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<div id="content"><h1
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id="a-narrative-exploration-of-divergent-digital-intimacies"><?Water bodies>:
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A narrative exploration of divergent digital intimacies</h1>
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<p>Water, stories, the body, all the things we do, are mediums that hide
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and show what’s hidden. (Rumi, 1995 translation)</p>
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<h2 id="for-you">꙳for you</h2>
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<p>All intimacy is about bodies. Is this true? Does it matter? I doubt
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it. Do you know? Let’s find out, maybe.</p>
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<p>Once, I thought that everything in the world was either one or zero
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and that there was a harsh straight line between them. Then I found out
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you could step or hop across the line, back and forth, if others showed
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you how. Today, I am no less binary, no less interested in dichotomies,
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but I am willing to dance through them if you are too. Can we dance
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these dichotomies together, embracing the contradictions of the virtual
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and physical, the comfortable and uncomfortable, intimate and
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non-intimate? I can’t do it alone, the subject is too heavy and the
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binary is too 1011000. I won’t ask you to resolve these contradictions,
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I have no desire to. Instead, I hope we can cultivate the tension and
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tenderness inherent in holding together incompatible truths because both
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prove necessary.</p>
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<p>To dance through these dichotomies I will start in a specific
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position, growing from Donna Haraway’s in ’A Cyborg Manifesto”. In her
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essay, Haraway explores the concept of a cyborg as a rejection of
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boundaries between humans, animals, and machines. A symbol for a
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feminist posthuman theory that embraces the plasticity of identity.
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Before she does all this dancing, however, she takes a strong stance of
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blasphemy. She engages seriously with traditional notions of feminism
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and identity but with irony, not apostasy, which is to say without full
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rejection—without unbelief. My position as I jump will be the same as
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hers, ironic faith. My mocking is grave but caring and my primary aim is
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for us only to spin fast enough not to see the line anymore, while still
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being able to see the binaries. It won’t be an easy dance for us but I
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will do my best to keep softening for you, I promise.</p>
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<p>I will show you a digital body, make it comfortable and then
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uncomfortable, lightly intimate, and richly intimate. I have my own
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story, my own digital body, of course. This is where I take my second
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stance, however. This time, the position is Lauren Berlant’s, from ‘The
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Female Complaint’. The book places individual stories as inescapable
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autobiographies of a collective experience and uses the personal to
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explain an intimate general experience. In our story, the difference
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between my body and the collective digital body is unimportant, I hope
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you see that. I will tell you my story if you know how to look, but I
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will tell you through the stories of many others who shared them with
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me. I have no other choice, every time I have tried to tell this story a
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chorus of voices has come out.</p>
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<p>Some of the stories I will tell you will carry memories of pain;
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physical and emotional. I will keep holding you while you hear this, but
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your limbs may still feel too heavy to dance. In that case, I give you
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my full permission to skip, jump, or lay down completely. This is not
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choreographed and I care deeply for you.</p>
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<p>I love you and hope you see what I saw in these stories.</p>
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<p>Safe dreams now, I will talk to you soon.</p>
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<h2 id="digital-bodies">0. DIGITAL BODIES</h2>
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<p>I think the worst must be finished. Whether I am right, don’t tell
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me. Don’t tell me. No ringlet of bruise, no animal face, the waters salt
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me and I leave it barefoot. I leave you, season of still tongues, of
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roses on nightstands beside crushed beer cans. I leave you white sand
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and scraped knees. I leave this myth in which I am pig, whose death is
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empty allegory. I leave, I leave— At the end of this story, I walk into
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the sea and it chooses not to drown me. (Yun, 2020)</p>
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<h3 id="a.-what-is-a-digital-body">a. what is a digital body?</h3>
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<p>A digital body is a body on the Internet. A body outside the internet
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is simply a body. On the internet, discussions about corporeality
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transcend the limitations of physicality, shaping and reshaping
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narratives surrounding the self. This text explores the intricate
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dynamics within these conversations, dancing at the interplay between
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tangible bodies and their digital counterparts. The construction of a
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digital body is intricately intertwined with these online dialogues,
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necessitating engaged reconstructions of the narratives surrounding
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physical existence. Yet, the resulting digital body is a complex and
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contradictory entity, embodying the nuances of both its virtual and
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tangible origins.</p>
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<p>There is a specific metaphor that would allow us to better carry
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these contradictions as we further explore digital bodies. Do you
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remember that dream you had about deep ocean pie? Allow me to remind
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you.</p>
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<p>You were walking on the shore, slowly, during a summer that happened
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a long time ago. Your skin was warm and you could feel the wet cool sand
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sticking to your feet. The gentle lapping of the waves washed the sand
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away as you walked towards the ocean. You stepped, stepped. Then dove.
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Underwater, the sea unfolded deeper than you remembered. It was a
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vibrant display of life: bright schools of small fish, and tall
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colorful, waving corals. It looked like that aquarium you saw once as a
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kid. Your arms moved confusingly through the water as if you were wading
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through a soup or were terribly tired. On the sandy ocean floor, you saw
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a dining table. It had a floating white tablecloth, one plate, a fork,
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and a pie in the center of it, on a serving dish. You sat on a chair but
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could not feel it underneath you. You ate a heaping slice of pie. It had
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a buttery-cooked carrots filling. You woke up. In the world, the sun was
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still timid and your bedroom thick with sleep. What a weird dream. You
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rubbed your face, sat up on your bed, and drank the glass of water next
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to you. You felt full, as if you just ate a plateful of carrot pie.</p>
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<p>There were two bodies in this story. An awake one and a dream one, an
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ocean one. In dreams, bodies have their own set of rules, often blurring
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the boundaries between waking and sleeping, wanting and fearing. Digital
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bodies are very similar to dream bodies. They exhibit a similar fluidity
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and abstraction, a defiance of traditional notions of physicality. They
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share the blurring and inherent potential nature of dream bodies. They
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are slower, stronger, and different. They switch and change and melt
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into each other, they lose and regrow limbs, they run sluggishly and fly
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smoothly. If we scream in our dreams, we sometimes wake up still
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screaming. Our waking bodies react to our dream bodies, they have the
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same tears, the same orgasms, the same drives.</p>
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<p>This is a story of two bodies, same but different, influenced but not
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driven. A tangible body, full of fluids and organs, emotions and
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feelings. Cartilage, bacteria, bones, and nerve endings. A digital body,
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cable-veined and loud-vented, shiny and loading.</p>
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<p>The digital body is ethereal and abstracted, embarrassing, graphic,
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and real but not physical.</p>
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<p>This is the beginning.</p>
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<h3 id="b.-body-vs.-computer">b. body vs. computer</h3>
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<p>Framing the discourse around bodies on the internet as a clear-cut
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dichotomy feels clunky in today’s internet landscape. The web is today
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available by body, cyborg dimensions of the internet of bodies, or
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virtual and augmented realities, creating a complex interplay between
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having a body and existing online.</p>
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<p>As intricate as this dance is now, it certainly did not begin that
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way. It started with what felt like a very serious and tangible line
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drawn by very serious tangible people; this is real life and this is
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virtual life. Even people like Howard Rheingold, pioneers who approached
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early virtual life with enthusiasm and care, couldn’t escape
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characterizing it as a “bloodless technological ritual” (1993).
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Rheingold was an early member of The Whole Earth ’Lectronic Link (Well),
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a seminal virtual community built in the 1980s that was renowned for its
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impact on digital culture and played a pivotal role in shaping what
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would become the landscape of the Internet. Rheingold’s reflections on
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his experience on this primordial soup of the Internet offer insight
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into the initial conceptualizations of online life by those joyfully
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participating.</p>
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<p>In “The Virtual Community”, Rheingold offers a heartfelt tribute to
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intimacy and affection through web- based interactions which, at the
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time, were unheard of. He struggles in his efforts to highlight the
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legitimacy of his connections, finding no way to do so except by
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emphasizing their tangible bodily experiences. The community’s claim to
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authenticity thus had to lie in the physical experiences of its members—
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the visible bodies and hearable voices, the weddings, births, and
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funerals (1993). (1).</p>
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<p>Even then, and even by people with no interest in undermining the
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value of the virtual, the distinction between physical and virtual was
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confusing. Rheingold himself reinforces the boundary of body relations
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and computer relations by referring to his family as a “flesh-and-blood
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family’ and his close online friends as “unfamiliar faces” (1993).
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Constantly interplaying digital connections with the physical
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characteristics of the kind of connections people valued before the
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internet. (2)</p>
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<p>In any case, his primary interest seemed to be to emphasize computer
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relations as valid forms of connection between bodies, not to talk of
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any distinction quite yet. It’s the eighties, the internet is still
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fresh and new and the possibility to form close relations with strangers
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online seems fragile and concerning yet exciting. This is the clearest
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the distinction between in-real-life and online has ever been and it’s
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still fuzzy and unclear.</p>
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<p>At the same time and in the same digital space as Rheingold, there
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was another man, a digital body being formed. This is our second story,
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the ocean body we dreamt of earlier is now in a digital primordial soup,
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questioning itself and stuck between staying and leaving. In this story,
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its name is Tom Mandel and when he died, he did so on the Well.</p>
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<p>Mandel was a controversial and popular figure in this pioneering
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virtual community. According to many other members, Tom Mandel embodied
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the essence of the Well—its history, its voice, its attitude. Mandel’s
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snarky and verbose provocations started heated discussions, earning him
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warnings such as “Don’t Feed The Mandel!” (Leonard, 1995). His sharp
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comments often stirred emotions that reminded people of family
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arguments, fuelling an intimacy that was characteristic of the Well:
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both public and solitary (Hafner, 1997).</p>
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<p>Until 1995, Mandel had done a quite rigorous job of keeping his body
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separate from The Well and had never attended any of the physical
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in-person meetings from the community. His only references to being a
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body had been on the “health” online conference, where he often talked
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about his illnesses. One day, after nearly a decade of daily
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interaction, he posted he had got the flu and that he felt quite ill.
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When people wished for him to get well soon, he replied he had gone to
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get tested and was waiting for a diagnosis. This way, when cancer was
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found in his lungs, the community was first to know. In the following
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six months, as his illness progressed, the community followed closely
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(Hafner, 1997). They were first to know when Nana, a community member
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with whom he had had a publicly turbulent relationship, flew to
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California to marry him. The community was a witness and is now an
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archive of his declining wit as cancer spread to his brain and his
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famously articulate and scathing comments got shorter, fearful, and more
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tender. (3)</p>
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<p>Before he posted his final goodbye, he chose to do one last thing.
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Together with another member, they programmed a bot that posted randomly
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characteristic comments from Mandel on The Well—the Mandelbot. In the
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topic he had opened to say goodbye, he posted this message about the
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bot:</p>
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<p>I had another motive in opening this topic to tell the truth, one
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that winds its way through almost everything I’ve done online in the
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five months since my cancer was diagnosed. I figured that, like everyone
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else, my physical self wasn’t going to survive forever and I guess I was
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going to have less time than actuarials allocateus [actually allocated].
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But if I could reach out and touch everyone I knew on-line… I could toss
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out bits and pieces of my virtual self and the memes that make up Tom
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Mandel, and then when my body died, I wouldn’t really have to leave…
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Large chunks of me would also be here, part of this new space. (Hafner,
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1997)</p>
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<p>With the Mandelbot, Mandel found a way to deal with what he later
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called his grieving for the community, with which he could not play
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anymore once his own body died. By doing so, he was starting to blend
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the boundaries of intimacy through computers and bodies, driven by his
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love and grief. (4)</p>
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<p>When he talked about the bot in previous messages, it sounded almost
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like a joke. A caring haunting of the platform, to keep his persona
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alive for the community in a way that could be quite horrific for those
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grieving. In his admission though it becomes clear that this was closer
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to an attempt to deal with his grief around losing the community, his
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unreadiness to let go of a place he loved so dearly. A place just as
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real in emotion, that was built in part by Mandel’s digital body and its
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persona.</p>
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<p>In a tribute posted after his death, fellow Well member and
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journalist Andrew Leonard tried to convey his own sense of blended
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physicality and emotion.</p>
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<p>Sneer all you want at the fleshlessness of online community, but on
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this night, as tears stream down my face for the third straight evening,
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it feels all too real. (Andrew Leonard, 1995)</p>
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<h3 id="c.-bot-feelings">c. bot-feelings</h3>
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<p>An internet body has bot-feelings if allowed to. Let me explain.</p>
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<p>A bot functions as a different entity from a cyborg, as it does not
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attempt to emulate a human body but rather human action and readiness.
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Its role is to mirror human behavior online, simulating how a physical
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body might act, what it would click on, and what would it say. On social
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media, bots engage in a kind of interpretative dance of human
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interaction, performing based on instructions provided by humans.
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(5)</p>
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<p>Unlike an internet body, which represents the virtual embodiment of a
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person, a bot doesn’t seek to be a person. It comments under posts
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alongside many other bots, all under a fake name and photo but nothing
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else to give the illusion of humanity. When an internet body has
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bot-feelings, it is a disruptive performance. They are feelings that do
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not attempt to be human body feelings, they exist as their own genuine
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virtual expression.</p>
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<p>In “Virtual Intimacies”, McGlotten also incidentally argued that a
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virtual body has bot-feelings (2013). He described the virtual as
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potential, as a transcendent process of actualization, making it into,
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generally, a description of bots. Internet bodies, as virtual, would be
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by this understanding also charged with the constant immanent power to
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act and to feel like a human body. It is a constant state of becoming,
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of not- quite-pretending but never fully being anything either.</p>
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<p>Most of the time we can tell disembodied bots online from tangible
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people and as such they have the potential to be bodies, without ever
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trying to be.</p>
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<p>Of course, when McGlotten described the virtual as such he placed it
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in a dichotomy, once again, against the “Intimacies” which are the other
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side of his book. The emphasis here lies in intimacy being an embodied
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feeling and sense and a carnal one at that. Virtual intimacies are, by
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this definition, an inherent failed contradiction. However, McGlotten
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plays with the real and non-real in new ways, using the text to
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highlight how virtual intimacy is similar to physical intimacy and then,
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even more, blurring as he shows the already virtual in physical
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intimacies. Applying this to a body, rather than an affective
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experience, works just the same.</p>
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<p>McGlotten uses a conceptualization of the virtual based on the
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philosopher Deleuze’s, (6) which can be used to refer to a virtual body
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as well. The virtual is in this case a cluster of waiting, dreaming, and
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remembering, embodying potential. Something that is constantly becoming,
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an object and also the subject attributed to it (2001). An internet body
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with its bot-feelings is a body in the process of being one, acting as
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one, an ideal of one beyond what is physical but including its
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possibility.</p>
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<p>Going a step further in McGlotten’s interpretation of Deleuze, this
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also plays into how virtual intimacies mirror queer intimacies as they
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approach normative ideals but “can never arrive at them”. Both queer and
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virtual relations are imagined by a greater narrative as fantastical,
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simulated, immaterial, and artificial—poor imitations and perversions of
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a heterosexual, monogamous, and procreative marital partnership (2013).
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A virtual body is similarly immanent, with both potential and corruption
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at the same time. It carries all the neoliberal normative power of
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freedom that a queer body can carry today but also reflects the unseemly
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fleshly reality of having one.</p>
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<p>This is where the story continues. The body from the dream ocean
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leaves the primordial soup of the internet to stage a disruptive
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performance. It moves from potential creation to a wild spring river. A
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fluid being, that exists simultaneously inside and outside normative
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constructions. It channels deviant feelings and transcendental opinions
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about the collective’s physical form genuinely as people use it to
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navigate their physicality. Both virtual and queer intimacies highlight
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the constructed nature of identity and desire. They disrupt the notion
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of a fixed, essential self, instead embracing the multiplicity and
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complexity inherent in human experience. This destabilization of
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identity opens up possibilities for self-expression and connection,
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creating spaces where individuals can redefine themselves beyond the
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constraints of societal expectations while still technically under its
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watchful eye. In essence, the parallels between virtual and queer
|
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intimacies underscore the radical potential of both to disrupt and
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reimagine the norms that govern our understanding of relationships,
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bodies, and identity. They invite us to question the rigid binaries and
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hierarchies that structure our society and to embrace the fluidity and
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possibility inherent in the human experience.</p>
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|
<h2 id="digital-comfort">1.DIGITAL COMFORT</h2>
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<p>The only laws: Be radiant. Be heavy. Be green.</p>
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<p>Tonight, the dead light up your mind like an image of your mind on a
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|
scientist’s screen. ‘The scientists don’t know – and too much.’</p>
|
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|
<p>In the town square, in the heart of night (a delicacy like the heart
|
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|
|
of an artichoke), a man dances cheek-to-cheek with the infinite blue.
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|
(Schwartz, 2022)</p>
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|
<h3 id="a.-comfort-care">a. comfort care</h3>
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<p>Let’s care for this digital body. I’ll feed it virtual vegetables
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|
while you wipe away the wear of battery fatigue. And why not encourage
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|
it to take strolls through the network, it might be good for it.</p>
|
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<p>But what if it falls ill? What if its sickness is inherent, designed
|
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to echo like the distorted reflection of rippling water a corrupted,
|
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isolated, and repulsive physical form? Then we must comfort care for
|
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|
it.</p>
|
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|
<p>Comfort care is a key concept in healthcare, described as an art. It
|
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|
is the simple but not easy art of performing comforting actions by a
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|
|
nurse for a patient (Kolcaba, 1995). The nurse is in this story an
|
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|
|
artist full of intention, using the medium of comforting actions to
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|
|
produce the artwork of comfort for the uncomfortable. Subtle,
|
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|
|
subjective, and thorough. However, achieving comfort for another is far
|
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|
|
from straightforward. It demands addressing not only the physical but
|
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|
|
also the psychospiritual, environmental, and socio-cultural dimensions
|
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of distress, each requiring its blend of relief, ease, and transcendence
|
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(Kolcaba, 1995).</p>
|
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|
|
<p>In moments of need, digital comfort may become the only care certain
|
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|
|
digressive bodies receive. When the distress a body is in becomes too
|
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|
culturally uncomfortable, no nurse will come to check on it.</p>
|
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|
<p>If care is offered, it’s often only with a desire to assimilate the
|
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|
divergent body back into expected standards of normalcy and ability.
|
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|
This leaves those with non-conforming bodies isolated, ashamed, and
|
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|
|
yearning for connection and acceptance (7)</p>
|
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|
|
<p>In the depths of isolation and confusion, marginalized bodies often
|
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|
|
look for belonging and understanding online. Gravitating towards one
|
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|
|
another with a hunger born of desperation, forming intimate bonds
|
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|
|
through shared pain. Through a shared sense of unwillingness, a lack of
|
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|
|
desire, and a desperate need for physical assimilation with the
|
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|
norm.</p>
|
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|
<p>The healthy body, the normal body, the loved body.</p>
|
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|
<p>On the internet, these digital bodies claw onto each other, holding
|
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|
|
each other close and comfort-caring for one another. The spaces where
|
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|
|
this happens are rooms, or corners of the internet that I’ll call back
|
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|
|
|
places. Back places were initially defined by the sociologist Goffman as
|
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|
symbolic spaces where stigmatized people did not need to hide their
|
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|
|
stigma(1963). In our story, backplaces are small rooms online, tender
|
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|
soft spaces reserved by those in terrible psychological pain themselves,
|
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|
|
where they can find relief, ease, and transcendence.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Of course, when we speak of digital bodies, their physicality is not
|
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|
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|
|
relevant. To comfort care for a digital body one would thus need to
|
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|
|
provide relief, ease, and transcendence for the mental, emotional, and
|
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|
|
spiritual; through the digital environment of the body and the
|
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|
|
|
interpersonal cultural relations of the individual. As with any place of
|
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|
|
healing, however, it is a transient place. It is an achy place, for the
|
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|
|
last step of the journey will see them leave the community and
|
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|
|
compassion that saw and sustained them.</p>
|
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|
<p>There is no other way for divergent people.</p>
|
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|
|
|
<h3 id="b.-uncomfortable-comfort">b. uncomfortable comfort</h3>
|
|
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|
|
<p>In the past and the present, social scientists have studied the
|
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|
|
|
people in the corners of the internet, characterizing these spaces
|
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|
|
|
between people as deviant. Like children lifting stones to look at the
|
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|
|
bugs underneath— simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by the coherence
|
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|
|
discovered where once was separation. A partition that was then
|
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|
|
reinforced by the scientists themselves as they began documenting the
|
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|
|
|
bugs’ behavior. They eavesdropped on conversations, captured intimate
|
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|
|
moments, and asked again and again what made them so different. The more
|
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|
|
they probed, the more they made sure to separate their behavior from the
|
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|
|
|
norm to place the deviants against (Adler and Adler, 2005, 2008; Smith,
|
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|
|
Wickes & Underwood, 2013).</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The concept of deviance, particularly concerning what people do with
|
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|
|
|
their bodies and how their bodies behave, I find inherently flawed.
|
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|
|
|
|
Observing from an artificial external standpoint only serves to further
|
|
|
|
|
|
alienate those already marginalized. I like to approach my research into
|
|
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|
|
|
the intimacy and comfort care expressed in marginalized digital
|
|
|
|
|
|
communities without the alienation of social science. There are many
|
|
|
|
|
|
approaches one can take if one wishes to avoid this, and the one I am
|
|
|
|
|
|
choosing to borrow is a mathematical approach to anthropology. I would
|
|
|
|
|
|
like to borrow from mathematician Jörn Dunkel’s work in pattern
|
|
|
|
|
|
formation. It’s a conscious choice to approach divergences in bodily
|
|
|
|
|
|
behavior through their similarities, not differences. This includes
|
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|
|
|
specificities in atypicality, of course, but also the distinctions
|
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|
|
between me as the writer and them as the writer. You as the reader and
|
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|
|
you as the community. Me and you, as a whole. Both exist, both separate
|
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|
but in what is not of such importance.</p>
|
|
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|
|
<p>Though many of these systems are different, fundamentally, we can see
|
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|
|
similarities in the structure of their data. It’s very easy to find
|
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|
|
|
|
differences. What’s more interesting is to find out what’s similar. (Chu
|
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|
|
|
& Dunkel , 2021)</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Individuals who forge and inhabit these communities, fostering
|
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|
|
|
tender, intimate connections amongst themselves, are not deviant but
|
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|
|
|
|
rather divergent. Deviance involves bifurcation, a split estuary from
|
|
|
|
|
|
the river of appropriate cultural behavior. (8)</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Divergence can be so much more than that. In mathematics, a divergent
|
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|
|
|
|
series extends infinitely without converging to a finite limit. A
|
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|
|
|
|
repetition of partial sums with no clear ending, never reaching zero.
|
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|
|
|
|
Mathematician Niels Abel once said that “divergent series are in general
|
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|
|
|
something fatal and it is a shame to base any proof on them. [..] The
|
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|
|
most essential part of mathematics has no foundation”(1826). Drawing a
|
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|
|
parallel to social relations would then imply that there is no end to
|
|
|
|
|
|
divergence, too many paradoxes in the foundation of normativeness to
|
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|
|
base anything on it.</p>
|
|
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|
|
<p>Harmonic series are, on the other hand, also divergent series. They
|
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|
|
|
|
are infinite series formed by the summation of all positive unit
|
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|
|
|
fractions, named after music harmonics. The wavelengths of a vibrating
|
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|
|
string are a harmonic series. These series also find application in
|
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|
|
architecture, establishing harmonious relationships. Despite their
|
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|
|
|
integral role in human aesthetics, all harmonic series diverge,
|
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|
|
|
|
perpetually expanding without ever concluding. They embody a richness
|
|
|
|
|
|
that transcends conventional boundaries, blending into one another
|
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|
|
infinitely.</p>
|
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|
|
|
|
<p>[Figure 1 - Harmonic Series to 32 (Hyacint,2017).]</p>
|
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|
|
|
<p>By likening digital bodies to divergent series, we embrace the
|
|
|
|
|
|
complexity and infinite possibilities arising from their
|
|
|
|
|
|
interconnectedness and deviation from the norm. However, it’s crucial to
|
|
|
|
|
|
note that the divergence I’m discussing here carries a halo of pain,
|
|
|
|
|
|
accompanied by the requirement of bodily discomfort. There are other
|
|
|
|
|
|
forms of divergence, ways to have different bodies that necessitate
|
|
|
|
|
|
creating spaciousness around normativity to allow them grace to
|
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|
|
|
|
grow.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The divergent digital bodies we are dancing with and caring for,
|
|
|
|
|
|
however, are of a particular type. If we were to go back to our water
|
|
|
|
|
|
stories, we’d see that the digital bodies we are following are painful
|
|
|
|
|
|
ones. Cold, deep streams, hard to follow, hard to swim in. Their
|
|
|
|
|
|
divergence from the norm makes them so.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>They have intricate relationships with themselves, existing in
|
|
|
|
|
|
unstainable forms devoid of comfort, nourishment, or thriving. What does
|
|
|
|
|
|
comfort mean for a body whose whole existence is uncomfortable?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Moreover, what if the comfort care performed for these divergent bodies
|
|
|
|
|
|
makes them too comfortable being in their pained state of self? Could
|
|
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|
|
|
they be? (9)</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Caring for a digital body involves providing it with space to live,
|
|
|
|
|
|
giving its experimental bot-feelings tender attention, and revealing
|
|
|
|
|
|
your own vulnerable digital body in response. It’s about giving it an
|
|
|
|
|
|
audience, hands to hold, eyes that meet theirs in understanding. A
|
|
|
|
|
|
rehearsal room, a pillow, a mirror. These rooms, backplaces scattered
|
|
|
|
|
|
across the internet, are hidden enough to allow the divergent to
|
|
|
|
|
|
comfort- care for one another, sometimes to the point where it is only
|
|
|
|
|
|
the same type of divergent digital bodies reflecting back at each
|
|
|
|
|
|
other.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>So far I have talked fondly of divergence and the harmony of
|
|
|
|
|
|
divergent series, and the need to have no finite ending. I’d like to
|
|
|
|
|
|
tell you a different story now. Divergent digital bodies are, by this
|
|
|
|
|
|
point in our text, built and alive as they can be. They are many, they
|
|
|
|
|
|
are together and seeing each other, producing harmonic waves. They are
|
|
|
|
|
|
in backplaces on the internet, but they are less safe than they seem.
|
|
|
|
|
|
They are themselves resonant echo chambers, with an ongoing risk of
|
|
|
|
|
|
catastrophic acoustic resonance.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Acoustic resonance is what happens when an acoustic system amplifies
|
|
|
|
|
|
sound waves whose frequency matches one of its natural frequencies of
|
|
|
|
|
|
vibration. The instrument of amplification is important for the harmonic
|
|
|
|
|
|
series, for the music must not match exactly. An exact match will break
|
|
|
|
|
|
it for the object seeks out its resonance. Resonating at the precise
|
|
|
|
|
|
resonant frequency of a glass will shatter it. Digital bodies meet in
|
|
|
|
|
|
these rooms, amplifying their own waves seeking resonance but the risk
|
|
|
|
|
|
of an exact match is that it may shatter them. These spaces full of
|
|
|
|
|
|
divergent digital bodies quickly grow unstable, tethering echo chambers.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rooms full of reflections, transforming what was once individual pain
|
|
|
|
|
|
into a mirrored loop of anguish. Caring for your own and others’ bodies
|
|
|
|
|
|
becomes increasingly difficult, making permanent residence in the mirror
|
|
|
|
|
|
room unbearable. You all know you must leave before you meet your exact
|
|
|
|
|
|
resonance.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h3 id="c.-unbearable-intimacy">c. unbearable intimacy</h3>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>This is the end of the story. Our digital bodies have a shape, a
|
|
|
|
|
|
sense of life and death, and someone to care for us and to care for. We
|
|
|
|
|
|
are alive and have found intimacy with each other.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>We live in the backplaces, hiding and being hidden online as we have
|
|
|
|
|
|
been for years. We used to be on invitation-only forums,
|
|
|
|
|
|
password-protected bulletin boards, or encrypted hashtags. Now we are
|
|
|
|
|
|
alive in the glitches between pixels, in a shared language of numbers
|
|
|
|
|
|
and acronyms and misdirection. Avoiding a content moderation algorithm,
|
|
|
|
|
|
always hunting the dashboards of social media websites for visible pain
|
|
|
|
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|
it can cure by erasure. We cannot tell you where to find you or it might
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too. We try to stay alive, to hold each other, hiding behind code words,
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fake names, and photos. We care for each other as best we can, the blind
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leading the blind, the sick caring for the sick. We have brought our
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unseemliness, our gory gross bodies to each other and found tender
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intimacy and understanding.</p>
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<p>On good days, dashboards are full of goodbyes and my heart swells
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with hope, for those of us who make it and for the small bright light
|
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telling us that we may be one of them. At the same time, some of us
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leave only to come back ghosts of ourselves, hunting threads with the
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empty hope of missionaries.</p>
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<p>Don’t give up, it’s worth it!</p>
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<p>Most of us scoff at this. The idea of leaving only to come back and
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tell people you left is uncomfortable, the failed progress that washes
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away hope. A healed patient who regularly comes back to the hospital to
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encourage the sick, who wish to be anywhere but there. The genuine love
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and care within these communities transpire better under goodbye posts.
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When people do heal and shed their accounts’ skin, they often leave it
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surrounded by all those who once cared for the digital body within
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it.</p>
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<p>I’m so proud of you! Never come back, we love you so much.</p>
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<p>Recover, don’t come back. Recover, don’t come back. Recover, never
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come back.</p>
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<p>I had a conversation with a friend who once lived in these spaces
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between letters but has since moved outside them. When asked, he
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mentioned he could only find recovery by leaving that community. His
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body has changed since now it is the spitting image of a standard,
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healthy body. I didn’t ask, but he knew I’d wonder. He told me he didn’t
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like his new body and preferred the divergent one he once built himself.
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Why leave then? Why did you stop?</p>
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<p>Because that was no life.</p>
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<p>Now life sparkles, everything feels brighter and more exciting. I got
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my will to live back. Before, there was nothing but my body. I was
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willing to die for it.</p>
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<p>He pulls up the sleeve of his shirt to show me his shoulder, where he
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has tattooed a symbol for a community friend who died.</p>
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<p>I hope I never go back. I miss them every day.</p>
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<p>This is the last dichotomy. For the divergent digital body can’t stay
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in a Backplace for very long, the intimacy of it is unbearable. It is an
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intimacy that floods, and overruns. In their definition of intimacy in
|
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the context of a public surrounding a cultural phenomenon, the author
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Lauren Berlant denotes that intimacy itself always requires hopeful
|
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imagination. It requires belief in the existence of an ideal other who
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is emotionally attuned to one’s own experiences and fantasies,
|
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conditioned by the same longings and with willing reciprocity (2008).
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(10)</p>
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<p>In the context of the intimacy of a Backplace, where divergent
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digital bodies have formed a community around existing outside the
|
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healthy and standard, longing and hopeful intimacy becomes a heavy-
|
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hearted and cardinal concept. Being in these rooms and finding care and
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love for others like you can be so uncomfortable when the longings,
|
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experiences, and fantasies you are sharing are centered around pain. The
|
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shared cultural experience of existing as a collective divergent digital
|
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body promises a fantasy of belonging, a collective hope, and commitment
|
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that is extremely fragile.</p>
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<p>There is a duality then, if not a dichotomy. As a divergent body,
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there is nothing you crave more than to be seen and to be loved in a
|
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|
space where you are safe, where the faces looking at you are not
|
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|
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repulsed but warm with familiarity. Yet, it is this very warmth that
|
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|
|
becomes unbearable and an inherently traumatic intimacy. Being loved at
|
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|
your worst, at your most embarrassing, cultural borderline self is an
|
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|
|
agonizing duality to deal with. McGlotten, who was referenced earlier
|
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|
|
|
concerning the potential of bot-feelings of a digital body, now comes
|
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|
|
back to remind us of their impossibility. In his book, he talks of a
|
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digital intimacy that inundates us and is both a source of connection
|
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|
|
and disconnection (McGlotten, 2013). We are looking at a smaller scale
|
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|
than he does, but intimacy in the context of shared vulnerability can be
|
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a need just as intolerable.</p>
|
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<p>Certain kinds of witnessing can become curses, shivers of resonance
|
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|
|
so close to an explosion of glass if only you strike the cord that will
|
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|
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keep me going. Certain kinds of divergence can only end with leaving or
|
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|
|
death, truth be told. People in these bodies know this, even if the
|
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|
|
digital bodies behave as if there is hope in a future where the
|
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|
|
divergence brings joy to one’s life consistently. The shared
|
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|
|
|
vulnerability itself then, is unbearable. I need you to see me, I need
|
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|
|
you, who are just like me at my worst, to love me. When you do, I can’t
|
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|
|
stand it. It ruins both of us to be seen this way and we need it so
|
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|
desperately. It has to exist and yet it can’t for long.</p>
|
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|
<p>I leave even though I love all of your digital bodies. I leave
|
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|
|
because I love you, little digital body and you are me.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h2 id="a-life-to-be-had-11">2. A LIFE TO BE HAD 11</h2>
|
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|
|
<h2 id="sidenotes">sidenotes</h2>
|
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|
|
<ol type="1">
|
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|
|
<li><p>You’re dreaming again, good. Would you feel closer to me if you
|
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|
|
could hear my voice? Is my voice a sound? Could it be a
|
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|
|
feeling?</p></li>
|
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|
<li><p>I will be honest with you, I have little patience for this
|
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|
|
|
recurring line of thought that seeks to distinguish people’s noses from
|
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|
|
|
their hearts, as if there was a physical love that is the valuable one
|
|
|
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|
|
and a virtual imaginary one that is feeble and unworthy.</p></li>
|
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|
<li><p>Initially, when a member he often argued with o ered to pray for
|
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|
|
|
him Mandel had replied: “You can shovel your self- aggrandizing
|
|
|
|
|
|
sentiments up you wide ass sideways for the duration as far as I’m
|
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|
|
|
|
concerned.” Later, as the cancer progressed: “I ain’t nearly as brave as
|
|
|
|
|
|
you all think. I am scared silly of the pain of dying this way. I am not
|
|
|
|
|
|
very good at playing saint. Pray for me, please.</p></li>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<li><p>It’s out of care and not lack of relevance that I am not showing
|
|
|
|
|
|
you Mandel’s goodbye message. It’s enough to know he was deep in the
|
|
|
|
|
|
grief of having to leave a community he loved and cared for and that
|
|
|
|
|
|
pain was felt in every word.</p></li>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<li><p>The first bot communities on the internet are now born, half-
|
|
|
|
|
|
mistakenly. They are always spiritual communities posting religious
|
|
|
|
|
|
images created by artificial intelligence, all the comments echoing
|
|
|
|
|
|
choirs of bots praising. Amen, amen, amen. I am not naive, I know they
|
|
|
|
|
|
are built by humans but it is this performance of religiosity that I am
|
|
|
|
|
|
interested in, and how little humanity is shown in it. It is something
|
|
|
|
|
|
else.</p></li>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<li><p>A step in a step in a step, sorry.</p></li>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<li><p>I am talking here about the distress caused by mental health
|
|
|
|
|
|
issues that have direct connections to physicality—self- injuring in any
|
|
|
|
|
|
direct form; food, drugs, pain. The culturally uncomfortable diseases,
|
|
|
|
|
|
the it’s- personal- responsibility, and just-stop disorders. This is a
|
|
|
|
|
|
hidden topic of this text because I cared more about the pain
|
|
|
|
|
|
surrounding them and the reasons to hide rather than the grim
|
|
|
|
|
|
physicality of them all.</p></li>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<li><p>Of course, the river itself is not a river; it’s many confused
|
|
|
|
|
|
streams that believe themselves both the same and separate. I don’t know
|
|
|
|
|
|
where I’m going with this, I just don’t love the river of normativity
|
|
|
|
|
|
and I’d rather go swim in the ocean of dreams with you.</p></li>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<li><p>I heard the idea of living questions for the first time in
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Letters to A Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke and then again on the
|
|
|
|
|
|
podcast On Being with Krista Tippet. It may be a bit transparent but
|
|
|
|
|
|
this entire text is informed by the concept of keeping the unsolved in
|
|
|
|
|
|
your heart and learning to love it. Not searching for the answers for we
|
|
|
|
|
|
cannot live them yet. The point is to live it all. It could be that at
|
|
|
|
|
|
some point we will live our way to an answer but it is feeling the
|
|
|
|
|
|
questions alive within us that is important. Do you?</p></li>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<li><p>If we were to be honest, the entire exercise of writing this for
|
|
|
|
|
|
you requires this very faith.</p></li>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<li><p>Was this the end of this story? In the epilogue, you sit your
|
|
|
|
|
|
body down and enter your computer. The air coming in from the window
|
|
|
|
|
|
smells wet and earthy, new. The sun shines low on the horizon. You log
|
|
|
|
|
|
in to the internet and realize you are being told a story. You start to
|
|
|
|
|
|
listen, carefully and, full of love, touch the story to let it know you
|
|
|
|
|
|
are there. Delicate-fingered, curious like a child holding a fallen
|
|
|
|
|
|
bird. I hold you and the story tentatively.</p></li>
|
|
|
|
|
|
</ol>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>I don’t know if I am touching you, to tell you the truth. Digital
|
|
|
|
|
|
bodies are stories, like physical bodies are, like dreams are, and like
|
|
|
|
|
|
water is.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Stories that are hard to tell and hard to hear and even more, maybe,
|
|
|
|
|
|
hard to understand. I have loved these stories and I have loved telling
|
|
|
|
|
|
them to you. I hope you understand that my goal was for you to live
|
|
|
|
|
|
these questions, to feel these stories in their confusion. My digital
|
|
|
|
|
|
body, my bot-feelings, my divergent communities. I have given them to
|
|
|
|
|
|
you, so they may live longer, like an obsolete but beloved cyborg shown
|
|
|
|
|
|
in a museum.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Look: I was here, Look: I was loved, Look: I was saved.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The digital bodies that kept me alive, kept me from becoming fully a
|
|
|
|
|
|
machine are no longer around in these online rooms. They are in
|
|
|
|
|
|
different places, being touched by tentative hands, being loved for more
|
|
|
|
|
|
than their divergence. I am too.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The rooms, the backplaces, however, are still full of others,
|
|
|
|
|
|
divergent digital bodies who did not leave, who keep caring for each
|
|
|
|
|
|
other at the bottom of the whirlpool. There is no happy ending because
|
|
|
|
|
|
there is no ending. They keep typing and hoping, writing their
|
|
|
|
|
|
collective pain down on keyboards that transmit love letters to each
|
|
|
|
|
|
other. I am not embarrassed by my care for you, but you may be so if it
|
|
|
|
|
|
helps. I know how overwhelming intimacy can be.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Telling you these stories was important for me, so much so that I
|
|
|
|
|
|
will tell you so many more in a different place if you wish to listen to
|
|
|
|
|
|
me longer. With this story, I dreamt of a digital body for you. It came
|
|
|
|
|
|
from an ocean of dreams, into a primordial soup that gave it enough
|
|
|
|
|
|
shape to become wild rivers, deep streams, sound waves. It flooded and
|
|
|
|
|
|
now, it leaves. A digital body that grew its own feelings, looked for
|
|
|
|
|
|
others like it, and realized its divergence and the need to leave. A
|
|
|
|
|
|
dream body, a primordial body, a disruptive body, a divergent body, and
|
|
|
|
|
|
now, a leaving body. This last story, however, of the leaving and loving
|
|
|
|
|
|
body, is yet to be told.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The sun is now almost up, and the birds are alive and awake, telling
|
|
|
|
|
|
each other stories just outside the room. We don’t have so much time
|
|
|
|
|
|
left. I have made you something, to tell your digital body the stories
|
|
|
|
|
|
of the leaving and loving body. It is a webpage, the address is
|
|
|
|
|
|
adadesign.nl/backplaces.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>You open the page, and you are asked to write the characters you see
|
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|
|
|
|
in a captcha. E5qr7. eSq9p. 8oc8y. Fuck. You try not to panic, but you
|
|
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|
|
|
know you have been detected.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>You pack up your things: the pie I made you, a love letter, two hands
|
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|
|
|
|
made out of felt, a star, a door, a stuffed animal; and you leave
|
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|
|
|
|
again.</p>
|
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|
|
|
<h2 id="references">references</h2>
|
|
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|
|
|
<p>Adler, P.A. and Adler, P. (2008) ‘The Cyber Worlds of self-injurers:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Deviant communities, relationships, and selves’, Symbolic Interaction,
|
|
|
|
|
|
31(1), pp. 33–56. doi:10.1525/si.2008.31.1.33.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Berlant, L.G. (2008) The female complaint the unfinished business of
|
|
|
|
|
|
sentimentality in American culture. Durham: Duke University Press.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Chu, J. (2021) Looking for similarities across Complex Systems, MIT
|
|
|
|
|
|
News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Available at:
|
|
|
|
|
|
https://news.mit.edu/2021/jorn-dunkel-complex- systems-0627 (Accessed:
|
|
|
|
|
|
08 March 2024).</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Deleuze, G., Boyman, A. and Rajchman, J. (2001) Pure immanence:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Essays on a life. New York: Zone Books.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Goffman, E. (2022) Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled
|
|
|
|
|
|
identity. London: Penguin Classics. Hafner, K. (1997) The epic saga of
|
|
|
|
|
|
the well, Wired. Available at: https://www.wired.com/1997/05/ff-well/
|
|
|
|
|
|
(Accessed: 01 February 2024).</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Haraway, D.J. (2000) ‘A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and
|
|
|
|
|
|
socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century’, Posthumanism,
|
|
|
|
|
|
pp. 69–84. doi:10.1007/978- 1-137-05194-3_10.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Hyacint (2017) Harmonic series to 32,
|
|
|
|
|
|
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harmonic_series_to_32.svg.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Kolcaba, K.Y. and Kolcaba, R.J. (1991) ‘An analysis of the concept of
|
|
|
|
|
|
comfort’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 16(11), pp. 1301–1310.
|
|
|
|
|
|
doi:10.1111/j.1365- 2648.1991.tb01558.x.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Leonard, A. (no date) All Too Real, https://people.well.com/.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Available at: https://people.well.com/user/cynsa/tom/tom14.html
|
|
|
|
|
|
(Accessed: 01 April 2024).</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>McGlotten, S. (2013) Virtual intimacies: Media, affect, and queer
|
|
|
|
|
|
sociality [Preprint]. doi:10.1353 book27643.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Rumi, J. al-Din and Barks, C. (1995) ‘Story Water’, in The Essential
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rumi. New</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Schwartz, C. (2022) Lecture on Loneliness, Granta. Available at:
|
|
|
|
|
|
https://granta.com/lecture-on-loneliness/ (Accessed: 08 March 2024).</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Smith, N., Wickes, R. and Underwood, M. (2013) ‘Managing a
|
|
|
|
|
|
marginalised identity in pro-anorexia and fat acceptance
|
|
|
|
|
|
cybercommunities’, Journal of Sociology, 51(4), pp. 950–967.
|
|
|
|
|
|
doi:10.1177/1440783313486220.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Yun, J. (2020) ‘The Leaving Season’, in Some Are Always Hungry.
|
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|
University of Nebraska Press.</p>
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