[-empyre-] virtual embodiment - some thoughts on resonances of the virtual in 2014

[Sue Hawksley]

Dear Susan, Johannes

Many thanks to you both for opening this discussion with these thought provoking points and questions. You both identify how slippery the terms 'virtual' and 'embodiment' are, which won't surprise anyone who spends a lot of their time experimenting through corporeal practices. I'm one of those movement geeks who is happy to chip away at the question of 'embodiment' through my own bodily efforts and experiences or through my 'virtual' space of my own imagination, as much as through experiments with technological interfaces. Embodiment for me is probably a verb, and certainly not a commodity, and 'virtual' is not necessarily computational.
I've had some quite transformational experiences through engaging with different interfaces and systems, although like you both I often find the sensations can be quite ersatz and less than 'real' life. I think its great that interfaces like the Wii, kinect, Rift etc are getting more people up out of their chairs, These interfaces offer a real shift in the freedom and fluidity for more people to move & express within mediated environments as part of their everyday life. But to pick up on Susan's worry - 

<… the digital technologies so many of us have used in art have the potential to track and store more information about any of us than we ever dreamed. Our virtual selves are extensions of ourselves but now at one remove: we don’t know where they live or what triangulations of our data may reveal to others who interpret our data>

-  I am wary that the 'freedom' to move and engage physically will undoubtably come at a price. Is it possible people could giving up more of their privacy as they put their 'movement signature' out there in the view of giants like Facebook etc.? I wonder if/how our distinctive movement patterns and rhythms might be collected, collated, forged and what might be done with them? its alarming to think of movement data being acquired, but almost worse to think of being rendered into some ersatz version, bad copies of ourselves.

all the best, Sue




SUE HAWKSLEY
independent dance artist
sue at articulateanimal.org.uk
http://www.articulateanimal.org.uk




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