the Modern Prometheus

the Modern Prometheus

How far would we go to extend our lives? What is the line between natural and unnatural life? Surely all of us alive today have benefitted from modern medicine, and our lives and longevity have or will benefit from science. Much debate exists about the merits of augmenting the human with technology, and there is even a measure of immortality that may be attained in the transhumanism of this merging of human and science.

But what of the quality of that life? What will accompany a long life when the anatomy of our emotions, our psychology is not altered? As someone who experiences persistent depression in varying degrees throughout my years, I imagine extending life would be a mixed bag of benefits and curses. On the one hand, there is more time to work on the self, for trolling the deep recesses of hidden issues and roadblocks. On the other, this means an extension of a life that has been more arduous than affirming, and a potential for an ever widening chasm of isolation and world weariness.

So what would we do with extra borrowed time? If we can augment our short lives with science, we are adding years, but there is no synthetic remedy for emotional unrest, save for drugs and intoxication. Perhaps we should ask ourselves, before we conquer the finite aspects of our lives, if we should do so just because we can.

This image was based on a lot of things - certainly the diatribe above deals with aging and the desire for skirting death, but also, I was thinking a lot about the monster archetype, usually man's creation, and usually a cautionary tale. Frankenstein, Darth Vader, King Midas - our fictions are replete with our concerns of modernization accelerating faster than our ability to govern it, and our penchant for leaping before we look. I was thinking of the parallels of Frankenstein's monster and Darth Vader, and the line from "the Empire Strikes Back" - "he's more machine now than man - twisted and evil." There was almost no human or humanity left in Anakin Skywalker in both a literal and metaphorical sense.

I imagine this man as a transhumanist, a man so augmented by physical augmentation that he has lived far longer than life would normally allow, and is utterly alone - all his contemporaries, his friends and family long dead, and all measure of human pleasure and comfort has been forfeited for the sole "benefit" of living longer. There may be fates worth than death after all - such as a life not worth living.

My title is actually the subtitle of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" - the modern Prometheus, in that case, was the doctor who devised a way of creating a life from death, and inadvertently created a monster. Speaking of monsters, this edit was a bit of a monster too - taking almost one hundred layers and several days!

Model: Andrew Graham