BodyCuts

    <p class=default>
      
        <b>BodyCuts</b>
      
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        The new technologies in media art lend to the media a new ambivalent function: on the one 
        hand media technology stands in 
      
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        the foreground of media artistic (re)presentation, on the other it constantly points to 
        invisible configurations and ephemeral 
      
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        dispositions of mathematical aesthetic and esoteric origin. A new form of the dualism 
        body/spirit leads, besides to the 
      
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        questions of subject status according to media conditions, to that of the relationship of 
        biological and mechanical systems, 
      
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        especially in times of Cyborgs and Gendernauts. The longing for a unity of spirit and body 
        is represented by a ›new‹ 
      
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        transcendence in media art on the godly status of an existence independent of time and 
        space.
      
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<p>

      
        But where is the ›social‹ body when it meets these media assumptions and which function 
        does it have in a world that 
      
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        depends more and more on how the functionality of the human body can be used in a material 
        and immaterial way? Where 
      
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        can the ‘social’ body itself cause wounds? 
      
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<p>

      
        March 2000 
      
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<p>

      
        Katharina Gsöllpointer (Dr. phil), theoretician of art, culture and media. 1991-95 
        director and artistic advisor of the festival 
      
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        Arts Electronica, Linz (A). 1994-98 media art advisor of the Austrian Ministry for 
        Science, Research and Art. International 
      
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        publications and lectures on (media) art, architecture and culture, most recent 
        publication ›PARAMOUR. Kunst im Kontext 
      
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        Neurer Technologien‹ (published by Triton Verlag, Vienna 1999, together with U. 
        Hentschläger). Lecturer at the University 
      
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        of Salzburg.
      
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