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The Digital Body
An exploration into embodiment within the digital sphere.
Introduction
Embodiment is a concept that is in constant construction. Broadly, it relates to the ways in which we understand and experience the world through our bodies. Technological developments have provided new avenues through which we can understand embodiment which subvert many of the long held assumptions surrounding the body and materiality. Through digital embodiment the body has been recontextalised allowing individuals to experience their bodies within digital spheres.
The implications of digital embodiment are vast, spanning across spaces of healthcare, bio-medicine, social media and gaming to name a few. While digital embodiment has been gaining traction in the past couple of years — think ‘mhealth’ (mobile health) apps, GIFs, and AR, this is still not a completely new phenomenon. For the purpose of this introduction, let’s jump on the bandwagon of cultural nostalgia and take a trip back to year (1999) to the beginning of ‘The Matrix’ franchise. The Wachowskis’ provide a lens through which the body in virtual spaces can be understood— presenting them as places that can transcend the limits of the physical body. This academic blog will explore these earlier approaches to the digital body whilst also building on the more recent take on digital embodiment that focuses less on transcendence instead, highlighting that online and offline spaces are becoming increasingly blurred. Through this framework, there is no clear boundary between the physical and virtual body which touches on both the exciting and frightening capabilities of technology.
‘Mhealth’ Apps
This post will delve into the ‘medical gaze’ and the ways in which ‘Mhealth’ apps are shaping the trajectory of bio-medicine, challenging assumptions surrounding autonomy and changing perceptions of health in general.
‘Emoji’ Evolution’
This post explores the evolution of the emoji and the strive towards increased representation in the digital sphere.
Transformation
In the previous posts there has been a focus on avatars or digitally embodied modes of expression such as emojis that mimic the lived experience of the user’s body. This post will explore how virtual spaces can be transformative as well as looking at the ways in which individuals escape dominant and oppressive discourses in virtual spaces.
‘Digital Blackface’
The post on the evolution of emoji’s Incorporated a brief analysis of how racialised bodies are represented in the digital sphere through emoticons. This post will take this further by an exploration into digital ‘blackface’ a term that is gaining traction online.
Digital Cemetery
Digital spaces have transformed the process of death. In many ways digital realms can be seen as spaces of immortality. Moreover, digital technologies have changed practises of mourning, remembrance and identity.
The Quantified Self
This post will delve into self-tracking technologies and their critiques. It will touch on established debates surrounding data collection, autonomy and privacy whilst offering an unusual stance on the issue.
“The greatest fear, I sometimes think, is that we are trapped: in bodies, in rooms, in time. Or the greatest fear is that we are not….”
Emily Geminder
About Me
I am an Anthropology undergraduate at University College London (UCL) with particular interests in the built environment, medical anthropology, political anthropology and material culture. I have a tendency to intellectualise the mundane and obsess over chocolates with a wafer component.
The Digital Body 