MIRROR
2/100 - Using one's own body as a site of research
Dear friends & witnesses,
Recently I was in Aachen and Essen in Germany to chair the “Body Imaginations” track at Politics of the Machines. This track included four wonderfully varied panels (contributions listed at the end), but one thing that many of the track contributions held in common was the use of one’s own body within one’s art, including literal or metaphorical reflections, or mirrors. The conference as a whole meditated on technologically-mediated lifelikeness - also resonating with the idea of a MIRROR.
A mirror can reflect, as well as distort and modify. A technologically-mediated mirror can also play with space (virtual reality, wormhole) and time (recording, preservation). A technologically-mediated MIRROR can also collapse presumed boundaries between people. I’ve recently been very interested in how Giorgia Lupi's Long Covid personal data narrative (if the paywall prevents viewing the article, here is a video) makes design decisions in personal data narrative that embrace the subjective experience., and its texture, to such a degree that though the body being represented in the data show is not a reader’s, the visualization nevertheless can feel like a mirror. The representation of a singular body can resonate with many other people: a technologically-mediated mirror becomes a bridge across bodies, a portal.
In recent portal-related news, an altogether different technologically-mediated bridge between bodies has seen a quick rise and fall: the NYC/Dublin live feed installation had to be shut down due to “inappropriate” behavior. The story reminded me of a project that is now 20 years old and that created a portal collapsing space, but did so not through a live feed, but though a mediated, abstract, subjectively-textured layer. The images below have been included from: Karahalios, K., & Donath, J. (2004, April). “Telemurals: linking remote spaces with social catalysts.” In CHI 2004 (pp. 615-622).
I saw a presentation about this work in 2008 - while working in the same lab where I first learned about (and first began to practice) self-tracking. This is a MIRROR that abstracts; superimposes; collapses social space; projects bodies onto one another. In my mind, it has more in common with Lupi’s Long Covid visualization than with the Dublin/NYC wormhole: the visual choices of making it less body-precise make it more able to invite viewers to participate in mutual superimposition, this layering of images.
When I talk about self-tracking or body data, I usually position my own such artistic practice as long-term, systematic self-reflection. A lot of my own attitude toward self-tracking - the construction of some abstract MIRROR - ha been influenced by my own experience with different movement practices, which have over the year included the postural practice of yoga; dance theater; weightlifting. The next time you go to a place of movement - a studio, a gym - consider, is there a mirror here? What do you think is the reason for this design choice? Often, yoga studios do not have a mirror; dance studios rarely lack mirrors; gym typically have some areas with mirrors, and some without. How does the presence of a direct, untampered reflection impact the experience of movement in that space?
In an interview a few years ago, I spoke on my experiences as a yoga practitioner and teacher:
…sometimes it’s helpful to think of some things as being done for the body, and some things being done with the body: sometimes movement is the tool (for exploration of the body) and sometimes the body is the tool (for achieving a particular movement). In practice, I think there’s an interplay and a balance between these aspects in every movement practice, and no movement is purely one or the other. (p.134) - “How to Change Your Body: The Science of Interoception & Healing Through Connection to Yourself & Others” by Saga Briggs
I did not speak about mirrors in this interviews, but I was at the time neck-deep in artistic research on how the visual representations of bodies in popular culture affected our imaginations of our bodies - the same research that eventually led to organizing the “Body Imaginations” track at POM last month. Looking back on the interview, I am interrogating how much my own sense of for-ness and with-ness of movement is affected by the design choices of my places of movement, including MIRRORS. Next month, on the evening of June 26th, I’ll be part of a panel discussing this book, hosted in Berlin by the MIND Foundation, so likely I will return to the topic of movement in the next post in some way.
In the meantime, I continue with my own design choice to - for four years now - exclude a mirror from my bathroom. Initially, it was a low-effort decorative gesture, but it has since created a fascinating effect, which I appreciate more and more over time. Looking into a MIRROR became an active choice, rather than a casual accident, at least during a big chunk of my day. This is what, for me, distinguishes that strange, abstract 2004 portal (by Karahalios and Donath) so different from the NYC/Dublin live feed: to choose to be reflected, through active engagement.
Aside from the idea of active engagement and choice, there is an interesting role played by abstraction and transformation by a technologically-mediated MIRROR. It becomes a more artistically potent medium - one perhaps more open to identification and projection by other viewers, or capable of playing with space/time - when it is not too committed to giving an impression of being direct, literal, or precise. Instead, texture and subjectivity (as in Lupi’s Long Covid visual choices) make a portal possible.
The full list of POM “Body Imaginations” contributions is below; they span many methods and subjects, and I will certainly return to these topics in future posts:
Panel #1: Sensory Narratives
“The Observer as Biomachine: Object-Subject Relations in Interactive and Biotechnological Art” Raivo Kelomees (Estonian Academy of Arts)
“How Interactive Digital Narratives are entanglement by the body: the role of aesthetics and sensory perception” Ana Catarina Monteiro (i2ADS & Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto) Miguel Carvalhais (i2ADS & Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto) and Rui Torres (Fernando Pessoa University, Porto)
“Anthropomorphism and Deception with ChatGPT and Sex Robots from a Derridean and Lacanian perspective” Maaike van der Horst (University of Twente) Víctor Betriu Yáñez
Panel #2: Material & Mortality
“Striving for Self-Annihilation - Erotic Sociability in Ana Mendieta’s Siluetas” Anna Chwialkowska (Zentrum für Zeitgenössischen Tanz, Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln)
“The Posthumous World” Richard Wright (Royal Holloway University of London)
“Anything but the human: Open Source Body” Marisa Satsia
Panel #3: Transformations
“Me, Myself & More. Enhanced physical experience through non-human avatars” Lena Biresch (Freelance artist)
“Inside the construct of “dis”!=“abled” bodies.” Saskia Isabella Maria Korsten (ArtEZ, University of the Arts)
“Plastic Reality of Physical Uniformity, The catastrophic image of mass-produced bodies” Hassan Choubassi (The international University of Beirut) Sahar Charara (DW Akademie)
Panel #4: Storytelling
“Technology-Mediated Devotion: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Self-Tracking in Meditation” Xiaran Song (Aalto University) Andrés Lucero (Aalto University)
“Mouthpiece: wearing the skin of a synthesised voice” Lottie Sebes (University of the Arts Berlin)
A publication will follow up to the POM conference as a whole, and I will be sure to send along updates about that!
Until next time,
Best,
Kit