Embodied Multi{(Body; Space; Time; Performance;)} Marlot Meyer (2020)
Technology has created an interconnected, globalised world, with digital experiences reshaping our terms of existence and presenting us with bewildering opportunities and threats. Yet we feel we are moving further away from what it means to be human as we lose our connection to our bodies, nature and our immediate environment. But a disembodiement simply means a shift of focus from object to communication and interaction. What does it then mean, to be embodied in a mediated world? Are there new possibilities that only exist in the liminal spaces between physical and virtual?
Technology has created an interconnected, globalised world, with digital experiences reshaping our terms of existence and presenting us with bewildering opportunities and threats. Yet we feel we are moving further away from what it means to be human as we lose our connection to our bodies, nature and our immediate environment. But a disembodiement simply means a shift of focus from object to communication and interaction. What does it then mean, to be embodied in a mediated world? Are there new possibilities that only exist in the liminal spaces between physical and virtual?
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up and down and slamming into
other sweaty bodies for an hour
and a half while listening to loud,
deliriously pounding rock music
would be more exhilarating than
the experience of watching the
same event through a live stream
online. Similarly, physical contact
during sex is something that you
could only hope to reproduce or
convey via a mediated outlet. I’m
not interested in arguing against
these obvious facts or diminishing
the value of these experiences.
What I am interested in thinking
about is that there may be multiple
ways to talk about a body, about
an expression and creation, which
can exist in natural space and
time as well as existing in virtual or
digital space and time. Again, I am
not in favour of one conception of
the body in time over the other; I do
think, however, that it’s possible for
one to seriously conceive of their
bodies as being in two (or more)
places at once. Perhaps not bodies
but the expressions of their bodies,
not just a physical body but the
body of data and information that
exists within them.
Own image: Screenshot from Omegle Chat Site - “You both like Art.” Den Haag, 2019
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