In today’s society, the concept of "humanity" has come under scrutiny. This is evident in the regular prompts asking users to confirm their humanity ("I am not a robot") when using various internet platforms, or in the digital revolution driven by new AI software. It is possible that we have long since entered a posthuman era. As a so-called umbrella term, the "posthuman" is, on the one hand, a defining feature of the present; on the other, it serves as a figure of (historical) coming to terms with the past and as a horizon for (dystopian) visions of the future.

The "posthuman" is a historical designation, but also a theoretical and aesthetic figuration. Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1819), for example, is an aesthetic response to a changed climate triggered by the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815. Today, human genetics is exploring the building blocks of human life. Its scientific advances – particularly those involving intervention in the human genome – seem to evoke the image of Frankenstein and the question of whether we humans are "playing God" particularly quickly within society.

The posthuman has a polarising effect, evoking both horror and fascination. Posthuman theories and posthuman art are a response to times of ecological and social catastrophe, as well as technical and digital revolutions. They critique anthropocentric exceptionalism as a legacy of the Enlightenment and explore how knowledge is generated and communicated in the Anthropocene era of high-tech mediation and ecological catastrophe.

The Research Group explores the posthuman, the more-than-human and the non-human in their temporal density. In doing so, it takes equal account of historical perspectives, contemporary imperatives and future thought experiments.