ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some examples from Japanese popular art that comment on how digitization and computer culture have changed society. Society has been fragmented even more into small, interest-based communities. Advanced information and digital technologies allow us to replicate, reproduce, and conjure up images and representations of others and ourselves. Robotic technologies have extended as well the human sensory apparatus, thereby greatly enhancing our capabilities. Humanism takes the stance that humankind stands at the center of the cosmos and is completely distinct from animals and other nonhuman entities. Humanism has its origins in Enlightenment modernity, but because advances in science and medicine have allowed the creation of hybrid humanity. Moreover, due to greatly improved technologies, the quality and reproducibility of copies was perfected. The postmodern period, fueled by even more advanced manufacturing technologies and digitization, saw the culture of the copy taken to a new level in which copies themselves seemed to be producing more and more copies.
