digital body

Early cyberspatial theories reflected on the qualities of computer mediated experience by introducing aspects of immateriality, incorporeality, symbolism, abstraction, as well as exploring the mental, perceptual, and psychological dimensions of digital experience itself. Electronic interactions have been described as platonically erotic, transcendental, allegorical, even ecstatic conditions, that still seem timely and compelling nowadays, even since the pre-pandemic era. Human mind appeared as an inherent ingredient of the digital phenomenon since its birth. On the other side, ideas such as ‘body amnesia’ or ‘fleshworld’, emerged denoting the rigidity of the physical body to reach the other side of the screen.These days, the superfluous, excessive, sometimes obsessive use of digital technology, pervasive software as well as the internet of things have surpassed the Cartesian mind-body dualism and have given rise to novel hybrid approaches of our contemporary relation to technology. Hybridity has created space for intertextual interpretations of experience, that do not divide the notion of mind and body, but comment on the complex interactions of self with digital culture, through numerous differentiated contexts, evolving cyborg ontologies, alternate bodies, human-nonhuman systems, transformative personas, all rendered through a daily mediated reality.The study attempts to look at the mind-body ever-present conundrum, through a quest on digital spatiality. Digital experience has always been inseparable from the metaphoric use of spatial concepts. At the same time, textual space constitutes an allegorical or symbolic construction with its own architecture, ambience, and other characteristics. Space is not only relating to the strict conception of geometry, physics, or mathematics, but also to an anthropological reading of existence, a quality that is often elusive and immeasurable, thus it helps define abstract, psychological, experiential phenomena, or in other words, that which is in fact indefinable.In this context, self takes the role of a mental dynamic, while space is interpreted as a metaphoric, volatile construction whose literary aesthetics emerge from digital culture. The idea of digital experience is approached though a series of textual-spatial concepts and projects that reflect on space that is constructed in the interstitial area between the digitally platformed self and the mediated environment. This exploration takes the form of creative writings, chatbot interviews, exercises of verbal configurations, visual poetics, interactive game-poems and other abstracts of writing in both artistic and educational contexts. The overall idea of the digital mind-body interpretation takes the form of a series of mental spatialities that comment on our contemporary way of being in the digital world. In architecture, to read means to uniquely understand and thoroughly grasp the phenomena of the surrounding environment - in this case, space is translated in an altered vocabulary that helps us understand what it means to ‘read’ the contemporary self in a platformed culture.

This presentation provides an overview of Hatsune Miku, a virtual pop idol, and showcases a work by the speaker that uses her image and voice as platforms for the creation of electronic literature. Hatsune Miku is a multitude of things at once: a pop star, a software product that uses Yamaha’s Vocaloid text-to-song technology, a fictional character, and ultimately a global collaborative media platform. The electronic literature project presented, “Miku Forever,” uses Miku’s global fanbase as a kind of raw material. An endlessly recombinatory pop song, the lyrics sung by Miku for “Miku Forever” are algorithmically generated from a corpus of songs she has previously sung, and her digital body and dance moves are sourced from open-licensed, fan-created assets available on the web.

In tandem with this installation, we propose to present an approximately ten-minute-long collaborative theoretical paper entitled ‘ə-măn’yoo-ĕn’sĭs.’ BRIEF DESCRIPTION āmanuēnsis is a Latin word derived from ab + manus, or “by hand.” Originally used to refer to slaves, the word was later applied specifically to personal secretaries. We (Claire Donato and Timothy Terhaar) work as freelance amanuenses in Brooklyn, NY.
Our presentation will be twofold, taking on the form of both a scholarly presentation and an onsite installation. Throughout the conference, we will set up and run an on-site transcription booth.
Conference attendees will be invited to sit for exactly five minutes at the booth, to be monitored
by a timer. Each participant will be expected to assume the position of the Source in producing
dictation. At the end of the five-minute session, the participant will receive a hard copy of his or her document.

In addition to the on-site transcription booth, we plan to present a theoretical paper composed
using two compositional processes, which we are calling bimanuensis and anuensis. Via
bimanuensis, each of us will try to verbally articulate a theory of the process of transcription while
the other takes dictation. Via anuensis, we will directly appropriate language from documents
we’ve been paid to transcribe. Responding to the material and immaterial demands of transcription
processes, our presentation will alternately mimic and comment upon the cybernetic relationship
between the transcriptionist, the medium, and the Source (the employer, either embodied or
represented by a recording). We will argue that the position of transcriptionist exemplifies a
teleological form of becoming-machine that all laborers are imagined to aspire toward within
capitalist ideology. The transcriber, we will posit, inhabits a digital body that exists on a continuum
between pure receptivity, or total constraint (vis-à-vis the ‘exact’ reproduction of text), and
flexibility (vis-à-vis some notion of ‘accurate’ reproduction of text). Ultimately, we hope to build
upon existing theories of virtual bodies (N. Katherine Hayles), fractalized labor (Franco “Bifo”
Berardi), and feedback (Friedrich Kittler, Lawrence Weiner) while employing a non-traditional
presentation format that speaks directly to the conference theme of ‘affordances and constraints.

(Source: Author's abstract, 2012 ELO Conference site)