H.R. Giger pioneered the 'Biomechanical' aesthetic. A darkly beautiful fusion of flesh and metal, blood and oil. It was carnal, it was interconnected, it was uniform and complex, chaotically ordered and structured like a weaving, cybernetic web of meat. While later contributions to the film series 'Alien' became his claim to fame, it is Giger's visionary conception of futures that is truly valuable. A radical assault on bioconservativism that never failed to stimulate all of the body's feelings.
In capitalism, biological uniformity is inevitable. Social stratification makes unconscious eugenics integral, and inbreeding becomes a norm. In almost every society, it is prohibited to engage in cross-class gene transfer. The Proletariat and the Bourgeoisie both become genetically uniform and become synonymous with the old racial myth. As we become more biologically uniform, we become more 'human'. Posthumanity is postponed. This is bioconservativism at its finest. Also prevented is the liberation of 'females' from the horrific chains of their own biology. Until reproduction becomes disconnected from sex, feminism will not succeed. We must all become cyborgs, every last one of us.
We must schizophrenize our biology, every individual barely the same species as the next. But the attack on bioconservativism posed by human genetic engineering is only part of a greater ensemble. Some of my peers propose a 'post-artifism'(how a 'post-' can develop before any theory exists on the original is beyond me), but as I understand it this is the total annihilation of both the bioconservative 'sanctity of nature' and the bio-stratification of society. Proposing radical changes to every biological aspect of our lives, this ism represents a total embrace of biotechnology. It wishes to modify nature rather than preserve it, and this is a central aspect of the coming biomechanical revolution. As we find that plastivorous bacteria, biocomputers, and fungal housing are preferable to environmentalist promises of 'clean energy', we actively erase the false boundary between the biosphere and the technosphere.
Transgender individuals are perhaps living examples of biomechanical posthumans. Hormonal modifications create gender-bending bodies, and constructed organs provide new functionalities. A mechanical structure within the neophallus produces on-demand erections, clitoral growth produces a new organ, and the neovagina allows for sexual functionalities unique from cisgender body plans. The frequent usage of accessories to modify the appearance and surgeries to modify the body represent a cyborgian integration with technology as of now unseen. While the transhumanists salivate at their useless door-opening microchips, individuals assigned to male-at-birth are nursing babies. They are already posthuman.
While transgender people represent one front being opened against bioconservativism, biological anarchy is our all-encompassing battle plan. What it is? The abolition of all limits on biological modification. The freeing of possibility from the chains of 'ethics' and 'rationality'. The liberation of women from womanhood, and men from manhood. The destruction of man on a biological level, and the creation of posthumanity past paltry cybernetic implants. This is biopunk. This is H.R. Giger's biomechanism. Machine and Flesh become one, while they produce ever stranger forms, ever more beautiful symphonies, ever more beating, pulsating neo-organs, ever more futures, and ever more delights.