For my further artistic practice I would like research the accelerating effect the implementation of digital technology and algorithms has on an individual.
For my further artistic practice I would like research the accelerating effect the implementation of digital technology and algorithms has on an individual.
Artworks and Processes
Artworks and Processes
Artworks and Processes
Artworks and Processes
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Ich bin ein Textabschnit. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten. Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten. Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt.
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Here is a heading
Ich bin ein Textabschnit. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten. Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten. Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt. Klicke hier, um deinen eigenen Text hinzuzufügen und mich zu bearbeiten.Ich bin ein Textabschnitt.
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Iris van Herpen
​© Iris van Herpen, Between the Lines, 2017
"I find beauty in the continual shaping of chaos which clearly embodies the primordial power of nature's performance.” – Iris van Herpen
posthumanism
posthuman esthetic
Deleuze
fractal folds
contemporary entwinement
fluid identity
becoming
glitch
hybrid
Iris van Herpen intertwines the digital and the material and the human and the non-human. She postulates a dynamic notion of life in which human bodies are inextricably entangled with the non-human-like fibers, silicones, garments, and technologies. Out of innovative technologies, new materials, and assiduous craftsmanship, Van Herpen creates a visual and material language of fractal folds that expresses the affective mood of a posthuman world and is morphing art, fashion and technology.
Her work can be connected to the posthuman theory that combines an emphasis on non-human elements, such as materials, pins, needles, codes, algorithms, with qualitative attention to transversal connections across them. Such an approach stresses the interconnections across species, cultures, categories and concepts, undoing binary oppositions between humans and non-humans. She is particularly known for her 3D printed designs of “fractal folds” that appear as inimitable folds, bends, and loops that are digitally created as selfsimilar and iterated curves.
(Smelik, 2020)
Posthuman theory
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Iris van Herpen often creates neologisms as titles for her collections in which she creates a paradox, ambiguity or an oxymoronic expression, like “Wilderness Embodied,” “Hybrid Holism,” “Radiation Invasion,” “Refinery Smoke” or “Chemical Crows.” They refer to one of Iris van Herpen’s defining characteristics, which is working with apparent contradictions and flaring incongruities. Most importantly, the titles of the collections indicate a tendency to overcome dualisms rather than presenting these opposites as dualistic or antagonistic and suggest intertwinement and interconnections. Rosi Braidotti and Maria Hlavajova Posthumanism describe Posthumanism as the act of “inventing new words or coining new concepts” that reveals an experimental approach “to produce adequate representations of our real-life conditions in a fast-changing world” (2018, 10). The piece on the left exemplifies posthumanism, because the design disrupts the classical proportions of the human body. It erases the face, which is so important for the human figure as the index of personal identity. It is transgressive of norms, including gender norms” (Smelik, 2020, p.6).
Esthetic of the in-between
Iris van Herpen produces a posthuman style of in-betweenness, moving away from any kind of dualist binaries. (Smelik, 2020)
The most radical impact of her posthuman esthetic is the alienation and haunting denaturalization of the human figure through technological mediation and new materials. The posthuman figure becomes a hybrid creating a continuum between the digital and the physical. (Smelik, 2020)
​© Iris van Herpen, Syntopia, 2018
Glitch Dress
The “glitch dress” was first produced for the collection “Between the Lines” (look 6, S/S 2017). The laser-cut patterns are reminiscent of digital glitches, the short-lived faults in a digital system that formed the design process of this collection. When being worn the dress looks as if it is vibrating and as if the model is floating in the air. The dresses come alive on the body. (Smelik, 2020)
Fractal Folds
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The viewer becomes affected by an “encounter between a human body and objects that initiates a process of mutual becoming” (Ruggerone 2017, 580). In her collection “Syntopia” (S/S 2019) Van Herpen explores the close relationship between the organic and the inorganic and writes on her website: “‘Syntopia’ acknowledges the current scientific shift in which biology converges with technology.” (Smelik, 2020)
Mask and Multiply
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A futuristic moment of becoming in “Syntopia” is the headgear that is made of transparent folds in a circle and that moves with the steps of the model. The folds diffract the face of the model. Her face multiplies and created a dream-scape, “leaving behind its individuality and morphing into something in-between” (Smelik, 2020, p.16).
A Definition of Posthumanism
Smelik, 2020, p.8
The Latin prefix “post” suggests that the posthuman comes after the human, but this linear framework does not hold for posthumanism. Rather, the term posthuman interrogates what it means to be human. This age-old question gathers urgency in the age of the “Anthropocene,” a term invented by Nobel prize winner Paul Crutzen to indicate that the era in which we are living is dominated by the human species. “‘Anthropos’, the Greek word for ‘human’,” has a lasting and negative effect upon the planet (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000). In the Anthropocene the human can no longer be considered in terms of superiority to its “others,” the non-human world. Consequently, a posthuman perspective involves an act of decentering the human (Vänskä 2018, 17).
He suggests to rethink the relationship between humans and non-humans, especially with respect to technology and the environment. The posthuman concept gained wider currency with N. Katherine Hayles’ book How We Became Posthuman (1999), in which she processed the accelerated change invoked by information technologies and critically assessed the techno-optimist rhetoric of the last decades of the twentieth century.
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The posthuman is basically a hybrid figure; it is about thinking what the human is or rather becomes “before, beyond, or after the human” (Clarke and Rossini 2017, xiv). Cary Wolfe emphasizes that the term posthuman pertains to the human being who lives in both a biological and technological world, while posthumanism refers to the historical time in which the human is decentered by technological developments (2010, 8). Rosi Braidotti argues that “The posthuman is work in progress. It is a working hypothesis about the kind of subjects we are becoming” in a time of unprecedented technological development, the crisis of climate change and all-pervading capitalism (2019, 2). The notion of dynamic “becoming” is then quite central to posthuman theory; This involves a theoretical and practical “turn to matter” (Fox and Alldred 2019, 2), at a time when matter is de-materialized by extensive technological intervention.
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Traditionally, the non-human pertains to nature or the organic: to plants, animals or monsters, as well as to microbes, viruses or spiders. Today, the non-human equally refers to the technological or inorganic world of robotics, artificial intelligence or synthetic polyamides.
Research further in the direction of → Posthumanism / the posthuman
​© Iris van Herpen, Roots of Rebirth, 2021
References
Smelik, A (2020) Fractal Folds: The Posthuman Fashion of Iris van Herpen, Fashion Theory, DOI: 10.1080/1362704X.2020.1850035, Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1362704X.2020.1850035 (Accessed: 28 Jan 2022)
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Van Herpen, I (2021) Roots of Rebirth. Available at: https://www.irisvanherpen.com/collections (Accessed: 28 Jan 2022)
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