Date of Award
2008
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Program
Theory and Criticism
Supervisor
Prof. Helen Fielding
Second Advisor
Prof. Christopher Keep
Abstract
This thesis describes the lived-experience of digital embodiment. Writing against representational and semiotic accounts of cyber-bodies, I use Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the phenomenal body to describe the inter-corporeal quality of being digitally embodied. I suggest that the avatar is primarily a haptic image rather than being a visual representation of its user. A haptic image is a reflection of my comportment that forms the basis for my inter-acting senses “touching” each other to form a continuous experience rather than a felt-mixture of different sensations. I conclude that digital embodiment is actually rather fleshy. This conclusion returns me to an investigation of human bodies. In the final section I consider the haptic image in terms of my relations with others. I describe how raced and gendered knowledges inhere in my daily comportment toward others and how this is haptically reflected. I propose that we tune our phenomenal bodies toward an inter-corporeal basis for encounter.
Recommended Citation
Sinclair, Adrian Scott, "THINKING THE DIGITAL CORPOREALLY: TOWARD A HAPTIC STYLING OF EMBODIED ENCOUNTER" (2008). Digitized Theses. 4371.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/4371