digital technologies and the cultural industry’s expansion of human boundaries in popular media
digital technologies decouple presence from physical embodiment
- digital mourning -> expression of grief through digital platform
- virtual influencers
- generative ai
research question: how do VR technologies create posthuman cultural forms
- how does digital embodiment transform traditional concepts of humanity
- how are emotional relationships being commodified
- how do technology-capital-culture interactions produce new subjectivities
braidotti haraway theoretical foundations
- post-humanity
- digital embodiment
- real subsumption (marx)
methodology: case study on documentaries
findings: technology, capital and ethics nexus
technology enabling paratextuality -> surrounding media e.g. social media that shape how audiences perceive and interact with virtual idols
political economy of virtual idols, capitalist innovation
- scalability
problem: who contriols performance? control over performance is shifted to corporate entities
virtual idols obscure the labor of real performers, rendering their contribution invisible in the final product
Conclusion
humanity is moving beyond the physical body, and capitalism is capturing the shift through technologies