Installation view of 《Posthuman Ensemble》 © National Asian Culture Center

The exhibition 《Posthuman Ensemble》, composed of the terms “posthuman,” which refers to post-anthropocentrism, and “ensemble,” which denotes a harmonious gathering of entities, explores how humans can depart from human-centered thought and coexist in harmony with nonhuman beings.

ACC FOCUS, which highlights key topics each year, continues the inquiry into environmental issues addressed in the 2020 exhibition 《Equilibrium》, where artists revisited environmental memories and histories as an act of negotiating ecological balance. 《Posthuman Ensemble》 joins the discourse on what the posthuman should be in the post-COVID era—a consequence of nature’s retaliation—and participates in the efforts of those who contemplate “new subjectivities.”

Installation view of 《Posthuman Ensemble》 © National Asian Culture Center

When people hear the term “posthuman,” many imagine the fusion of humans and machines, a familiar notion rooted in transhumanism. This association originated in the 1950s and 1960s, when artificial intelligence and machines first gained attention and the posthuman was understood through figures such as the Bionic Woman or the Six Million Dollar Man—cyborgs that transcend the limits of the human body.

However, posthuman scholars have expanded beyond the realm of machinery to include nonhuman beings, shifting focus to the relationship between humans and nonhumans. This line of research opens a critical path for questioning what virtues humanity must embody as posthumans in the Anthropocene, an age in which humans have become the protagonists of the world, driving climate change and environmental destruction.

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