----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- Dear all I'm sorry for my late appearance. I was in St Petersburg to visit Manifesta 10 and had very erratic access to the internet combined with a busy schedule, so it was difficult to keep up with the postings. But what a fascinating discussion so far, flowing in so many directions and speeds.
I need to start from the beginning again though. Maybe this has something to do with dance practice, grounding the body and focusing the mind. And to start from the beginning in this context means to connect through my personal and emotional relationship to this debate, its affective impact on me as a thinker and maker. I have therefore to admit publicly now that I almost always approached this debate with suspicion, because I could not find sufficiently convincing the ways in which the relationship between the physical and the virtual were presented, and the expectations set for what could be achieved through digital technologies and the computational. However, the important point for me here is that these relationships were conceptualised, presented and debated through language, most frequently in written form: proposals for funding applications, press releases, reviews, reports for funding applications and most importantly academic texts. Even the term virtual embodiment seems to have emerged from within the same problematic process, and has the same problematic effect with many other terms, as well as full frameworks introduced through written texts. The term virtual embodiment creates an impression, a feeling that there is this other domain which is the virtual, which is different because it is not physical, however for some reason there is a need to address it from within a lens that has been defined by the physical. It creates a disjunction between the physical and the virtual, it insists to remind us of categories instead of flow and potential, and when I was reading Alan's earlier post about his approach being more about the latter, I made a note for myself about the difference between the static and the dynamic. For me this very term carries a contradiction, an intentional one which has been almost used to attract attention, one could say that there might be something sexy in this term. And this is the way this term affects me as I am trying to grasp it, bringing with it myriad unsaid assumptions which in my opinion determine how we respond to it and act. Of course I might be experiencing this as a fantasy generated by various random parameters which have shaped what I get from this term, as a result of the fact that English is not my mother tongue, and in my effort to fully grasp its meaning in its fine detail, I am sometimes forced to use my personal experience of how it affects me. So for me, who relates to English language as a foreigner, this term points to a tension (the tension between the physical and the virtual) but in a static way, and this might block or distract the possibility for productive action. Yet, I have nothing to suggest about how to rescue this term. But I would encourages us to push the boundaries of language, remember its inherent failings (whether this is in a Derridean sense or not) and attempt to rescue the types of actions, processes and encounters that might be associated with this imperfect term, allow them to grow in the direction they can afford, instead of holding them back, so that we can confirm that the expectations set in advance (through language) have been met successfully. The above point has taken me much more words than I was expecting, however it is one that tries to promote the importance of bodily practice, in the sense of questioning whether it is possible (or even advisable) to progress from one word to the next, steadily and confidently, as we explore this dynamic between the physical and the virtual both conceptually and materially. I am suggesting to refrain from doing this and instead take a hesitant approach, one in which we need to keep checking and re-orientating ourselves according to how the situation develops. The body of the dancer needs to adjust constantly and re-gather itself around its centre of gravity. There are no steady steps, not even when dancers look super-steady! Ballet for example requires very detailed internal re-adjustment, so detailed that it can give the impression of steadiness. So we need to explore the issue of what it is that technology achieves and how, through creating some space in our heads in order to examine how we feel about this situation, and allow our thoughts and judgements to constantly re-orientate themselves according to the gravitational conditions of the situation. This also means that we will be looking at technology as material, and will be following the pathways this knowledge suggests. As I have been thinking about the above points, I started to wonder whether for me virtual embodiment has something to do with how I experience my life emotionally in relation to everyday life events intrinsically connected to or heavily relying on the workings of digital technology. Why do I sometimes feel more excited if I have to speak to one of my students on Skype, instead of meeting them in the flesh? The Skype call (when it works!) adds a certain magic (still!) which makes the meeting more focused. I almost become more bodily present. There is almost a different bond between myself and my student, and a sense that we are sharing a special moment of communication. On the other hand, why is virtual bullying so devastating, as Alan already mentioned in an earlier post? The cyberspace in which bullying might occur is a leisure space which is virtual. However, bullying in the physical world happens mainly in work environments, and the tragedy of the victim is that, unless they are able to find a new job, they have to suffer the bullying. But in a leisure space one can normally ignore the bullies and simply avoid visiting again. However people get attached to certain online community spaces and the communities who operate within these spaces. They experience them in the same intensely emotional manner in which they might experience their participation in a group of people who meet physically. Is this not a form of embodiment? I find very useful Carrie Noland's definition of embodiment as the "process whereby collective behaviours and beliefs, acquired through acculturation, are rendered individual and lived at the level of the body." (p.9), from her book Agency & Embodiment: Performing Gestures / Producing Culture, which I find works well with the above examples. But I am also interested in Noland's approach, because she talks about agency and resistance, which can ultimately change these behaviours and beliefs. And there is something in this that might relate to Susan's very first point about tracking and surveillance, although there is no space here to start a new discussion. Both temporally and spatially. Sophia PS. Many thanks to Simon and Sue for inviting to this amazing discussion. -----Original Message----- From: empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [mailto:empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Simon Biggs Sent: 10 July 2014 00:31 To: jhopk...@neoscenes.net; soft_skinned_space Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Virtual Embodiment: week 2 ----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
