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...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
Published: |
2020
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In: |
The Indo-Pacific journal of phenomenology
Year: 2020, Volume: 20, Issue: 1 |
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 1908-1961
/ Virtual reality
/ Space
/ Embodiment
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IxTheo 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) |
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. |
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ISSN: | 1445-7377 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: The Indo-Pacific journal of phenomenology
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/20797222.2021.1876895 |