“Can the mind exist without a body?” by Irma Marco
Title:
- Can the mind exist without a body?
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Exhibiting Artist(s):
Symposium:
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Artist Statement:
“Can the mind exist without a body?” is a large-format flag installed in public space. It shows a Yiannis Laouris’s question taken from a chapter of the Onlife Manifesto, coordinated by Luciano Floridi, where they address the transformations of the digital hyperconnectivity era, such as the need to re-engineer the concepts of human and non-human life.
This work is, at the same time contextualized in a larger public art project and PhD research called #internetflags, which explore several aspects of life in a hyper-connected and Internet-based society. We think that this project can as well be a response to the need for new location structures to show artistic proposals and to promote social interactions and critical thinking from the arts perspective.
The conceptual focus of #internetflags is based on three axes. The permanent existence of portable digital communication devices, close to the idea of prostheses in the context of a hyper-connected society, and how its effects are interpreted from contemporary art; the problems derived from the massive use of the Internet together with a lack of knowledge of its internal physical structure, as well as its political and environmental implications; and also the current pandemic context in which social relationships are virtualized, public space is blurred and physical contact is restricted.
