The Body Digital: A Brief History of Humans and Machines

A dazzling tour of the history of technology and its complex relationship to the human body

What is the relationship between our bodies and our senses and technology? In today’s world of blinding technological change, of artificial intelligence and deepfakes and Chat GPT, it is easy to forget that we have always had complicated relations with technology--whether that technology is computers, player pianos, and even eyeglasses.

In this wide-ranging and fascinating study, Vanessa Chang takes us on a historical tour of the interactions between our bodies and machines, showing that the advent of new technologies has always been met with varied reactions, from misplaced fear to tragic over-optimism. The result is cultural critique of the highest order and a profound demonstration of the eternal truth that in order to understand the future, we must look to the past.

Dr. Vanessa Chang is the Director of Programs at the Leonardo International Society for Arts, Science, and Technology (ISAST) and sits on the board of the Immersive Arts Alliance. She has been a lecturer in Visual & Critical Studies at California College of the Arts, lead curator with CODAME Art & Tech, and a SOMArts Curatorial Resident 2019-2020. She has a PhD in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University, where she researched electronic gesture across the arts and was a Geballe Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center, where she also led the Graphic Narrative Project. Her essays and reviews have been published in Slate, Noema, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Wired.
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