Virtual technology has revolutionized the way we perceive our physical presence. This includes not only the manipulation of avatars in virtual games, but also the interaction between Vtubers and their audiences. The way digital technology simulates our body has fundamentally altered how we imagine the boundaries of our physicality and subjectivity.
Patikulamanasikara places the viewer’s perspective inside a “virtual body,” synchronously allowing them to control it with VR touch controllers through inverse kinematics. Yet, this “virtual body” is not an avatar but rather a made-virtual metaphor of the viewer’s flesh, skeleton, and viscera. In this artwork, the viewer seems to temporarily access the virtual body. However, following the passing of time, the viewer ultimately loses their power to control this cyber flesh.
The work takes after a traditional Buddhist practice; Patikulamanasikara, reflections on repulsiveness. As if conducting an anatomical dissection by intent of thought, through the “contemplation of impurity” the Buddhist disciple takes those which make up his own body — the organs, fluids, and filling tissues — as objects to meditate on. With this practice, the disciple develops a feeling of abjection towards the body, breaking away from the preoccupation of the flesh.
Patikulamanasikara builds a metaphor for the mutual reference and involvement of humans’ inner anatomy and virtual technology. As “the beating heart becomes the number of frames per second that the image flashes, and every gesture turns into the calculation of inverse kinematics.” It sends the viewers’ virtual experience circulating around virtual scape, body, and perception. At the same time, the practice of Patikulamanasikara reflects a certain understanding of the body. The artwork explores the physical self under the viewpoint of cyborg and post-humanism, providing another way to think about how the body is constructed, even imagined.
