The Imaginary Subject and the Virtual Body in Corporate Communication

Symposium:

• ISEA94: Fifth International Symposium on Electronic Art
• More presentations from ISEA94:  

• Body (Spacescapes)

• The Imaginary Subject and the Virtual Body in Corporate Communication

• Karen D. Davis

• Abstract

  The close examination of communication artifacts can reveal much about the constituent elements of culture, values and the institutional contexts within which we function. In this presentation, the subject of inquiry is the repository of in-house corporate video based communications utilized in training employees of the Bank of America Corporation. Through an analytical critique of information technology within the corporate environment, the grammar of these communications is exposed for its implication of an imaginary subject: the virtual corporate body. In-house communications, particularly video communication and specifically ‘training tapes’, are considered as the manifestation or enunciation of the virtual corporate body, and also as the originally site of the imaginary within the institution. The presentation is a summary of two essays on information technology and institutional reification appearing in the American periodicals, ‘Afterimage’, ‘Video Networks’ and in the upcoming City Lights Press book, Un-Wired.

Category:

• Paper