Given that the soul exists within the body, it now also resides in the technological spaces we have constructed both materially and ideologically, and is being transformed accordingly.
MFRU32: I Sing the Body Electric focuses on the diverse positions of the human body in the present and the speculative future of digital development. The festival’s title is taken from a poem by Walt Whitman. Through numerous sections, the poet examines various aspects of physicality, gender, age, politics, society … everything that defines the embodied human being. Establishing the body as the dwelling place of the soul, he advocates for the radical (equal) worth of every individual. Provided that the soul exists within the body, it now also resides within the technological spaces we have constructed both practically and ideologically, and is transformed accordingly. In the digital age (both through generated images and physical modifications), the body is moving ever higher up the ladder of simulacra, increasingly distancing itself from its biological basis and creating its own adapted appearance and mode of existence. This year’s festival explores the body – or biological mass – in relation to digital technologies at the intersection of economic, political and sociological factors. At the forefront of artistic interest, the body is addressed from a posthumanist perspective, which takes a critical stance towards the humanist ideal of “man” as the measure of all things, opposing the hierarchy of species and human exceptionalism. Posthumanism opposes the hierarchy of species and human exceptionalism, and argues that the body and technology are in a reciprocal relationship. The body is interpolated into the digital age as a data carrier and an element of the (inter)net.
In the digital age, our image is freely adaptable to digital spaces, where it can be altered and renamed at will. While it loses stability and coherence, it gains in autonomy and the potential for subversiveness.
In his “mirror stage” concept, Jacques Lacan argued that one's self-awareness arises through identification with the image they see (recognising oneself in the mirror). Humans are said to recognise our image as stable and coherent, even when our experience of being in the body fluctuates and changes. Lacan defined several bodies: the imaginary body – the perception of one’s own image, the symbolic body – the body that bears ascribed categories and names, and the real body – the body that feels. Changes in technological development relate to the extension of the mirror stage and the imaginary body. Existence in the digital age (a world of social media, avatars, and curated and manipulated images of ourselves) partially disembodies us, or rather allows our image to freely adapt to digital spaces, where it can be altered and renamed at will. While it loses stability and coherence, the image gains autonomy and the potential for subversiveness. Through pixels and algorithms, we can create new identities, perceive ourselves through the lens of digital spaces and situate ourselves within an infinity of possible categories.
The human experience remains within the body as the origin of all information.
Merleau-Ponty argued that various tools can be integrated into the structure of our physical body. With the aid of devices, we now speak, think, express love and pay attention. In her Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway reflected on technology as an internal, rather than an external, factor in our existence. Using cyborgs (hybrids of machine and organism) as an example, she challenged the formerly clear boundaries between human and machine, and the physical and the digital. Thereby, she called into question the essentialism of fixed identity associated with our notion of the natural as something immutable and hierarchically inviolable. Deleuze defines humans, animals, institutions… as “desiring machines”: the desire for production lies at the heart of human ontology, pushing us into rigidly defined functions and tasks. By renouncing these prescribed functions, we become a “body without organs”, i.e. a person who finds different ways of thinking, expressing oneself and forming relationships. When we think of ourselves as a combination of the characteristics of a biological entity and those of machines, we might recall Katherine Hayes. In How We Became Posthuman, she pointed out that there is no artificial substitute for human consciousness, and that human experience remains rooted within the body as the origin of all information.
Let us disembody and re-embody ourselves in an intangible, fantastical and boundless space that constantly co-defines our physical reality, every thought and action generated by our bodies.
When exploring the body as an artistic theme in the digital age, it is essential to look back at reflections on the body’s position throughout history and its development. In the post-internet era, when we no longer perceive the internet as something new but as an omnipresent part of everyday life that is completely intertwined with our physical lives, we must perceive our existence as changing in relation to the physical, biological reality that exists, reflected and transformed by us, also in the online, electronic, programmed, technological and scientific realms. We disembody and re-embody ourselves in an intangible, fantastical and boundless space that constantly co-defines our physical reality, every thought and action generated by our bodies.