Life in More than Human Catastrophy. Anthropocene, Rock Climbing and Walter Benjamin

This article is an attempt to develop a posthumanist messianic figure additional to those created by Walter Benjamin in 20th century. The task of those figures is to provide a way of living in the times of crisis. I argue that the era that we live in –the anthropocene (with all of its catastrophes) –requires a posthumanist update to Benjamin’s philosophy. Therefore I use the case study of rock climbers as a collective subject that dismantles the dominant language of historical politics by creating names of climbing routes based on a mockery. The process of disassembling the language reveals the materiality of the rock and allows its history to be recovered. My attempt is based on the analysis of the El Pułkownik wall in the Liban quarry (Cracow, Poland).

This article is an attempt to develop a posthumanist messianic figure additional to those created by Walter Benjamin in 20th century. The task of those figures is to provide a way of living in the times of crisis. I argue that the era that we live in –the anthropocene (with all of its catastrophes) –requires a posthumanist update to Benjamin’s philosophy. Therefore I use the case study of rock climbers as a collective subject that dismantles the dominant language of historical politics by creating names of climbing routes based on a mockery. The process of disassembling the language reveals the materiality of the rock and allows its history to be recovered. My attempt is based on the analysis of the El Pułkownik wall in the Liban quarry (Cracow, Poland).