In “Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers”, N. Katherine Hayle's was mainly discussing the transition from the concept of the “absent/present” to the “pattern/randomness” under the era of the information and cyborg age. The shift itself may generate a debate in the embodiment theory. Generally when talking about embodiment theory, the first thing that comes to mind is the coupling of cognition and the human body. Here the body is no longer a shell purely executing the instructions from brain. Instead, it plays an essential role actively determining the formation of cognition. However, with the rapid growth of technology, we have not needed physical forms nearly as much. Hayle's makes a very interesting analogy between the human body and traditional printing media, such as books and newspapers. She says “Like the human body, the book is a form of information transmission and storage that incorporates its encodings in a durable material substrate.”, once the relation between texts and media is built, these two separate things would coexist and can hardly be changed, this can also be applied to the human body. The link between the media and digital information is not that closely tied. As for the information like digital text, although it can be exported into hard drives for permanent storage, you will find that there are no fixed correspondences between the media that are used for visualization, like monitors, and the content. For example, when you are reading an e-book, once you turn to another page, the previous one is no longer there. In other words, what information technologies create is just a temporary mapping relationship. Unlike digital platforms, the contents of the cognition are supplied by the media when dealing with traditional media and human bodies.
Do you know what the embodiment theory means?
Does her theory initiate a new experience of embodiment or completely deny it?
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