Bodies INCorporated
Bodies© INCorporated is a web platform that offers users the opportunity to construct their own 3D digital avatar in VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) from an assortment of body parts and textures such as “lava” and “blue plastic.” However, users must click through extensive terms and conditions, forfeiting all rights and ownership to their bodies. Bodies© INCorporated asks: What value does the articulation of identity have, when one must work within the options defined by consumer culture?
One of the oldest net.art projects. Construct your own body in virtual reality.
Bodies INCorporated is an investigation into social psychology and group dynamics, actualized in corporate structure. It is a collaborative project on many levels, from the team of artists implementing it, to the actively participating audience attempting to gain shares in the body of work. At surface, Bodies INCorporated is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on some of the more obvious contradictions of corporate culture, particularly for those working with art and technology.
At a deeper level, Bodies INCorporated addresses such issues as the legitimacy of cultural institutions as the only socially sanctioned site for display of art, and the ways in which structures of physical and ephemeral spaces effect our collectively embodied behaviour. From within computer networks we constantly project our selves, and play complicated identity survival games.
Initially, the participant is invited to construct a virtual body out of predefined body-parts, textures, and sounds, and gain membership to the larger body-owner community. The main elements of the online site are three constructed environments (subsidiaries of Bodies