24/04/2026
In a world dominated by representations of the intellect, the bodies receptivity to the earth is neutered. Perhaps the old mantra of the body as a vessel has been reversed and the network itself becomes a vessel for the body. Channelling it’s internal fluxes into discretised blocks of sensation, matched to ontologically distinct, eternal (repeatable) and thus retrievable phenomena. Our technologies watch us and we provide the means for it’s circuitry (which I do not claim is a condemnable act). The unfortunate consequence of this however is our experience of ‘unreality’, for we colloquially say “in real life” to differentiate technologically mediated life from? This is not a new revelation, being espoused more thoroughly by thinkers like McLuhan and Baudrillard who theorise the human minds tendency to identify itself in extension through mediation. I do not reason we ought to return to some romantic status of the body as the site of radical liberation, it is undoubtedly intwined (and necessarily so) with our digital ontology. But the bodies unknown potential itself is a condition that must be accepted. For if the body works differently to the intellect and yet inextricably related to it, trying to theorise and capture the bodies movements under some framework is naive and pointless.
So, rather than a sustained critique this will be a series of fragments (with theoretical undertones) meditating on the alterations and contexts the different human senses contemporarily undergo. Charting the possible routes our senses take, where they go and maybe what is lost through mediation; without recourse as there is no pure sense to resuscitate. And it is precisely it’s impurity that constitutes its simultaneous fragility and strength. The human intellects naivety has caused sensibilities sedimentation, neglecting the missed sites of its manipulation through representational models; not based on identity or other political agendas (pre-existing alternatives). Paradoxically, it is possible that the body is more vulnerable than ever, hence there is no reason for cynicism, truth or answers.
ARGO 