86

The goal of the new technologies–in which the digital plays an essential part–is said to be organized today under the signifier of the “enhancement” of the human. This covers anthropogenetic implications and effects that can be analyzed through the articulation of the concepts of neoteny, drive, prosthesis, semiosis, and subjectivity. In this sense, one can historically identify the deep issue of human technical enterprise: overcoming the constitutive lack of subjectivity regarding its mortal, unfinished, and faulty body by indefinitely prolonging it with a series of organs-instruments. But this unfinished body is a body of drives, animated by a constant flow of energy that demands satisfaction amid fantasies of eternal and unlimited life. It is no coincidence that the organs-instruments of new technologies plug into the holes and liminal zones of the body. This operation aims to transform impotence into phallic power, to erect humans, in order to circumvent this deficiency that falls within the category of castration, deprivation, and frustration. However, to “enhance” is not necessarily to “elevate” the human. We may ask whether, in this technological race towards enhancement, the subject does not risk… being diminished.