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When Skin and Technology Intertwine

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Humanism and its Discontents

Abstract

The skin is one of the most visible elements of our body; it is involved in all of the interactions with our environment. Despite its relative fragility and the difficulty of reconstructing it, it serves as an envelope, barrier, and threshold, guaranteeing protection against external and internal aggressions.

Under the influence of cybernetic thinking advocating the malleability of the body, the human skin may become more than just a surface of contact with our environment. Because of its properties like plasticity and elasticity, it is the focus of a number of technical and scientific experiments.

An overview is offered here of current technological innovations: a host of new ways for skin and technology to interact. The social issues that these innovations raise are also examined.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.eonline.com/news/254745/julia-roberts-and-christy-turlington-ads-deemed-overly-photoshopped-banned-in-britain; https://www.asa.org.uk/news/why-real-beats-fake.html https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/loreal-uk-ltd-a11-149640.html.

  2. 2.

    Steinberg (2001).

  3. 3.

    Veyrat et al. (2007/1 Vol. 1, n° 1).

  4. 4.

    Liotard (2015).

  5. 5.

    IFOP (Juillet 2010).

  6. 6.

    Borel (2006, p. 160).

  7. 7.

    Favre (mai 2012).

  8. 8.

    Fenske (2007).

  9. 9.

    Andrieu B. (2008).

  10. 10.

    Haraway (1990, p. 220).

  11. 11.

    Andrieu B. (2004/2).

  12. 12.

    “The Body and Technology: Discourses Shaping Consumer Experience and Marketing Communications of Technological Products and Services”, Margo Buchanan-Oliver, Angela Cruz, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 36, 2009.

  13. 13.

    Featherstone, Mike (2000), “Body Modification: An Introduction”, in Body Modification, ed. Mike Featherstone, London: Sage, 1–14.

    “Introduction,” in Body Modification, ed. Mike Featherstone, London: Sage, 1–14.

  14. 14.

    Mitchell (2003).

  15. 15.

    “Consider, if you will, Me++. I consist of a biological core surrounded by extended, constructed systems of boundaries and networks […]. My natural skin is just layer zero of a nested boundary structure […]. My clothing is a layer of soft architecture, shrink-wrapped around the contours of my body. Beds, rugs and curtains are a looser assemblage of surrounding fabric, somewhere in between underwear and walls. My room is a sloughed-off carapace, cast into a more rigorous geometry, fixed in place, and enlarged in scale so that it encloses me at a comfortable distance. The building that contains it has a weatherproof exterior shell […]” (William J. Mitchell, Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2003, pp. 7–8).

  16. 16.

    http://www.guimberteau-jc-md.com/en/#.

  17. 17.

    http://www.guimberteau-jc-md.com/en/videos.php.

  18. 18.

    Audio commentary by Terry Gilliam on the DVD “Brazil.”

  19. 19.

    The Metamorphosis by Frank Kafka (1915), The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson (1954), Thinner by Stephen King (1984) or movies like The arrival, 1996, The Fly….

  20. 20.

    Marigny (2008).

  21. 21.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242150/.

  22. 22.

    Derian (2013).

  23. 23.

    https://robohub.org/tag/lifehand2/.

  24. 24.

    Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, https://www.darpa.mil/.

  25. 25.

    Reliable Neural-Interface Technology.

  26. 26.

    http://www.darpa.mil/program/hand-proprioception-and-touch-interfaces.

  27. 27.

    http://www.darpa.mil/program/neural-engineering-system-design.

  28. 28.

    Jeannin (2016).

  29. 29.

    Vita-More (2010).

  30. 30.

    https://creapills.com/tatouages-sante-couleurs-biosenseurs-20170602.

  31. 31.

    https://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/sante/e-sante/un-biocapteur-pour-evaluer-la-sueur-en-temps-reel_101581.

  32. 32.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABrHH9QoOHE.

  33. 33.

    https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/newsplus/nanshu-lu-engineer-of-electronic-tattoos-named-to-tr35/.

  34. 34.

    https://atelier.bnpparibas/en/life-work/article/digital-tattoo-unlocking-smartphone-easier.

  35. 35.

    MIT: Massachusetts Institute of Technology: http://web.mit.edu/.

  36. 36.

    Le numérique à fleur de peau : de nouvelles interfaces de communication.

  37. 37.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2017/05/10/tatouage-sonore_a_22079118/.

  38. 38.

    http://duoskin.media.mit.edu/.

  39. 39.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMBX6nFg0RE ; what is e-Ink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NRT8E5-reM.

  40. 40.

    Holz et al. (May 5–10 2012) http://www.christianholz.net/2012-chi12-holz-grossman-fitzmaurice-agur-implanted_user_interfaces.pdf.

  41. 41.

    Bergstrom-Lehtovirta et al. (2017); http://www.sebastianboring.com/content/publications/prints/lehtovirta.CHI-2017.skinmemory.pdf.

  42. 42.

    http://metabody.eu/partners/.

  43. 43.

    http://metabody.eu/.

  44. 44.

    Cellan-Jones (29 January 2015).

  45. 45.

    In reference to Michel Foucault, who came up with the notion of biopolitics in the 1970s. It denotes power strategies which, in modern Western societies, are used on the body and the population with the aim of disciplining them, making them work, exploiting and controlling them.

  46. 46.

    For instance, Swish, Mobile Pay, and Swipp.

  47. 47.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501%28c%29%283%29_organization.

  48. 48.

    BDYHAX: Austin’s Inaugural Bodyhacking Convention to Feature New Projects From The Thought Emporium: http://www.prweb.com/releases/BDYHAX/01/prweb13162097.htm.

  49. 49.

    Formerly Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, he is now Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at Coventry University (UK): http://www.kevinwarwick.com/.

  50. 50.

    http://www.orlan.eu/.

  51. 51.

    http://stelarc.org/projects.php.

  52. 52.

    Declan (2015).

  53. 53.

    Useful points of reference include the many works of David Le Breton, particularly those on body markings (Signes d’identité, tatouages, piercing et autres marques corporelles, Métailié, 2002) and the skin (La peau et la trace: sur les blessures de soi, Métailié, 2013); as well as the research of Philippe Liotard on body modification: http://philippe-liotard.blogspot.fr/2011/12/modifications-corporelles-petite.html.

  54. 54.

    https://www.thetech.org/bodyworldsdecoded.

  55. 55.

    https://ph.news.yahoo.com/body-worlds-exhibition-embraces-augmented-162910933.html.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Orange/Department of Sociology and Economics of Networks and Services (XDLab/SENSE), Châtillon, France

    Hélène Jeannin

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  1. Hélène Jeannin
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Correspondence to Hélène Jeannin .

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  1. Department of Ethics, Université Catholique de Lille, Lille, France

    Paul Jorion

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Jeannin, H. (2022). When Skin and Technology Intertwine. In: Jorion, P. (eds) Humanism and its Discontents. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67004-7_8

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