As part of the series of events celebrating the 4th Lustrum, the Media and Cultural Studies (KBM) Program at Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) held a guest lecture with Dr. Tomoko Tamari titled Human Perception and Digital Information Technologies: Animation, The Body, and Affect. In the event, which took place at the Graduate School Auditorium of UGM on Friday (7/11), Tamari invited participants to re-examine the extent to which humans and technology today are interconnected.
In the first session, titled “Digital Futures: Speculative Bodies and the Digital Self,” Tamari discussed how contemporary artistic practices challenge the way we understand the body, the self, and morality in the digital age. Through speculative projects such as The (Im)possible Baby by Ai Hasegawa and 3D artwork by Ines Alpha, Tamari highlighted how digital technology and biotechnology shape the digital self.
Alpha’s futuristic 3D make-up works, for instance, show how technology enables the creation of limitless digital self-images without affecting our biological bodies. Citing psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, Tamari referred to this phenomenon as the “extimate”—a technological entity that feels intimate yet foreign (the intimate Other). Meanwhile, Hasegawa’s work speculates on biotechnologies that could allow same-sex couples to have children. This work visualizes how subjectivity is negotiated and challenges our ideas about the self as a moral being.
In the second session, “Arts and Robotics: Human–Machine Collaborative Artistic Practices,” Tamari—also from Goldsmiths, University of London—discussed collaboration between humans and machines in artistic practice. She rejected the notion of “disembodied consciousness,” emphasizing that the body and consciousness share an equal, reciprocal relationship: it is not only consciousness that shapes the body, but the body also determines how we think.
Like the digital self, robots personalized according to users’ intentions can also be seen as an intimate other. Tamari concluded that robots can function as tools, materials, and performers in the artistic process. Citing Johnson and Verdicchio’s triadic agency model, she explained how art can emerge through collaboration among users, programmers, and robots as artifacts. In this era, according to Tamari, the questions “why and how humans construct art” are more vital than asking whether something is art.
The guest lecture—interspersed with warm discussions with participants—ended at 12:00 PM WIB. At the end of the session, Tamari reminded us to continually strive to understand the biological and physical body as a gateway to understanding the social world. Moreover, she urged us to remain conscious of the type of reality we aim to build with technology. Quoting Tamari: “We should use tools. Not be used by tools.”
Contributor: Fatimah Vitri Imania