we were able to do a music video. They've been willing to do anything we've really wanted. They're really supportive."[5] The Blinded EP also saw the band incorporating more Godflesh-influenced industrial metal into their sound.[5][9]

Harm's Way released its third studio album Rust through Deathwish on March 10, 2015 and promoted it with a music video for the track "Amongst the Rust."[10][11] Commenting on the band's musical and imagery changes with Rust, Mills said: "We're still locked into these niches in people's mindsyou know, meathead tough guy hardcore band, Satan-worshipping death metal band, whatever. We see Rust as not just a new musical phasewe're changing up the old logo and taking a different direction with the imagery to try to steer people away from generalizations and assumptions based on stuff that really doesn't represent who we are as people or musicians."[1] The album was met with generally positive reviews. Writing for Rock Sound, Chris Hidden gave the album an eight-out-of-ten, and said: "This new record finds them in formidable form, with the likes of 'Amongst The Rust' and 'Cancerous Ways' blending the down-tuned riff attack of nu metal with groove-led thrash and the crushing intensity of hardcore to produce a sound that references everyone from Sepultura to Trapped Under Ice."[12] Harm's Way began touring in support of Rust with a March/April 2015 North American tour with Code Orange and others, a May/June European tour, the European leg of Deathwish Fest and US headlining tour in July, and touring North American with The Black Dahlia Murder in October.[11][13][14][15]

On 6 December 2017, the band announced their fourth studio album, and Metal Blade Records debut, titled Posthuman. The record was set for release on 9 February 2018, and was produced by Will Putney at Graphic Nature Audio.[16] After the album release and a FebruaryMarch US tour, Luca Cimarusti wrote for the Chicago Reader, "...theyve finally fully realized their fascination with [Godflesh]. ...Posthuman is one of the darkest, heaviest records youll hear this year."[17] A year later, Harm's Way released a four-song EP titled PSTHMN featuring industrial remixes of songs from Posthuman.[18]

The band's musical style has been described as hardcore punk,[3][19][20] metalcore[21] industrial metal,[citation needed] industrial,[3] and death metal.[3] The band's early work has been described as powerviolence.[22][19] They also incorporate elements of groove metal,[20] industrial,[20] death metal, black metal, and nu metal into their sound.[23] The band's music has been compared to bands like Code Orange,[24] Slipknot,[25] and Godflesh.[20]

Current members

Former members

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Harm's Way (band) - Wikipedia