Post-Human?

I've been thinking a lot about our discussion of the post-human condition as it was put forth in the interview. I have a friend who has been talking to me about his own thoughts of post-humanity for a year now, but they had all involved a sort of "going back" to a primitive state. However, the term as Gibson uses it suggests something else- a dystopian future where humanity has put an end to natural selection and taken control of its own evolution. More and more, the things that I use on a daily basis are far from being natural- synthetic fibers in my clothes, and plastic everywhere, not to mention the amount of silicon chips in my phone, computers, etc. What does this mean for art? In my friend's version of post-humanity, going back to a "primitive" state meant a return to "primitivist" art. But if post-humanity really means a continued augmentation of the human body and human experience*, it is hard to guess at what art in such a world would be. Of course, the mind jumps to digital art, which complements our new digital lives, but I think that answer might be too simplistic. I am thinking more and more that maybe bio art is the answer; art that comments back on what we have become. This is not to say that I think post-humanity is necessarily evil- I am in fact a big proponent of much of technology. Yet, I do think that we are moving in a path that is hard to turn from. As Gibson put it, we have only ever existed in a mediated state; how can we imagine anything but?

*By augmentation of the human body, I mean those technologies that extend us into Gibson's post-human realm: eyeglasses correcting sight, cell phones extending our voices and ears, computers extending our memories, etc.