Íñigo García-Moncó

Body as a radical reality in human activity is a common thesis in the phenomenological thought, from its origin in the work of Edmund Husserl, in those of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Michel Henry, to postphenomenological currents, including Don Ihde and the American school. As a complementary thesis, they highlight the presence of the body in technologies: its deep interaction and integration, generating a certain bodily extension that makes the user-device an environment of intentional feedback through which flows the matter of the experienced. Through the synthesis of previous techniques, digital media have deepened this capacity for integration: through embodiment and representation, hardware and software, multiple forms of bodily extension can be experienced. From the construction of these alternative corporealities emerges the narrative of a digital body as a 'real body', controlled by us, fully equivalent and similar to our own bodies. In this text we propose a brief analysis of digital corporeality based on phenomenological reflections, especially those around tactile self-perception, as a foundation for a criterion of bodily identity applicable to these technologies and which reclaims the original and carnal experience of the user.

El cuerpo como realidad radical en la actividad humana es una tesis común al pensamiento fenomenológico, desde su origen en la obra Edmund Husserl, en las de Maurice Merleau-Ponty y Michel Henry, hasta las corrientes postfenomenológicas, entre las que se encuentran Don Ihde y la escuela estadounidense. Como tesis complementaria, destacan la presencia del cuerpo en las tecnologías: su profunda interacción y su integración, generando una cierta extensión corporal que hace de usuario y dispositivo tecnológico un entorno de retroalimentación intencional por el que fluye la materia de lo vivido. A través de la síntesis de técnicas anteriores, los medios digitales han profundizado en esta capacidad de integración: en incorporación y representación, en hardware y software, múltiples formas de extensión corporal son experimentables. De la construcción de estas corporalidades alternativas surge el relato de un cuerpo digital como ‘cuerpo real’, controlado por nosotros, plenamente equivalente y semejante. En el presente texto proponemos un breve análisis de la corporalidad digital basado en las reflexiones fenomenológicas, especialmente aquellas en torno a la autopercepción táctil, a modo de vía de fundamentación para un criterio de identidad corporal aplicable a dichas tecnologías y que reivindique la experiencia originaria y carnal del usuario.

This paper aims to provide a general phenomenological framework for the study of digital experiences as technological praxis. This approach is built through a synthesis of the categories proper to different currents of thought such as Merleau-Ponty's bodily phenomenology, the postphenomenology of Don Ihde and his school, hermeneutics and information theories. These notes develop a progressive analysis of the phenomenal dimensions that take place in the user-device interaction, from the stimulus base to virtual recreations. Through the intersubjective relationship with the machine, integrated to the user, the user produces and consumes the informative material that will become successive digital representations of himself and of reality as a whole.