Bodies in code interfaces with digital media

Varela, Francisco, 5

Vector modelization, see “vectorization”

Vectorial deformation, see “vectorization”

Vectorization, 199, 200, 203, 207-209

Video, 230

Videoplace (Krueger), 28, 31, 35-37, 44, 47

Virtual, 43, 45, 81, 92, 98, 203, 205

Virtual architecture, 98

Virtual body, 14

Virtual environment (VE), 113-115, 117, 118, 121-124

Virtual environment, functional understanding of, 117

Virtual environment, default perspective of, 46

"Virtual ethnicity" (Poster), 162

Virtual House (Eisenman), 199-201, 203, 205, 207

Virtual reality, 1-6, 13-15, 18, 19, 22, 26, 27, 45, 88, 90, 91, 93, 109-111, 113, 114, 118, 121, 123, 126-130, 132, 136, 137,147

Virtual reality interface, see “Virtual reality”

Virtual world, 50, 80, 82

Virtual, x, xi, 2-6

Virtual, analog basis of, 22

Virtual, as architectural constraint, 205

Virtual, as fringe of the actual, 43

Virtuality, 21

Virtuality, as dimension of embodied life, 111,223

Virtuality, constitutive impurity of, 93 Visible and the Invisible, The (Merleau-Ponty), 21, 73, 76, 77

Visible and the Invisible, The, relation to The Phenomenology of Perception, 54

Vision, 79-81, 83, 112, 120, 121

Vision, defunctionalization of, 212, 220

Vision, impossibility purity of, 216

Vision, nobility of , 53, 212, 217

Vision, tactile basis of, 53, 77, 123

Vision, transductive coupling with touch, 81,82

"Visions Unfolding: Architecture in the Age of Electronic Media” (Eisenman), 199,209

Visual image, see body image

VR environments, see Virtual Environments

Wallon, Henri, 55

Wann, John, 116, 117, 120

Wearable computing, 175

Wearable space, 175-178, 182, 183, 190, 209, 219

Wearable space, as origin of architecture, 218

Weiss, Gail, 56, 57, 99, 127, 128, 136, 1651

Wexner Center (Eisenman), 208

"Whatever body” (Agamben), 143, 148, 149, 169

Winnicott, David, 61, 62 withDrawing Room, The (Diller + Scofidio), 211

Worldskin (Benayoun), 88, 90-94

Worldskin, as figure of “indivision," 112

Wright, Frank Lloyd, 208

X, Y (Diller + Scofidio), 212, 213

Yggdrasil, 222

Zaera-Polo, Alejandro, 195

Zampanò, 224, 225, 230, 232, 233, 235, 236,

240, 242-244, 246, 247, 250

Zapruder film, 237

Zizek, Slavoi, 91

INDEX

327

DATE DUE

N 7433.8 .H35 2006

Hansen, Mark B.N.

Bodies in Code

DEMCO

MEDIA STUDIES / CYBERCULTURE

“A stunning work of philosophical originality and brilliance." -Timothy Lenoir, Duke University

"Through detailed examinations of specific artistic interventions into the nature and meaning of virtual reality technologies, and the capacities of these interventions to unsettle naturalized assumptions that virtual technologies rely on actúal and theoretical disembodiment, Mark Hansen mounts a wide-ranging set of enquiries to buttress his claim that all reality is mixed reality. Hansen's findings are sure to contribute to the crucial discussions about the complex relationships between human embodiment and the codes upon which our increasingly important information machines rely."

—Ken Hillis, author of Digital Sensations: Space, Identity and Embodiment in Virtual Reality

"Hansen's book achieves something that is central for any cultural theory of the body: it
situates the question concerning embodiment as indissociable from the question con
cerning technics. In its engagement with the theories of Simondon, Stiegler, Deleuze, and
Merleau-Ponty, Bodies in Code passes over any tendency to separate body and technol
ogy, and instead moves toward a technics that is uncannily 'elemental,' emphasizing as
it does the properties of blurring, affectivity, and the resonant.' —Eugene Thacker, author of Biomedia and The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture

“An eloquent and provocative analysis of new media that reconceptualizes embodiment and argues for all reality as mixed reality. Tracing the primordial nature of tactility and offering a model of bodily agency that emphasizes its constitutive coupling with technics, Bodies in Code makes clear the ethical implications of New Philosophy for New Media." -Wendy Hui-Kyong Chun, Brown University

Bodies in Code explores how our bodies experience and adapt to digital environments. The virtual experiences of cyberspace are profoundly affecting our very understanding of what it means to live as embodied beings. Hansen draws upon recent work in visual culture, cognitive science, and new media studies, as well as gives examples of computer graphics, websites, and new media art, to show how our bodies are in some ways already becoming virtual.

Mark B. N. Hansen is Professor of English and Cinema/Media Studies at the University of Chicago. He is author of New Philosophy for New Media and Embodying Technesis: Technology Beyond Writing and co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty.

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