1. '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.
‘Stelarc’s post-evolutionary performance art: Exposing collisions between the body and technology’
Aitor Baraibar's article explores the blurring of the boundaries between technology and body through the performance art of Stelarc. She concludes that the underlying message in Stelarc’s work is that the body will become overpowered by technology and ultimately diminish unless we realize its potential to be extended and manipulated through technology. Bodily extension relies upon an understanding of the skin as extendable in itself, a useful rather than oppressively rigid entity that can be ‘stretched’ (Baraibar 1999: 161) and pierced (Baraibar 1999: 160) by technology in order to become one with technology. So rather than a future embodiment beyond the skin with skin made to be obsolete, this article provides useful insights into imagining a future embodiment where skin and technology become indistinguishable from one another as the border between the two blurs. We will become cyborgs.
While the author is reputable and the article is published in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, we must take into consideration that it was published before much of the discourse on the relationship between the human body and technology became prominent in scholarly circles [1]. Hence, it will become more enlightening if read alongside recent sources on the subject so that Baraibar’s arguments can be validated in light of technological and scholarly advancement.
‘Skin Aesthetics’
Leora Farber argues that skin becomes a playing field for tensions between submission and agency based on western ideals of how women’s skin should look and be defined (particularly through slimness and youth). Importantly, Farber suggests that the crafting and manipulation of our own skin through bodily control [2] changes the margins of the body and ultimately causes us to become cyborgs (Farber 2006: 248-249). Furthermore, the human skin is compared to a fabric garment, as technology (particularly cosmetic surgery) and western ideals causes the skin to become commoditised, constructed, manipulated, fragmentised, discarded and sewn back together (Farber 2006: 248). Although this metaphor of the skin as garment is concerned with the here and now, we could also apply it to imaginings of future embodiment. Will an extension of the body continue to be based upon naturalizing this extension through such practices as artificial skin that emulates human skin? Or will we make visible the mechanical nature of bodily extensions in an attempt to foreground our “cyborgized” existence?
‘The Corporeal Body in Virtual Reality’
Craig D. Murray and Judith Sixsmith argue that a sense of user embodiment in virtual reality is made possible through ‘the sensorial architecture of the body, and the malleability of body boundaries’ (Murray & Sixsmith 1999: 336), so that embodiment in virtual reality can be achieved even when a visual representation of the human body does not exist. Rather than removing the idea of the body altogether, however, Murray and Sixsmith suggest that one can be embodied in non-human bodies, such as anthropomorphic forms and prosthetic limbs. While this article deals minimally with the idea of skin in itself, it becomes useful in relation to the research question in that it applies a different way of thinking about embodiment as going beyond the human body yet still needing to exist in some form of body.
We have to put the article in context, however, and remember that its less radical opinion towards future embodiment is perhaps attributed to its earlier publishing date in comparison to the other articles that I mention here.
'Bodies, embodiment and ubiquitous computing’
Lea Schick and Lone Malmborg argue that embodiment is becoming distributed and shared as a result of the increasing technological emphasis on ‘sociality, context-awareness, relations, affects, connectedness and collectivity…’ (Schick & Malmborg 2010: 63). They apply Deleuze’s concept of The Fold (Deleuze 1988/1993: 6) to explain how technology enfolds the body, and the body unfolds into technology, rendering the skin as border obsolete as it too unfolds into technology (Schick & Malmborg: 67). The metaphor of The Fold seems to allude to the skin itself (i.e. Skin-fold) and becomes a useful concept for imagining how human and machine become one as the boundary breaks down between technology/body and inner/outer body.
While the very recent publication renders this article temporally relevant, the writing itself is particularly verbose and confusing. A number of examples are mentioned but are not explained further. Hence, the article will become more useful when read in conjunction with background information on central examples, particularly the idea of interactive textiles.
‘Getting under the skin, or, how faces have become obsolete’
Bernadette Wegenstein's article draws upon popular culture, popular science, and theoretical and cultural studies to evaluate the increasing representation of the inner body over the outer body as a result of a redefining of the posthuman bodily borders (Wegenstein 2002: 252). Of particular importance to the essay question is Wegenstein’s discussion of the collapse of the boundary of skin as marker of the outer body (Wegenstein 2002: 238-246). She argues that current representations of the body transform the skin from a rigid boundary into what can be compared to a ‘garment’ that can be removed and ‘worn’ like clothing (Wegenstein 2002: 242). So the skin no longer belongs to a specific body, thus allowing embodiment to be extended beyond the individual and into other bodies.
The article is written by a reputable scholar, and is published in an academic peer-reviewed journal, therefore rendering the material appropriate for the research task. The inclusion of images, the drawing together of a multiplicity of fields and the relation of examples to popular culture/popular science, renders this an engaging article that is relatively easy to digest and is accessible to a wide readership.
Reference List:
Baraibar, A 1999, ‘Stelarc’s post-evolutionary performance art: Exposing collisions between the body and technology’, Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 157-168. Available from: informaworld. [6 September 2010].
Farber, L 2006, ‘Skin Aesthetics’, Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 23, no. 2/3, pp. 247-250. Available from: Sage Journals Online. [6 September 2010].
Murray, CD & Sixsmith, J 1999, ‘The Corporeal Body in Virtual Reality’, Ethos, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 315-343. Available from: JSTOR. [8 September 2010].
Schick, L & Malmborg, L 2010, ‘Bodies, embodiment and ubiquitous computing’, Digital Creativity, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 63-69. Available from: Informaworld. [8 September 2010].
Wegenstein, B 2002, ‘Getting under the skin, or, how faces have become obsolete’, Configurations, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 221-258. Available from: ProQuest 5000 International. [8 September 2010].
[1] As Baraiber says so herself on p. 158.
[2] Through practices such as exercise regimes, eating disorders and cosmetic surgery.
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