Bodyscan

An exhibition at the Cornerhouse by Eva Wohlgemuth, (www.evahohlgemuth.com/BODYSCAN/ ) with a strapline quotation:

“The smallest text file of me is 1MB, so I fit on a disk; you can just about recognise me as a wireframe, but when it’s rendered there can be no doubt, It is me! So, am I more than just my data set – as we always assumed – or has my data set become an essential requirement for me to assert my position in cyberspace?”

The show is a series of screens featuring brightly coloured slow-motion animation of Wohlgemuth’s static naked body plus a series of plinths topped by modelled figurines of the same body and on the way out of the gallery a bank of computers featuring web links and coding for these digital projections. Basically, we can cut to the chase and answer the above question: (there certainly is doubt that it is you) and yes you are more than your data set. The physical/virtual elements are clumsy, and have no more interest than if these were watercolour self-portraits or clay models. By focusing attention on a dataset that is only the blunt topography of scans, Wohlgemuth asks no questions of the phenomenology of technological interface and offers no insights beyond the data set surface.