Panel Statement

Panel: Bio-Architectures, Virtual Cities: The Revolutionary Human-Machine Community

Re-Thinking the Body explores the idea that the human body has changed to incorporate virtual (digital), organic (material) and mechanical (artificial) concepts. This paper is a plea to allow for both a fusion and an emergence of these three concepts, which include the unpredictable, wet, sensual and biological organic fluid of the human sensorium, and at the same time to remain conscious of the ethical implications of human manipulation. The presentation will formulate a set of paradigms about the changing idea of the body, taking into consideration the somatic and interactive relationships between the body of the viewer and the machines we create: a nomadic model in which interactivity, post-gendered perspectives, multiple personalities and combinations of immaterial and material surfaces could be re-shaping our spatial and temporal perspectives. While the virtual part of the body model could cross geographical boundaries causing symbiotic metaphors to occur, within the relational networks and techno-zones. of interactive art, the organic body of the viewer has shifted from a passive role into a physically active one. Meanwhile invasive mechanical technologies have changed the way we ‘see’ our body and multiplied our interpretations of it. The above concepts will be illustrated with a set of hybrid environments called Digital Body Automata.

• Jill Scott (Australia/Switzerland), Artist/Curator, Zurich, CH