Artaud, Barney, and the Total Work of Art form Avant-Garde to the Post-Human

In their article "Artaud, Barney, and the Total Work of Art from Avant Posthuman" Matteo Colombi and Massimo Fusillo discuss the aesthetics of Matthew Barney's video performance art and the theater of Antonin Artaud. Colombi and Fusillo highli the posthuman: the rejection of Western anthropocentrism and its subversion through hybridization with human, animal, and mechanical elements, and a commitment to the idea of th indeed, of art and life. Exemplified by Artaud's these features are also to be found in avant théâtre de la cruauté and Barney's video circle of art in which a kaleidoscope of stages/landscapes is brought to life by performers whose corporal training — one centered on the ene that of an elite athlete. While both Artaud's and Barney's aesthetics are similar in their rejection of the clear, stable distinctions of rational thought, they differ in their structuring of reshape the human body. While Artaud's theater stresses the inevitable inconclusiveness of every total work of art.