Living in the age of the embodied screen

The technological virtual converges with our contemporary existence in a multitude of ways, which suggests a need to interrogate the question of the virtual existentially. Merleau-Ponty’s existential phenomenological account of embodiment is invaluable in this regard because the virtual is encounter...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Indo-Pacific journal of phenomenology
Main Author: du Toit, Jean (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Rhodes University 2020
In: The Indo-Pacific journal of phenomenology
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 1908-1961 / Virtual reality / Space / Embodiment
RelBib Classification:AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism
VA Philosophy
Further subjects:B embodied screen
B Flesh
B Virtual
B Merleau-Ponty
B Embodiment
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Summary:The technological virtual converges with our contemporary existence in a multitude of ways, which suggests a need to interrogate the question of the virtual existentially. Merleau-Ponty’s existential phenomenological account of embodiment is invaluable in this regard because the virtual is encountered from the basis of the facticity of the embodied individual - a facticity that is closely related to perception and motor intentionality. The current article argues that these characteristics of the body-subject should be taken into consideration in order to develop a clearer description of the virtual. However, beyond an embodied account that relates to early technologies, Merleau-Ponty also presents through his concept of the flesh a novel avenue for the ontological investigation of the virtual. The flesh describes the intertwining of the body-subject and the world, which is suggestive of a new account of the individual’s sensibility in relation to the virtual. An original concept is suggested to describe the existential-ontological structure of the virtual: The embodied screen. The embodied screen as neologism presents an alternative conceptualisation of the coincidence of the body-subject (who understands the world spatially) with the virtual (as non-spatial). By tracing imaginative signification and embodied habitude in terms of the virtual, this article suggests certain existential implications of the virtual for contemporary being.
ISSN:1445-7377
Contains:Enthalten in: The Indo-Pacific journal of phenomenology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/20797222.2021.1876895