The disembodied voice. The meat. Transcending the body, time and space...
From Nietzsche to Merleau-Ponty to Lackoff and Johnson, some of the best thinkers have been reminding us that there is no disembodied communication.
While cyberspace may give us an experience of transcendence, for the most part, we're sitting in a chair using some type of date input device (usually more than one): There's nothing disembodied about it. Even with radio, the voice always reveals a body (this body is a sign, and may be used with all the attributes of signs; for example, you can "lie." A person may "put on" an accent, but this is done to create a specific apperance of a body anyway).
While cyberspace may give us an experience of transcendence, for the most part, we're sitting in a chair using some type of date input device (usually more than one): There's nothing disembodied about it. Even with radio, the voice always reveals a body (this body is a sign, and may be used with all the attributes of signs; for example, you can "lie." A person may "put on" an accent, but this is done to create a specific apperance of a body anyway).
There may even be extreme consequences of a computer-age body--eye problems and back pain come to mind of personal experiences.
Are we doomed to life of chairs? I don't think so. Laptops made computing portable, and tablets make computing readable. Embodiment is becoming not just recognized, but used creatively. The mouse may have started it, but the trackpad is not the end. The WII was immediately used for many non-gaming applications, and many game companies (often on the cutting edge of computing) are moving to embrace embodiment.
Many of us were thrilled by the movie Minority Report, and to make matters more cool, that movie tried to show us technology that was likely to truly exist: Speculation was built on the promises of technological innovation.
John Underkoffler is one man thinking this way.
No comments:
Post a Comment