Anne-Kathrin Reulecke
Wired Subjects. Literature in the Technocene

In analogy to the term ​“Anthropocene”, which describes the era in which humans have permanently changed the Earth’s geophysical system, the neologism ​“Technocene” has also been used repeatedly in recent years. This refers to a new epoch that is characterized by the fact that (media) technological developments, in the form of digitalization and artificial intelligence, are permanently changing our idea of the human, our realities as human beings.

In literature, too, there is currently a boom in texts that react to the rapid developments and the progressive interweaving of subjects with media, devices and apparatus, to the interconnections with algorithmically based formats and to the increasing use of artificial intelligence — and stage them using artistic means. On the one hand, the overlaps between the human and the machine are diagnosed, depicted and reflected upon (sometimes more and sometimes less critically) with regard to their far-reaching consequences for the individual subject, but also for social coexistence and the human condition as a whole. On the other hand, current techno-scenarios are further developed in thought experiments with the potential inherent in literature and their consequences are imaginatively anticipated — often with the help of the setting of a near future.

The lecture will present contemporary novels that deal with the interconnectedness of humans with technical devices and that give literary form to the increasingly real coexistence of humans and human-like robots, humanoids.

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