Webliography

Question: Why should our bodies end at the skin? asks Donna Haraway. Discuss the idea of skin in relation to how we might imagine our future embodiment.

Schick, Lea, Malmborg, Lone, 'Unfolding and Refolding Embodiment into the Landscape of Ubiquitous Computing' (2009) Proceedings of the Digital Art and Culture Conference. pp.1-6,http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7t5741s0;jsessionid=16D6A3A93E0A6602787C8505456F6DCE#page (accessed 20th August 2010)

This journal article questions Haraway's proposition (above) and provides an argument as to why bodies do not end at the skin, due to its relation with our future embodiment. Ubiquitous technologies have already affected our experience of embodiment, enabling the extension of skin, dissolving the border between the inside and out, human and technology. Schick and Malmborg point out that an unfolded body does not end at one's skin, instead emerges as intercorporeality between bodies and the technological environment. This demonstrates the extent to which technologies have woven themselves into our everyday lives, changing our perception of embodiment towards a distributed and shared one. It also discusses the pervasiveness of technology and how this interaction might impact upon humans. Deleuze's philosophy suggests we should challenge the body as a fixed concept, which will help us to understand the challenges which may arise from it. This is significant as we currently live in the era of new technologies, where the subject has feared the loss of the body. This notion is also linked to Weiser's ideas of automoatic sensors whereby the interface might become invisible in the future. It will not be evident who is interacting when, and the interaction will be multiple, merging with technological effects. Therefore, future embodiment will ultimately lead to interplay between technological interfaces and physical bodies.

Ahmed, Sara, Stacey, Jackie (2001) 'Introduction: Dermographies' in 'Thinking Through The Skin'. pp.1-10, http://books.google.com.au/booksid=ATvVXLooAdkC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=should+our+bodies+end+at+the+skin+donna+haraway&source=bl&ots=WMsa0Ceywh&sig=t3C-VNR8Im5ffeilQsGl266cDyg&hl=en&ei=LHx7TIu#v=onepage&q=should%20our%20bodies%20end%20at%20the%20skin%20donna%20haraway&f=false(accessed 24th August 2010)

This chapter by Ahmed and Stacey will be a good read to gain some contextual understanding about the “skin” in general. It goes into detail about the notion of “skin” as well as to have the ability to think with or through the skin. What we do and feel affects our surroundings, which again impacts other bodies. Therefore, the feedback-loop is endless and non-linear. The technology folds around the body, then the body unfolds out into the world. As a result, the skin as border loses its significance and becomes an unfolded interface to the surroundings. This shows how the body is folding into the ubiquitous technosphere, and new technologies are refolding embodiment. This chapter from the book Thinking Through The Skin will be read as a contribution to feminist theories of embodiment. It therefore recognises the functions of social differences in establishing the boundaries that mark out the body. Most importantly, it seeks to interrogate how the skin is attributed a meaning and logic of its own. Deleuze’s notion of the body is heavily inspired by Spinoza, who describes it as something dynamic; whose limits and capacities we cannot know beforehand. It can only be revealed through our ongoing interactions with the environment

Saniotis, Arthur (2008) 'Human/Non-Human Interface:The Emergence of New Forms of Embodiment in the 21st Century' http://religiouscrossroads.tribe.net/thread/3b2c5ee7-4a98-4c92-96f0-02e937356d01 (accessed 22nd August 2010)

Saniotis is one of many authors who claim the internet represents a further technologisation of the body or what Donna Haraway calls the “cyborgisation of homo sapiens”. In this context, the computer has become an extension of the human body, and therefore our bodies do not end at the skin. One of the factors that have further contributed to this is the constant societal and technological changes. Bostrom writes on the possibility of the mind uploading via neuroprostheses that would allow individuals to “plug in to cyberspace.” This would entail the disassembling of brain cells, “molecule by molecule, scanning off the neural network.” This has profound impacts upon social relationships between people as it turns into disembodied forms of sociality. Physicist Freeman Dyson in the article also envisages humans to engage in neurotelepathy whereby input form the outside world would be intercepted by cyber-network and tapped into the sensory perceptions. This embodiment is similar to Weiser's idea in Schick and Malmborg's article about automatic sensors where the user and system are weaved together. Therefore, the traditional Western notion of the self can be challenged as there will be a further blurring of human/machine, reality and fantasy. Finally, it is claimed we are witnessing a hybridisation of cybernetic orgnanisms as cybersex and cyber-relationships have all come about due to computer-mediated technologies.

Cohen, Dustin (2010) 'On the Emerging form of Embodiment' (9 February 2010) Cybject. http://cybject.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/on-the-emerging-form-of-embodiment/(accessed 24th August 2010)

This article specifically looks at what future embodiment may be. This includes the destruction of a cohesive human body, which would have been an alien concept at any other time in history. For example, everything related to the person, self or skin will generally be smoothed over in plastic surgery to produce an artificial model. This is already happening and according to Deleuze, the body and embodiment is a multiplicity and a potentiality which makes the unthinkable possible. The aim is to “remove every figure of alterity from fate and ensure everything that is not negotiable”. Over the last five to ten years, we have witnessed an expansive use of biometric sensor technologies, such as medical equipment and sport applications. More recently, it includes mundane aspects of our lives including artistic projects questioning a human's role and position created by body technology. As a result, what is proposed is a shared embodiment, and according to Deleuze and Spinoza, is a natural development of the body. The shared embodiment should not be perceived as something that threatens our notion of the body, but rather be seen as another state of the same body. Finally, the alteration of the body can be questioned in terms of society's acceptance of such technologies. This would ultimately change our perception of basic concepts such as embodiment and subject.

Cohen, Dustin (2010) 'Haraway and Lyotard :Cyborg..Goddess..Inhuman'(29 April 2010) Cybject. http://cybject.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/harway-and-lyotard-cyborg-godess-inhuman/ (accessed 24th August 2010)

The second article by Cohen juxtaposes the ideas of theorists Haraway and Lyotard. Lyotard’s work advocates “an anti in-humanism or a post-humanist humanism”, which is in direct contrast to the cyborganism advocated by theorists such as Sadie Plant and Donna Haraway. Cohen points out that Lyotard draws our attention to what distinguishes human thought from computers. For example, computer thought is logical and is a matter of responding mathematically. Human thought on the other hand, tends to depend heavily on the use of analogy and intuition. Most importantly as humans, we are also very focused on the binary logic that stabilizes our dichotomous thinking- male/female, human/technology. Lyotard also believes the human body has a gender. However, Haraway praises the post human cyborg which offers an “ironic, genderless, form of life”. In contrast to Haraway, Lyotard seems concerned about the cyborg condition. A quote from Haraway is as follows: “The machine is not to be animated, worshipped and dominated. The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment...We are responsible for boundaries; we are they”. This demonstrates that our actions and our feelings of embodiment arise from the result of our technological environment, and from other people.