Downloading consciousness, fashioning physical bodies out of a variety of parts, neuro-implants and personality altering medicine ― in some sense, the future is now, according to Dominique Babin, a writer and post-human theorist invited by the French Embassy to Seoul for a writer-in-residence program.

With the translation of her 2004 book “A User’s Guide and Service Manual of the Post-Human (Manuel d‘Usage et d’Entretien du Post-Humain)” into Korean by Kungree Publishing, Babin wrapped up her three-month residence in Seoul with a lecture at Institut Francais on Monday.

The central premise of the freewheeling book of essays and speculative thought is that we are on the threshold of a paradigm shift in how technological developments will effect the idea of individual identity and humanity as we know it based on liberal humanism.

She said that her experience of the previous three months would fuel her next project, which will be a novel.

“What interests me a lot, really a lot, is the Korean plastic surgery industry. I frequent this cafe called Coffee Commode, and I sit by the window to work and also watch people walking by,” she said ahead of her lecture at the institute.

“Everyone is beautiful. Everyone is beautiful in the same way. Their beauty is wonderful. They are like clones,” she said.

This aptly fits into the philosophy of post-humanism. Though renaissance humanism idealized the natural human form, in post-humanism there is no natural or idealized human form.

On plastic surgery in South Korea, she said: “I think it is rather good, with some perverse effect. I am interested in this perverse effect, really a lot, because it is easier to make fun of this perversity in a novel.”

What is key to post-humanism, according to her 2004 book, is the ability to fluidly change perspectives and manifest oneself through different identities. This includes the physical form.

About her forthcoming novel she said: “I am working on a future in which people will be genetically engineered. I can imagine it will be like (South Korea today),” she said. “People are genetically modifying their bodies according to the latest trend, altering their body and face again and again as the trend morphs from day to day to day.”

By Philip Iglauer (ephilip2011@heraldcorp.com)