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The article discusses the anthropomorphic strategies of presenting sex lives of non-human creatures in the cinematic works of Jean Painlevé (1902–1989). Regarding queer studies, I closely analyse the Love life of the octopus (1965), Sea horse (1934), Acera or the witches dance (1972). These films enable the formulation of the concepts of sex and sexuality that surpass the frames of anthropocentric, reprosexual heterorealism. I also discuss the theory of sexuality in the works of Deleuze and Guattari, indicating their concepts as productive to articulate the notions of sex and sexuality that are inclusive to the non-human. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article is an overview of selected works of visual arts from the 60s of the 20th century to the first quarter of the 21st century, in which animal sounds play an important role. Analysis of the works of art indicates that sound belongs to important means of expression of artists' attitude to non-human animals and is a tool of shaping various types of relations with them. The character of those relations is phenomenological-affective or cognitive. In the first case, the sound is related to the sensual experience of empathic coexistence and serves non-verbal interspecies communication. In the second case – it builds epistemological relations and comprehension of other species. I also analyze the ethical dimension of artist-animal relations. The scope of artists' inspiration by animal sounds reveals the acoustic potential of non-human creatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machina Ludens: The Real and Imagined History of Chess Computers The essay offers a reading of the place of non-human machines in the game discourse, focusing on computer chess’s real as well as literary and film history. Chess, as the Drosophila melanogaster of artificial intelligence, a special case facilitating the study of the entire field, allows for going beyond the primary area of interest – computer science – and entering the realm of the text, where new languages of storytelling and new contexts present themselves. The paper discusses a multifaceted, posthumanist analysis of the game as a medium of non-anthropocentric and empowering narratives of the Other. It also sheds new light on the ongoing paradigm shift in human categories and human-technology relations. Machina ludens. Rzeczywista i wyobrażona historia komputerów szachowych Celem artykułu jest próba odczytania sposobu funkcjonowania nie-ludzkich maszyn w dyskursie growym, skupiona na rzeczywistej i literacko-filmowej historii komputerów szachowych. Szachy i sztuczna inteligencja wchodzą w przestrzeń tekstu, przekraczają pierwotny obszar zainteresowań – informatykę – i dzięki innym językom opowieści otwierają się na nowe konteksty. W tekście przedstawiono wieloaspektową, posthumanistyczną analizę gry jako medium nieantropocentrycznych i upodmiotawiających narracji Innego. Historia szachów i komputerów szachowych oraz ich tekstowe przedstawienia stanowią egzemplifikację zmian ludzkich kategorii oraz relacji człowiek-technologia.

The article touches upon the issue of the identity of neurodiverse people, with emphasis on autism. The problem is connected with the way of viewing the autistic -- the way in which they are de-personified by the neurotypical society. They are driven away from what in the antropocentric world is understood as being "human" and "subject" towards the category of "non-people": either as unemotional robots or aliens in human body, or as unintelligent bodies devoid of agency and in need to be taken care of, like pets. Their otherness is emphasised by being different from neurotypicals' mode of cognition and embeddedness in language. The author puts a special emphasis on how neurodiversity exposes us to multiple kinds of subjectivity, amongst which neurotypicality is but one of many others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors' commentary on Bruno Latour's "Technology is society made durable" provides the reader with an opportunity to become acquainted with actor-network theory.