TUESDAY 8TH SEPTEMBER 2026- CONFERENCE PRESENTATION @ BODIES IN TRANSITION
@ KINGS COLLEGE, LONDON.
Abstract:
Is My Body Out of Date? The Drag of Physicality in the Digital Age
Bearing traces of the Covid lockdowns of 2020-21 and paying close attention to how the pandemic
normalised data-collecting practices, this presentation demonstrates how embodied performance and the performative (mis)use of digital platforms can feed-on, feed-back and (be) drag/ged to dis/in/form new or disrupted patterns of (re)cognition in a surveillance capitalist context. Examining histories (and presents) of drag/ging alongside those of [chat]bots, avatars and the commonly used platforms of Facebook and Instagram, I propose how em/bodied and digital data can be dragged up, down, away and back as a mode and method of resistance. Standing with Michel Foucault and Paul Preciado’s claim that there is no politic without the body, I outline my concept of the (plural) ‘digital body’ in relation to the (singular) ‘physical body’ to which it is both bound and unbound, and explore my own body in relation to what its templates enable in my performances as well as my ability to create and occupy what I am calling ‘blurspace’. Characters brought in to help me illustrate my points include Lil’ Miquela, Weizenbaum’s ELIZA, Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Roberta, ETA Hoffman’s Olimpia, Alan Turing, plan b performance, Dorian Gray, Mouchette and Willi Ninja - as well as my own (plurally bodied) alter ego character #Sergina.
Free to attend, online as well as offline participation possible. More info & schedule: here
Read the abstracts of all presentations here.
An Orgy of Algorithms, from performance at Munich Academy of Fine Arts, November 2016.
-----
DIRTY DATA EXTRACT SET TO A SWEET ORCHESTRAL SCORE