Digital Bodies and Disembodied Voices: Virtual Idols and the Virtualised Body

The Japanese virtual idol, a computer-generated media celebrity, is a product of an historical moment in which structures of data have seemingly supplanted physical materiality. The attempt to create a media personality entirely from digital code highlights both a long-standing obsession with simula...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Daniel Black
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Open Humanities Press 2006-01-01
Series:Fibreculture Journal
Subjects:
Online Access:http://nine.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-054-digital-bodies-and-disembodied-voices-virtual-idols-and-the-virtualised-body/
Description
Summary:The Japanese virtual idol, a computer-generated media celebrity, is a product of an historical moment in which structures of data have seemingly supplanted physical materiality. The attempt to create a media personality entirely from digital code highlights both a long-standing obsession with simulating the life of the human body by technological means, and some of the ways in which the human body is coming to be seen as gathered into structures of information ownership and exchange. These themes are discussed in relation to the career of Yuki Terai, the world's most successful virtual idol.
ISSN:1449-1443