Kraftwerk and the absence of the bodies: notes on a show on Rio de Janeiro in 2004 (and another in 2009)

Abstract

This article looks for to think the virtualization of bodies in contemporary culture through three main axes. The first one would be how sound and image are separated of their materiality through new techniques of audiovisual construction. Using a show of the German band Kraftwerk as example, I demonstrate how electronic music began to use a sound object disentailed of an empirical body, what can be extended to the production of synthesis images. In a second moment I discuss how bodies are virtualized by these technologies. This type of thought results in socio-technological constructions such as the concepts of Artificial Intelligence and Cyborgs. Finally I try to show how the real world, in its diverse instances, from the economic to the cultural one, tends to virtualize itself, opposing the disembodied experience to materiality.