Sharing Subjectivities: Exploring new concepts of Interface Design Panel Statement
Symposium:
- ISEA95: Sixth International Symposium on Electronic Art
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More presentations from ISEA95:
Session Title:
- Sharing Subjectivities: Exploring new concepts of Interface Design
Presentation Title:
- Sharing Subjectivities: Exploring new concepts of Interface Design Panel Statement
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
A prominent topic in discussions of cyberspace and new media technologies is the possibilities they offer for developing re-configured, ‘electronic’ subjectivities that allow the user to shed the social entrapments of the body in the physical world. In cyberspace, it is argued, the user has no body — therefore s/he has no necessary or preordained gender, race, class, “look” or even personality. For some, it is this aspect of cyberspace – together with its prosthetic, body-enhancing potential — that is the most liberating. For others it raises questions about the consequences of disembodiment in general. Can a purely electronic presence escape the determinations currently organized around the various matrix of power-permeating postindustrial culture? When the body, as emitter of signs, is removed, are there other signs which take the body’s place? And, how will the electronic “body” be represented – will it conform to the usual representations of physical bodies, or will an entirely new conception of corporeality and presence be formulated?
