The body always needed to be somewhere — The concept for the collab with Arvida Byström and Foundation for TwoPointFive virtual conference
“Between virtuality and virality, there is a kind of complicity”
- Baudrillard, 2004 [1]
The physical mass, the thing we call our body, has since the start of this year become somewhat disconnected from what we are presenting when we meet others. In previous, less virulent times, it was common to transport this physical mass to a specific place to present it together with the mind, soul and everything that makes us into human beings — to others presenting the same.
But this physical mass is no longer equally as relevant when it comes to meeting others, and instead, what we present are a voice and a non-static being, as we seem to float along in the virtual realm.
With the loss of the body, what we present in the rectangular screen becomes even more critical. An exaggeration of the person becomes somewhat unavoidable, as there is no physical point to bind it to — the mind and the being are there, on their own and they need to compensate for the body we let go in the virtuality of our new realities.
When the disconnection to the physicality that makes us humans creates a feeling of otherness — are we still really ourselves without the body or does this disconnection, in fact, liberate us from the heaviness which a body brings?
How do we live in these virtual universes without losing the sense of the self and losing the self to the otherness? Do we need the physicality or are bodies just mere vessels for transportation?
The software, which has become the new means of transportation, can take us anywhere. Comparing the first machines and computer programs to those we utilize nowadays, there has been a decrease in “size” and an increase in features and functionalities. Have these phenomena extrapolated in 2020, to us human beings?
In these times, more than ever, we become more lightweight and fluid by virtually shedding the body as we assimilate to our new lives now almost taking place in the virtual realm.
About Arvida Byström:
Arvida Byström is a Swedish digital artist exploring femininity and its complexities often in online culture. Her photography and endless Instagram scroll have been in art shows all over the world, and she has appeared both behind and in front of the camera for numerous influential brands and magazines, including Gucci, Absolut Vodka, Dazed media, i-D magazine, Topshop, Numero Berlin, Polaroid Originals, and Vice Magazine.
Place a bid on one of Arvida Byström’s pieces.
About Foundation:
Foundation is where creators, buyers, and collectors are building a new creative economy, together. It’s where new forms of ownership and monetization are transforming what we thought we knew about value. Join us at Foundation.app.
About the Department of Decentralization:
Department of Decentralization (DoD) is a collective of individuals working to drive adoption and educate newcomers about decentralization and open-source software.
[1] Jean Baudrillard, “From the Universal to the Singular: The Violence of the Global,” in The Future of Values: 21st-Century Talks, ed. Jérôme Bindé (New York: UNESCO/Berghahn, 2004), 21.
