The body that jacks into cyberspace is a sensory input / output device: the senses take in information from both the real world and simulated worlds, output from the senses control both real and virtual machinery. It is a techno-human hybrid, capable of linking directly into cyberspace and communicating with virtual beings it finds there. It is a farm for spare bio-parts.

Contemporary electronic art practitioners are following this fantasy as they create cyber bodies. This paper will examine some of the technical and aesthetic strategies used in creating the electric body. It will check the work produced against the claims the artists are making in their attempt to realize the fantasy. Finally it will analyze the fantasy itself.

URL

Anstey, J., We Sing the Body Electric: Imagining the Body in Electronic Art, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, vol 6, no 4, May 15th, 1998. http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/AUTHORS/ebody.html