Human Limits Symposium

The onset of the industrial revolution and the technological advances that followed it have stretched our limits more than ever before. We’ve taken to the skies, to outer space and to the depths of the ocean. But what do these new-found environments mean for our bodies and minds? Why do humans always want to stretch their capabilities? How have we imagined the future in the past, and what possibilities might be opened up in the future? How are these possibilities represented in science fiction?

This symposium will examine our relationship with technology and how it stretches our ability to perform in the world. From the influence of the light bulb on our working patterns to space missions and the impact they have had on our physiology, the event will also look forward to what our relationship with technology might be like in the future.

Friday 28 September

Enjoy a screening of 'Aelita: Queen of Mars' (Yakov Protazanov, 1924), one of the first films to depict space travel. This silent film will be accompanied by a live band, Minima, and followed by a drinks reception.

Saturday 29 September

Talks and discussions will continue on the Saturday, when the following questions will be explored using several different perspectives:

• How were the technologies that we take for granted today received when they were first invented?
• What pressures do extreme environments put on the body, physiologically?
• Where does the boundary lie between training our bodies and technology?
• What will our relationship with technology be like in the future?
• How did science fiction shift from outer space to inner space?

10.30 Opening remarks – Oliver Morton (chair), Emily Sargent
An introduction to Superhuman Exhibit from the curator.

11.00 To Boldly Go – Kevin Fong

In the last 100 years, technology and medical science have changed the way we look at ourselves and our expectations of survival in all walks of life. What was routinely fatal at the start of the 20th century has today become simply routine. How do we see the limits of our survival in the 21st century? How will this change the way we explore?

11.40 Coffee break

12.00 Electrical Destiny? Ariel, Aladdin and alienation – Graeme Gooday

The electric light bulb is the emblem of human ingenuity. It symbolizes the productive taming of arguably nature’s most violent force. Over the last 150 years, electricity has extended human vision, speech and travel to global scope and ever-greater speeds. But if electricity has taken bodily sensation to new exciting and remote places, why is it that candlelit conversation and steam locomotion still captivate us? Do our electrically wrought superpowers perhaps threaten to make us too efficiently modern?

12.40 Looking Back at the Earth: From Silent Running (1972) to The Day After Tomorrow (2004) – Christine Cornea

When Apollo 8 launched in 1968, the objective was to send the first manned mission into lunar orbit and the astronauts were charged with taking close-up pictures of the far side of the moon. Today, however, this mission is most remembered for the famous colour photograph known as ‘Earthrise’, which offers a vision of the Earth as it rises over the lunar horizon. Looking back at the Earth from the moon was, of course, prefigured in science fiction. For instance, the film screened for this symposium, Aelita (1924), both literally and figuratively looked back at the Earth from the distant planet of Mars. Christine Cornea will consider the sociocultural impact of the publication of the ‘Earthrise’ picture – how this strangely reflective picture of the Earth as a vulnerable, blue planet, hanging in space, came to be associated with the rise of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s and how, in turn, this affected the visions offered by science fiction films in the years that followed.

13.30 Lunch

14.30 The Man-Machine: Redesigning ourselves into pseudohumans or superhumans? – Anders Sandberg

The idea that we can upgrade our bodies has been around for a long time. What are our real options, now and in the near future, for enhancing ourselves? And what are the implications – practical, ethical, social– of turning ourselves into objects of design and culture? In the future, the coevolution of humans and our technology might be far more intimate and complex than we expect. What kind of humanity would we want to become, and do we have any choice in the matter?

15.10 Becoming a Channel Swimmer: Training, technology and the marathon swimming body – Karen Throsby

Swimming the English Channel is a sport that is simultaneously high- and low-tech. Karen Throsby argues that the process of training to become a Channel swimmer not only exploits advanced technology (GPS, specially developed foods), but is also heavily reliant on much more mundane practices (swimming, stretching, purposeful weight gain) that are not usually thought of as technology but that enhance the body’s capacities. She challenges what counts as ‘technology’ and what counts as the ‘natural’ body.

16.10 Roundtable discussion

Join Graeme Gooday, Anders Sandberg and Oliver Morton as they reflect on the discussions of the day.

16.50 Concluding remarks – Oliver Morton

17.00 Drinks reception

£30 full price/£25 concessions for both days, including drinks on Friday evening and lunch, tea and coffee on Saturday.

To book, please call +44 (0)20 7611 2222.

For details of the ‘Superhuman’ Exhibition see http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/superhuman.aspx