Corpus mysticum digitale (mystical body digital)

On the concept of two bodies in the era of digital technology

Dados Bibliográficos

ID15082003
AutoresM Fukushima (0000-0001-9120-9819, Tokyo University of the Arts, autor correspondente)
Ano2015
Volume20
Fascículo4
Páginas303-318
Data de publicação2015-10-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoMortality (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1357-6275 • E-ISSN: 1469-9885
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13576275.2015.1083696
OpenAlexW1946676249
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas27

The purpose of this article is to analyse the theoretical connotation of the idea of our digital body surviving the death of our natural body, advocated by such evangelists of digital afterlife as Bell and Gemmel. For this purpose, I will explore the seminal notion of ‘two bodies in one’ first analysed by Ernst Kantorowicz in his The King’s Two Bodies, which details the emergence of the legal concept by which the king has both a natural body and a mystical body (corpus mysticum) understood as the everlasting polity. To explore the possibility of applying this notion to ideas concerning the body in the digital era, I will elaborate on two additional concepts, namely, the concept of diarchy in traditional authority, as proposed by Rodney Needham, and Toyo Ito’s concept of the natural and digital body originating from his peculiar view of contemporary architecture. Through the method of abductive comparison, I will discuss the limitation of Bell and Gemmell’s concept of an everlasting digital body, and the intrinsic lack of institutionality upon which the very notion of the two bodies of the king relies. Finally, I will introduce the concept of the corpus mysticum digitale, a figure, which, in the time of the decline of the power of ritual, legitimises the dead as a collective entity that lives eternally, but anonymously

Aesthetics · Afterlife · Art · Connotation · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Mysticism · Natural (archaeology · Political science · Political sociology · Politics · Polity · Power (physics · Sociofact · Sociology · Digital Media and Philosophy · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty