The Demiurgic Artist. Creation of Autonomous Life: from Animated Statues to Automata, Homunculi, and Replicants

Abstract

The following pages offer a reflection on one of the characteristics of artists that is most valued by philosophical currents such as the Neoplatonic and the Hermetic: their demiurgic ability to create artificial life in their artwork. The article explores the idea of the artist as an emulator of the Platonic-Hermetic demiurge, a being with the ability to give birth to new universes. The hermetic artist, with his divine mind and creative skills, has the power of universal creation. However, that ability also has flaws; talent may create a monster embodying both human glory and misery. The creature in Mary Shelley’s novel will play an important role in this explication (the tragic element inherent in that undertaking), as will also automata and robots (the embodiment of artificial life understood as a combination of mechanisms), the golem, the alchemical homunculus in its flask, the “replicants” of Bladerunner (personification of being in the age of technocracy) and similar artificial beings.