The masculine machine-man, associated with notions of a virile, hyper-muscular male body since the 1980s, is a thing of the past in contemporary art; the author shows this on the basis of representations of male, masculine and queer bodies since the 1990s. While the cyborg figure generally refers either to a militaristic, self-contained masculinity or to a feminine, fluid resolution, an analysis of male-technological bodies in contemporary art is still overdue. The author locates the bodies depicted in the debates on a post-human dissolution of body and gender, while enquiring how these are interwoven with current discussions on new concepts of masculinity and gender.

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Maike Hoffmeister (née Wagner), scientific assistant in the DFG project "Männlichkeiten im Umbau", Ruhr University Bochum, until 2023