Intuitive Technologies

Models of Posthuman Subjectivity in Simon Ings' Hot Head and Hotwire

Authors

  • Kaisa Kortekallio University of Helsinki

Keywords:

Simon Ings, Hot Head, Hotwire, posthuman subjectivity, posthumanism, philosophy of neuroscience in literature, complex systems in literature

Abstract

This article analyzes two novels by the British writer Simon Ings, Hot Head (1992) and Hotwire (1995), from perspectives provided by second-order systems theory, philosophy of neuroscience and posthumanist philosophy. In Ings' cyberpunk fiction, the use of a particular novum, a programmable cerebral tissue called “datafat”, enables elaborate experimentation on different theories of mind and matter. Due to this experimentation, Ings’ work is able to convey a conception of cognition as an emergent effect produced in material processes that are both human and non-human. Ings’ work asserts the human subject as a complex system in a complex technological ecology and, consequentially, presents us with a model for subjectivity that might be called “posthuman”.

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Published

2014-06-15

Issue

Section

Peer-Reviewed Articles