"Digitizing the Racialized Body or the Politics of Universal Address,” Substance, Vol. 33, No. 2, 107-133 Export

@article{citeulike:300163, author = {Hansen, Mark}, citeulike-article-id = {300163}, comment = {Hansen's piece presents a Deleuzian interrogation of the politics of passing in light of cyberspace. He notes, ” put bluntly, the generalization of 'passing' in online environments exposes the affective basis of racial signification, and more significantly, the radical disjunction between racial identity categories and the singularity of each body whose life is always in excess of any particular, fixed identity” (108). He argues that a property unique to the internet is that, ” it introduces a radically unprecedented condition of selfhood: for what is fundamentally new about internet passing is not its generalization of an epistemological problematic (in fact there is no way to ” tell if a character's description matches a player's physical characteristics,” as Nakamura puts it -http://www.hnet.uci.edu/mposter/syllabi/readings/nakamura.html ), but rather its generalization of a situation in which the only way to acquire an identity is to 'pass,' to perform or imitate a role, norm, or stereotype that is itself a cultural performance” (112). Hansen thus argues the on-line experience is unique, for in ” severing imitation from visual appearance, on-line passing allows cultural signifiers to appear as what they are, social codings that have no natural correlation to any particular body and are profoundly reductive of bodily singularity” (114). Hansen then analyzes Keith Piper's work in Relocating the Remains ( http://www.iniva.org/piper/ ), specifically the piece titled Caught like a Nigger in Cyberspace. In this part of his analysis, Hansen expresses how his interaction with the piece (which is in the form of a cyber video-game) ” compelled (him) to undergo a becoming-other, a loosening of the grip of identity markings on (his) embodiment, a felt recognition of the fluidity –the bodily excess- underlying them”(123). Hansen relates this becoming to questions of embodiment, noting ” because it has so insistently invested the image as a wholesale prosthesis for the body, capitalism has left open a line of flight beyond it.” This marks a revolutionary moment, for Hansen considers the line of flight as ” precisely the potentiality for reinvesting the body, reinvesting it beyond the categories of the spectacle (identity) –the potentiality, in short, for investing in the body's potentiality. (124)” Thus the body/image in cyberspace, for Hansen, marks a moment wherein racial passing might be both exposed as an exercise upon social codings, and a point of departure, a line of flight, from which activists in cyberspace can locate within themselves this ” crucial gap between image and body, (124)” thus pushing towards moments of becoming-minoritarian, beyond countability and never static. }, journal = {Substance}, keywords = {deleuze, embodiment, erace, internet, mary-weaver, new-media}, number = {2}, pages = {107--133}, posted-at = {2005-08-22 01:11:52}, priority = {0}, title = {"Digitizing the Racialized Body or the Politics of Universal Address,” Substance, Vol. 33, No. 2, 107-133}, volume = {33} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:300163 L3 - citeulike-article-id:300163 IS - 2 JF - Substance EP - 133 TI - "Digitizing the Racialized Body or the Politics of Universal Address,” Substance, Vol. 33, No. 2, 107-133 VL - 33 SP - 107 KW - deleuze KW - embodiment KW - erace KW - internet KW - mary-weaver KW - new-media N1 - Hansen’s piece presents a Deleuzian interrogation of the politics of passing in light of cyberspace. He notes, “put bluntly, the generalization of ‘passing’ in online environments exposes the affective basis of racial signification, and more significantly, the radical disjunction between racial identity categories and the singularity of each body whose life is always in excess of any particular, fixed identity” (108). He argues that a property unique to the internet is that, “it introduces a radically unprecedented condition of selfhood: for what is fundamentally new about internet passing is not its generalization of an epistemological problematic (in fact there is no way to “tell if a character’s description matches a player’s physical characteristics,” as Nakamura puts it -http://www.hnet.uci.edu/mposter/syllabi/readings/nakamura.html ), but rather its generalization of a situation in which the only way to acquire an identity is to ‘pass,’ to perform or imitate a role, norm, or stereotype that is itself a cultural performance” (112). Hansen thus argues the on-line experience is unique, for in “severing imitation from visual appearance, on-line passing allows cultural signifiers to appear as what they are, social codings that have no natural correlation to any particular body and are profoundly reductive of bodily singularity” (114). Hansen then analyzes Keith Piper’s work in Relocating the Remains ( http://www.iniva.org/piper/ ), specifically the piece titled Caught like a Nigger in Cyberspace. In this part of his analysis, Hansen expresses how his interaction with the piece (which is in the form of a cyber video-game) “compelled (him) to undergo a becoming-other, a loosening of the grip of identity markings on (his) embodiment, a felt recognition of the fluidity –the bodily excess- underlying them”(123). Hansen relates this becoming to questions of embodiment, noting “because it has so insistently invested the image as a wholesale prosthesis for the body, capitalism has left open a line of flight beyond it.” This marks a revolutionary moment, for Hansen considers the line of flight as “precisely the potentiality for reinvesting the body, reinvesting it beyond the categories of the spectacle (identity) –the potentiality, in short, for investing in the body’s potentiality. (124)” Thus the body/image in cyberspace, for Hansen, marks a moment wherein racial passing might be both exposed as an exercise upon social codings, and a point of departure, a line of flight, from which activists in cyberspace can locate within themselves this “crucial gap between image and body, (124)” thus pushing towards moments of becoming-minoritarian, beyond countability and never static. AU - Hansen, Mark ER -