TIKTOK KOLLOQUIUM

Blood transfusions, high-tech wearables, supplements – this podcast is about the staging strategies of longevity and immortal bodies on TikTok. Longevity—the idea of living a long and healthy life—is based on the assumption that the biological process of aging can be slowed down or even reversed. Technologies such as blood rejuvenation, genetic analysis, and bio-tracking are used to optimize and control the body to program it for longevity, thus blurring the lines between healthcare, self-optimization, and the transhumanist promise and lure of the times ahead.

We want to analyze how these narratives are visually processed and ideologically charged on TikTok, as clinically pure images of flawless bodies and futurist technologies. And we ask how rightwing extremist ideals of purity, neoliberal transhumanism, and the sustainable body have become a projection screen for new narratives of superiority.