‘The human body is a machine that winds its own springs – a living example of perpetual motion.’ — Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Man and Machine, 1748
Humans are fragile. Their bodies age, tire, and ache. Machines are tough and durable, but they cannot repair themselves. They need touch, intervention, and reason. And humans, in turn, need machines – as support, as a substitute, as a tool for extending their own existence. A strange balance emerges in which the body and technology cease to oppose each other. They do not exist separately – they form a single whole that keeps each other alive.
With the advent of cyborgs and artificial intelligence, the theory of the human machine no longer seems like distant fiction. From the moment we gained the ability to use external memory thanks to computers, we began to actively transform ourselves into machines – not because we have to, but because we can. We no longer want to be just a product of natural selection. We want to enter into our own, consciously constructed evolution.
This work is not a praise of technology. Nor is it nostalgia for the ‘pure’ human body. It is a reflection on the connection in which the technical becomes indispensable and the organic replaceable.
There is a persistent belief that nature – and therefore also humans – can be expressed in numbers and equations. And it is precisely this belief that leads to the conclusion that humans can also be simplified into mere machines.
Vulnerability. Need. The desire to live on.
Not as a human being. Not as a machine. But as a connection that does not want to disappear.
