Bodies

I think that I have always been fascinated by bodies. I am not really sure why. Previously I have told myself it is because of my background in sport, but I know that’s not it. Well, it is it but it is also not. I think that there is more to it. Today I read that the body is an archive for unconscious meanings. This really stuck with me. The idea that a passport photograph is merely a showing that the emotionless body is representative of the perfect citizen and a smiling portrait is perfectly human but useless to bureaucracy.

I have been slowly getting into critical posthuman readings over the past few years, a perspective that really is simultaneously quite foreign to me but seems to make some sense. Perhaps it is my own sense of space, a sense that is extremely important to me, that helps make this make sense. I have always felt a strong connection to the physical world around me, but I have never known why - or even if this is different to others. The idea that our bodies are merely vessels for unconscious meanings opens up many opportunities for me; for understanding my own place in places.

The idea that my body in inherently political, that information flows into/through/out of me, that my body is simultaneously my own and entirely not..these are things that help me make sense of the world around me. Frightening, but also liberating. It can be an anchor, your body, or it can be a safe harbour. I would like to see the relationship between bodies and the environment, their environment, foreign environments, other bodies. See what it means for people and how they feel in their own skin.

I think I need to learn more how to capture and express this interest.

Bodies

Our own, but not our own.

Free holding ports, complex servers, fibre optic cables.

Objectively there, but objectively limited.

Subjectively fleeting, but subjectively limitless.

Difficult to define, even more difficult to live with.

We are our own bodies, but are we our own?

If lines are being drawn, where do we draw them?