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- Virtual Doppelgangers: Embodiment, Morphogenesis, and Transversal Action
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Chair Persons: Patrick Lichty & Susan Elizabeth Ryan
Presenters: Gregory Little, Elle Mehrmand, Micha Cárdenas & Stephanie RothenbergIn 1969 Gilles Deleuze theorized the “BwO” or Body Without Organs (in The Logic of the Sense, after Artaud’s original term). It refers to the virtual dimension of the body and its potentials, likened to the egg as site of embodiment (in Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus)—a set of multiple potentialities as well as dysfunctional repetitions. In this panel we seek to explore the relations between fleshly bodies and digitized ones as sites of embodiment for our current, informatically energized existences. From Facebook relationships to performances in Second Life, many of us experience various parts of our lives virtually today. But how are these experiences absorbed into our so-called “real lives”? In what ways do our virtual and physical spaces intersect—are they agglomerated realities (Haraway), or embedded in some ontological continuum?
There have been controversies and supporting studies (esp. concerning virtual games) suggesting that excess social mediation is harmful towards our “sense of reality” and ability to interact in society. But researchers of virtual life like Nick Yee (Director of the Daedalus Project survey of MMO players) have shown that avatar experiences positively affect our physical lives and personalities. Still, new research supports old wisdom that too much virtuality is harmful toward our “sense of reality” and ability to interact in society. How are we to think about our bodies and their virtual doubles? Artists and designers know the metaphysics of the BwO. They have created innovative ways to explore how virtual experiences can radically transform our real-world identities, as with Micha Cárdenas’s Becoming Dragon (2008); or socioeconomically impact the physical world, as did Rothenberg and Crouse’s Invisible Threads/DoubleHappiness Jeans project (2007-8). The session will address both artworks and theoretical frameworks that engage our replicated bodies, the affective relations they create, and transversal effects across multiple environments, platforms, and physical appearances.
