Coelynn McIninch

AIB MFA May 2008

Paper #4

Where Am I?

Human perception of the self and where the self is actually located is a debate that spans thousands of years and a multitude of scholastic disciplines. In recent years our society’s increasing use of technology for global communication, information access, business, entertainment and even physical augmentation, has brought this question to the attention of more that just academics and spiritualists. It is part of everyday negotiations as a participant in our digital society to stretch the concept of self beyond the borders of the physical frame. We willingly separate ourselves “from the immediacy of our sensory capacities” (Munster) in favor of the ability to alter and multiply our self.

My interest in this issue is not particularly spiritual in nature. My interests are more philosophical and scientific in nature. Any technology that alters the perception of self is regarded at first as sublime and inspires metaphysical rearranging and spiritual debate until it is assimilated. The issue we are dealing with today is the pace at which we are expected to assimilate technological innovation. Living in a techno-centric society effects practically every facet of our daily lives as participatory citizens. The question that concerns me is how does this interaction change our “concept of the body’s physical envelope and of the locus of human agency”(Stone)

Because this influence of technology is so pervasive and mutable, there is more than ample fuel for artistic interpretation. To be an active participant in this digital culture means to invest one’s self in the technological advances that are quickly becoming the foundation for our economic and social interactions. It is the nature of these technologies to augment, alter and multiply the self both cognitively and bodily. The artistic responses to these influences can be seen on many levels ranging from purely visual expressions without physical form to direct scientific manipulation of living matter. Net Art, Database art, Virtual Reality, globally synchronous exhibits, and Bio-Art are just a few of the forms this artistic response has taken.

Net art is an all encompassing term that seems to cover all forms of art on the web but is generally used to classify art that is designed solely for exhibition on the web. Works such as Ken Goldberg’s “Telegarden” take advantage of the interactive qualities of the web to help create physical works outside of the web. The result is a sort of shared mental picture or virtual, cooperative group experience.

Database Aesthetics has arisen out of the way that computers code and organize all things. It can be seen as a way to comment on the digital encoding of the “natural” world or as an affirmation of interconnectivity. Some may find the “natural” patterns that emerge from visually plotting database contents fascinating (such as Josh On’s “www.theyrule.net” designed to plot connections between board members of major US corporations and organizations.) While others are disturbed by the implication that human beings are so easily categorized and reduced to code. When the labels that one uses for defining personal identity become virtual checkboxes it exposes and simplifies social organization as a purely scientific arrangement with no regard for individuality. Once these codes of organization are recognized as similar in construction and negotiation as those of the digital world, it is difficult to dissolve the mental analogy of self as data. Artist and scientist, Aluquerre Rosanne Stone differentiates between the data self and the unique concept of self by suggesting a “quasi-Cartesian presence” being the numbers and facts that label a person as being part of a given society and political faction. She refers to this aspect of the self as “the legible body” a “textually mediated physicality.” This clarification amputates the physical self from the body of data used to virtually categorize the body’s place within a society.

The nature of online communication is multiplicity. Historically speaking, an individual used to change their name freely throughout their life using it as a descriptive tag rather than a legally traceable label. When one’s name is to stay the same throughout life, a separation must occur between the name and its significance as illustrative, descriptive symbolic of the personality of the self. These days an individual may have multiple usernames, multiple passwords, multiple avatars, multiple identities, associations, contacts and a host of wildly different virtual personalities. The mental association between a chosen name and the self is reinforced on a daily basis. The difference between then and now is these days many different aliases are assumed at the same time. With a continual fragmentation of the self, one has to wonder if the splitting of a personality diffuses the identity of the whole or enhances the development of multiple facets of the self. The need for physicality as a precursor to communication is negated but the question still remains: does the imperfect nature of technologically mediated communication enhance the need for physical interaction. When the physical actions and visual markers that we interpret in face-to-face conversation are variable, interchangeable and augmentable, there is the possibility that faith in the veracity of sensory clues will diminish. Digital communication, does not warranting there being another living human being on the other end of the communication.

Virtual reality is probably the single most powerful technologies available for altering the perception of the self in relation to the physical world. Not only can a person inhabit a virtual fantasy world that has no form or substance but they can also insert a representation of themselves into this world and “inhabit” whatever physical form suits them at the time. It would be the ultimate expression of mind over matter except for the fact that there is no physical matter to speak of. The virtual world is only mentally tangible, “emptied of the differences that situated bodies and physical geography bring to a sense of place.” (Munster)

What lures people into the virtual world is the desire to play coupled with the spectacular nature of digital image synthesis promising endless visual stimulus and guilt-free social interaction. It is within this realm that online gamers developed the “newfound power to destroy things at a distance, anonymously and at no risk to themselves”(Stone)

When learning, playing and social interaction occur without reference to the physical form. What is the need for concern over one’s physical condition?

This brings me to another facet of technology and self: dislocation. Digital technology allows us visual and auditory access to people and places around the globe at any time of day or night. There are an increasing number of artist taking advantage of this global connectivity to create exhibits that function as interactive installations connecting several different galleries. The artwork itself becomes representative of our virtual expansion of the self. At the same time we are celebrating our virtual interconnectivity we are embracing new technologies that enable us to find or be found, by GPS, OnStar, Google Earth and cell phone tracking, at a specific location implying a seemingly ironic need for the technological affirmation of our corporeal existance on the planet.

In the installation “Derriere Le Monde Flottant” artist Mathieu Briand experiments with virtual dislocation and virtual connection simultaneously. Participants in the installation wear video headsets with cameras and can willingly shift views to that of any other participant wearing a headset.

One on the newest, and most controversial, forms of technology related art is Bio Art. Bio art deals with living matter as a medium. Biochemistry in all its forms becomes a tool for dealing directly with our attachment to our physical form. A recent exhibition in the UK titled “Skin-terfaces” was sponsored by FACT (The Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) and billed as “exploring the idea of skin as a place where art, science, philosophy and social culture meet.” The ethical controversies surrounding use of living tissue as an art form are proof that we as human beings are still attached to our physical form as a part of the self. The fact that the exhibition was assembled at all however, may be a sign of our changing perceptions regarding our own flesh and its connection to our perception of self.

The widely accepted practice of body modification is another indication of our growing disassociation between self and physical form. On one hand an individual may feel the need to alter the body to repair a discrepancy between physical appearance and mental perception of the self. On the other hand there may be a need to alter the body because the individual has such a strong mental attachment to their body that any faults in or additions to the physical form directly affect the mental concept of self.

There may never be a definitive answer as to where the cognitive, perceptual, spiritual self is located in relation to the corporeal body but there are many who have great hopes for the continued integration of body and machine. To achieve this cybernetic goal the discrepancies and differences between digital functions and natural functions must be minimized by either “assimilation of flesh to the machine” (Munster) or by “erasure of the machine‘s materiality.”(Munster) Once either of these goals is achieved we are still left with wondering what place this new virtual, cybernetic self could occupy beyond the constraints of techno-social negotiations.

Bibliography

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