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---
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title: <?Water bodies>: A narrative exploration of
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divergent digital intimacies
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author: Ada
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---
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# <?Water bodies>: A narrative exploration of divergent digital intimacies
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Water, stories, the body,
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all the things we do, are
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mediums
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that hide and show what’s
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hidden.
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(Rumi, 1995 translation)
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## ꙳for you
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All intimacy is about bodies.
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Is this true? Does it matter? I doubt it. Do you know?
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Let’s find out, maybe.
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Once, I thought that everything in the world was either
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one or zero and that there was a harsh straight line
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between them. Then I found out you could step or hop
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across the line, back and forth, if others showed you
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how. Today, I am no less binary, no less interested in
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dichotomies, but I am willing to dance through them if
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you are too. Can we dance these dichotomies together,
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embracing the contradictions of the virtual and
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physical, the comfortable and uncomfortable, intimate
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and non-intimate? I can’t do it alone, the subject is too
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heavy and the binary is too 1011000. I won’t ask you
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to resolve these contradictions, I have no desire to.
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Instead, I hope we can cultivate the tension and
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tenderness inherent in holding together incompatible
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truths because both prove necessary.
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To dance through these dichotomies I will start in a
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specific position, growing from Donna Haraway’s in ‘A
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Cyborg Manifesto”. In her essay, Haraway explores the
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concept of a cyborg as a rejection of boundaries
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between humans, animals, and machines. A symbol for
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a feminist posthuman theory that embraces the
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plasticity of identity. Before she does all this dancing,
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however, she takes a strong stance of blasphemy. She
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engages seriously with traditional notions of feminism
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and identity but with irony, not apostasy, which is to say without full rejection—without unbelief.
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My position as I jump will be the same as hers, ironic
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faith. My mocking is grave but caring and my primary
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aim is for us only to spin fast enough not to see the line
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anymore, while still being able to see the binaries. It
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won’t be an easy dance for us but I will do my best to
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keep softening for you, I promise.
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I will show you a digital body, make it comfortable and
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then uncomfortable, lightly intimate, and richly
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intimate. I have my own story, my own digital body, of
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course. This is where I take my second stance,
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however. This time, the position is Lauren Berlant’s,
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from ‘The Female Complaint’. The book places
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individual stories as inescapable autobiographies of a
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collective experience and uses the personal to explain
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an intimate general experience. In our story, the
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difference between my body and the collective digital
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body is unimportant, I hope you see that. I will tell you
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my story if you know how to look, but I will tell you
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through the stories of many others who shared them
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with me. I have no other choice, every time I have tried
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to tell this story a chorus of voices has come out.
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Some of the stories I will tell you will carry memories
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of pain; physical and emotional. I will keep holding you
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while you hear this, but your limbs may still feel too
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heavy to dance. In that case, I give you my full
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permission to skip, jump, or lay down completely. This
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is not choreographed and I care deeply for you.
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I love you and hope you see what I saw in these stories.
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Safe dreams now, I will talk to you soon.
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## 0. DIGITAL BODIES
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I think the worst must be finished.
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Whether I am right, don’t tell me.
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Don’t tell me.
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No ringlet of bruise,
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no animal face, the waters salt me
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and I leave it barefoot. I leave you, season
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of still tongues, of roses on nightstands
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beside crushed beer cans. I leave you
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white sand and scraped knees. I leave
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this myth in which I am pig, whose
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death is empty allegory. I leave, I leave—
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At the end of this story,
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I walk into the sea
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and it chooses
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not to drown me.
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(Yun, 2020)
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### a. what is a digital body?
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A digital body is a body on the Internet.
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A body outside the internet is simply a body. On the
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internet, discussions about corporeality transcend the
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limitations of physicality, shaping and reshaping
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narratives surrounding the self. This text explores the
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intricate dynamics within these conversations, dancing
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at the interplay between tangible bodies and their
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digital counterparts. The construction of a digital body
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is intricately intertwined with these online dialogues,
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necessitating engaged reconstructions of the narratives
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surrounding physical existence. Yet, the resulting
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digital body is a complex and contradictory entity,
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embodying the nuances of both its virtual and tangible
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origins.
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There is a specific metaphor that would allow us to
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better carry these contradictions as we further explore
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digital bodies. Do you remember that dream you had
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about deep ocean pie? Allow me to remind you.
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You were walking on the shore, slowly, during a
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summer that happened a long time ago. Your skin was
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warm and you could feel the wet cool sand sticking to
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your feet. The gentle lapping of the waves washed the
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sand away as you walked towards the ocean. You
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stepped, stepped. Then dove. Underwater, the sea
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unfolded deeper than you remembered. It was a
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vibrant display of life: bright schools of small fish, and
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tall colorful, waving corals. It looked like that
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aquarium you saw once as a kid. Your arms moved
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confusingly through the water as if you were wading through a soup or were terribly tired. On the sandy
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ocean floor, you saw a dining table.
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It had a floating white tablecloth, one plate, a fork, and
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a pie in the center of it, on a serving dish. You sat on a
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chair but could not feel it underneath you. You ate a
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heaping slice of pie. It had a buttery-cooked carrots
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filling. You woke up.
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In the world, the sun was still timid and your bedroom
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thick with sleep. What a weird dream. You rubbed your
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face, sat up on your bed, and drank the glass of water
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next to you. You felt full, as if you just ate a plateful of
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carrot pie.
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There were two bodies in this story. An awake one and
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a dream one, an ocean one. In dreams, bodies have
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their own set of rules, often blurring the boundaries
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between waking and sleeping, wanting and fearing.
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Digital bodies are very similar to dream bodies. They
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exhibit a similar fluidity and abstraction, a defiance of
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traditional notions of physicality. They share the
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blurring and inherent potential nature of dream bodies.
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They are slower, stronger, and different. They switch
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and change and melt into each other, they lose and
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regrow limbs, they run sluggishly and fly smoothly. If
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we scream in our dreams, we sometimes wake up still
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screaming. Our waking bodies react to our dream
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bodies, they have the same tears, the same orgasms,
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the same drives.
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This is a story of two bodies, same but different,
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influenced but not driven.
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A tangible body, full of fluids and organs, emotions and
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feelings. Cartilage, bacteria, bones, and nerve
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endings. A digital body, cable-veined and loud-vented,
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shiny and loading.
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The digital body is ethereal and abstracted,
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embarrassing, graphic, and real but not physical.
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This is the beginning.
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### b. body vs. computer
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Framing the discourse around bodies on the internet as
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a clear-cut dichotomy feels clunky in today’s internet
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landscape. The web is today available by body, cyborg
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dimensions of the internet of bodies, or virtual and
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augmented realities, creating a complex interplay
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between having a body and existing online.
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As intricate as this dance is now, it certainly did not
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begin that way. It started with what felt like a very
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serious and tangible line drawn by very serious
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tangible people; this is real life and this is virtual life.
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Even people like Howard Rheingold, pioneers who
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approached early virtual life with enthusiasm and care,
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couldn’t escape characterizing it as a “bloodless
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technological ritual” (1993). Rheingold was an early
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member of The Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link (Well), a
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seminal virtual community built in the 1980s that was
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renowned for its impact on digital culture and played a
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pivotal role in shaping what would become the
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landscape of the Internet. Rheingold’s reflections on
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his experience on this primordial soup of the Internet
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offer insight into the initial conceptualizations of online
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life by those joyfully participating.
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In “The Virtual Community”, Rheingold offers a
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heartfelt tribute to intimacy and affection through web-
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based interactions which, at the time, were unheard of.
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He struggles in his efforts to highlight the legitimacy of
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his connections, finding no way to do so except by
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emphasizing their tangible bodily experiences.
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The community’s claim to authenticity thus had to lie in the physical experiences of its members— the visible
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bodies and hearable voices, the weddings, births, and
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funerals (1993). (1).
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Even then, and even by people with no interest in
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undermining the value of the virtual, the distinction
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between physical and virtual was confusing. Rheingold
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himself reinforces the boundary of body relations and
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computer relations by referring to his family as a
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“flesh-and-blood family’ and his close online friends as
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“unfamiliar faces” (1993). Constantly interplaying
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digital connections with the physical characteristics of
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the kind of connections people valued before the
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internet. (2)
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In any case, his primary interest seemed to be to
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emphasize computer relations as valid forms of
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connection between bodies, not to talk of any
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distinction quite yet. It’s the eighties, the internet is
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still fresh and new and the possibility to form close
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relations with strangers online seems fragile and
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concerning yet exciting. This is the clearest the
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distinction between in-real-life and online has ever
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been and it’s still fuzzy and unclear.
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At the same time and in the same digital space as
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Rheingold, there was another man, a digital body being
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formed. This is our second story, the ocean body we
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dreamt of earlier is now in a digital primordial soup,
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questioning itself and stuck between staying and
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leaving. In this story, its name is Tom Mandel and
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when he died, he did so on the Well.
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Mandel was a controversial and popular figure in this
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pioneering virtual community. According to many other members,
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Tom Mandel embodied the essence of the Well—its history,
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its voice, its attitude. Mandel's snarky and verbose
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provocations started heated discussions, earning him
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warnings such as "Don't Feed The Mandel!” (Leonard, 1995).
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His sharp comments often stirred emotions that reminded
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people of family arguments, fuelling an intimacy that
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was characteristic of the Well:
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both public and solitary (Hafner, 1997).
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Until 1995, Mandel had done a quite rigorous job of
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keeping his body separate from The Well and had
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never attended any of the physical in-person meetings
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from the community. His only references to being a
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body had been on the “health” online conference,
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where he often talked about his illnesses.
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One day, after nearly a decade of daily interaction, he
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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
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replied he had gone to get tested and was waiting for a
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diagnosis. This way, when cancer was found in his
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lungs, the community was first to know. In the
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following six months, as his illness progressed, the
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community followed closely (Hafner, 1997).
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They were first to know when Nana, a community
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member with whom he had had a publicly turbulent
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relationship, flew to California to marry him. The
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community was a witness and is now an archive of his
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declining wit as cancer spread to his brain and his
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famously articulate and scathing comments got
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shorter, fearful, and more tender. (3)
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Before he posted his final goodbye, he chose to do one
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last thing. Together with another member, they
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programmed a bot that posted randomly characteristic
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comments from Mandel on The Well—the Mandelbot.
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In the topic he had opened to say goodbye, he posted
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this message about the bot:
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I had another motive in opening this topic to tell the
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truth, one that winds its way through almost everything
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I've done online in the five months since my cancer was
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diagnosed. I figured that, like everyone else, my
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physical self wasn't going to survive forever and I guess
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I was going to have less time than actuarials allocateus
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[actually allocated]. But if I could reach out and touch
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everyone I knew on-line... I could toss out bits and
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pieces of my virtual self and the memes that make up
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Tom Mandel, and then when my body died, I wouldn't
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really have to leave... Large chunks of me would also
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be here, part of this new space.
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(Hafner, 1997)
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With the Mandelbot, Mandel found a way to deal with
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what he later called his grieving for the community,
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with which he could not play anymore once his own
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body died. By doing so, he was starting to blend the
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boundaries of intimacy through computers and bodies,
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driven by his love and grief. (4)
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