Sculpture in the Speculative Field: Prostheses, Cyborgs, and Monstrosities

Abstract

The article “Sculpture in the Speculative Field: Prostheses, Cyborgs, and Monstrosities” explores three facets in the reconfiguration of the body and identity through contemporary sculpture. First, it examines the protocyborg era, where the prosthesis emerges as a tool that fuses the organic with the technological, transforming bodily communication. Examples such as the “Studio for Portrait-Masks” and the performative interventions by Rebecca Horn and Hanna Levy demonstrate how these artifacts not only reconfigure bodily image but also act as an artistic language that reaffirms individual identity. Secondly, the article addresses cyborg sculpture inspired by Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto which challenges traditional dichotomies between organism and machine. The hybridization of materials, evident in the works of artists like Hanna Levy, Marguerite Humeau, and the Hardware Pakui duo, becomes a means to rethink the body from a perspective that integrates the human and the technological, opening new discourses on race, class, and identity. Finally, the article investigates the presence of the monster in sculpture, a figure that represents the unrecognizable and subversive. Installations by Dominique White, Michele Gabriele, and Klára Hosnedlová illustrate how the monstrous is employed to question and transcend established boundaries, offering new possibilities for cultural resistance and transformation.