The End of Humanity’s Monotony: Posthumanism and Artificial Life in Dietmar Dath’s The Abolition of Species and Venus’ Victory

Abstract

In his essay Machine Winter (2008), Dietmar Dath argues that prosperity is attainable for all, once we eliminate capitalism and use computers for global economic planning. However, his fictional future in The Abolition of Species (2008) goes beyond these ideas. In the novel, animals have developed into “Gente,” animal-like artificial creatures that are capable of changing their genetic makeup and gender. Mixing of species and the changing of sex and identity have become the norm. Natural history thus ends; it becomes the history of technology. Abolition is primarily a utopian liberation from the shackles of genetic determination. While Abolition focuses on genetic posthumanism, Venus’ Victory (2015) extends this aspect of posthumanism through the themes of cybernetics and artificial intelligence. Venus thus revolves even more strongly around the close interplay between organic and inorganic, natural and mechanical intelligences. Dath does not see the relationship between natural and artificial intelligence as antagonistic, but rather relies on the alliance of different forms of intelligence. However, this alliance is not presented as a self-contained utopian system but opens up an unlimited spectrum of possibilities in a posthuman world. Dath’s novels are not futurology, but rather literary research that produces its own knowledge beyond the scientific mainstream. They are, in the best sense of the word, science fiction.