Myth’s Methods, Technology’s Futures, and Critique’s Body
Drawing on reenactments of video demonstrations of information technology – “new IT” in the domains of “artificial intelligence” and “extended reality,” if not as “the metaverse” per se –, this intervention explicates the tacit reliance of technology’s futures on embodied practices – in short, its myth’s methods. Therefore, the paper examines the socio-technical promises showcased in and through selected video demonstrations by leading IT companies (e.g., Meta, OpenAI). How does probing “new IT” through embodied reenactment exhibit the “distribution of the sensible” (Rancière 2000) tacitly folded into the IT industry’s video demonstrations of recent AI-, XR- or otherwise-labelled technologies? How does the reenactment of those demonstrations contribute to a reflexive explication of technology’s future(s) projected by those video demonstrations? And what role does embodiment – enacted, reenacted, reanalyzed – come to play as a vehicle for critique – in short, what is critique’s body? Taken together, these questions set the stage for the outlined intervention and ensuing conversation.
