The human body -- our bodies -- is a rich array of interdependent systems, each with its own spatialized morphology and logic. With the explosion of advances in biotechnology and interface design, every cell, neuron, and sinew, every change in temperature, respiration, and pulse rate becomes a potential switch. Once the interface becomes transparent, what switches will we choose to operate? And when the promise of a wireless world meets the real-life drama of nano-technology (in which clockworks the size of a human ovum run miniature factories on the face of a dime) to which databases do we jack in, what partnerships do we foster, what affairs of the heart unfold? When your heartbeat can be synched to your lover's pulse -- or when heads of state can feel the fear in the shallow breaths of their enemies' heaving chests -- the promise of the body in the digital age will be realized. Jack will be out of the box.





Dan Collins
Dan Collins, "Digital Somatics: Getting Jack Out of the Box," The New Art Examiner, Vol. 23, No. 10, Summer 1996, pp. 24-29. Dan Collins is an artist and writer, and teaches intermedia at the School of Art at Arizona State University, Tempe.