Speculative Futures and the Post-Natural: Phantasmagoric Visions

Frederik De Wilde’s enigmatic artwork emerges as a provocative interrogation of the post-natural and post-evolutionary paradigms within contemporary art. Rendered in a stark, monochromatic palette reminiscent of early radiographic imaging, this piece transcends traditional representational boundaries, inviting a speculative gaze into futures where the human form is both preserved and dissolved.

Are we  the ghosts of our own making? Frederik De Wilde

This short essay situates De Wilde’s work within the lineage of early cinema and phantasmagoria, while critically engaging with its implications for a post-evolutionary ontology, drawing on theoretical frameworks from Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble (2016) and Rosi Braidotti’s The Posthuman (2013).

The image presents a spectral figure, its contours blurred and its facial features obscured by an amorphous, cloud-like mask extension that evokes both organic and inorganic morphologies. This visual ambiguity aligns with De Wilde’s broader oeuvre, which often explores the intersections of technology, science, biology, and artifice. The grayscale tonality and grainy texture recall the pioneering X-ray photographs of Wilhelm Röntgen in the late 19th century, yet the distortion suggests a departure from the anatomical precision of early scientific imaging. Instead, it resonates with the phantasmagoric spectacles of the 18th and 19th centuries, where projected images of ghosts and apparitions captivated audiences in darkened theaters. As Marina Warner elucidates in Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media (2006), these early cinematic experiments manipulated light and shadow to evoke the uncanny, blurring the line between the corporeal and the spectral. De Wilde’s work extends this tradition into the digital age, employing visual noise as a metaphor for the dissolution of stable identities in a post-natural world.

The post-natural, as a concept, denotes a state where nature is no longer an autonomous entity but a hybrid construct shaped by human intervention and technological evolution. De Wilde’s figure, with its elongated, mask-like appendage, suggests a post-evolutionary being—one that has transcended the biological determinism of Darwinian frameworks. This aligns with Haraway’s notion of the “Chthulucene,” a speculative epoch where multispecies entanglements challenge anthropocentric narratives (Haraway, 2016). The artist’s manipulation of form can be read as a critique of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence, where the human body becomes a site of radical transformation. Yet, this transformation is not utopian; the ghostly pallor and fragmented silhouette evoke a sense of loss, hinting at the existential cost of such post-evolutionary shifts.

Moreover, the work’s connection to phantasmagoria underscores its temporal dislocation. Early cinema, with its flickering projections and illusory depth, prefigured the digital simulations that dominate contemporary visual culture. De Wilde’s use of a cinematic aesthetic—evident in the image’s frame-like borders and motion-blur effect—mirrors the techniques of Étienne-Gaspard Robert’s phantasmagoric shows, where manipulated projections created the illusion of spectral presences (Warner, 2006). In this context, the image functions as a speculative artifact, a glimpse into a future where the human is both present and absent, a ghost in the machine of its own making. Braidotti’s posthumanist lens is particularly apt here, as she argues for a reimagining of subjectivity beyond the human, where technology and biology coalesce into new forms of agency (Braidotti, 2013). De Wilde’s figure embodies this liminality, challenging viewers to reconsider the boundaries of life itself.

Critically, this work raises questions about agency and representation. The spectral quality may romanticise the post-natural, eliding the ethical dilemmas of biotechnological advancement—issues such as consent, equity, and the commodification of life. The absence of a discernible face or identity could be interpreted as a deliberate erasure, reflecting the dehumanization inherent in post-evolutionary narratives. This tension positions De Wilde’s art as both a celebration and a cautionary tale, echoing the ambivalence of early cinema’s dual role as entertainment and social critique.

In conclusion, the artwork stands as an engagement with speculative futures, weaving together the post-natural and post-evolutionary through a visual language indebted to the phantasmagoric traditions of early cinema. De Wilde invites a critical dialogue on the transformation of the human in an era of technological omnipresence.

References

• Braidotti, R. (2013). The Posthuman. Polity Press.
• Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
• Warner, M. (2006). Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media. Oxford University Press.