I am looking for the sensibles and inteligibles forms of the virtual body. Whether it is designed, modelled, painted, sliced, x-rayed, its materiality comes from the numbers: no muscles, veins, blood, skin, but algorithms, numericals matrices, programs, physical and biological models. As a computer artist, these technical and scientif problems are the source of my work. I don't think computer is only a tool, as people use to say. Many layers of knowledge interfere with and modify the way forms, colours, textures, moviments have been considered. For this reason, here will be presented images, theories, essays, laboratories, researches that redefine our vision of the body. I am only indicating the inteligible forms but what about the sensible ones? How we perceive, apprehend, feel, interact with the lost of the materiality of our body? These results in progress are maped in this cartography which I have named body's cartography. Maps are based on calculations but enclose an infinite potential of imagination and guide us to the metaphor of the net: navigation. Maps lead us to states, cities, countries well defined. Finally, maps have a strong relation with narratives: they trace routes. This is the node that gives expression to the body. Model it is only a stage of the process. Give life to a body in the computer implies give it a story. In the Laboratory of Gesture and Narrative Group of the Media Lab, researchers try to bring bodies into virtual existence, based on the theory that people have told stories for ages and transmitted them by different media. These stories form the sensible dimension of the body and print a sense on its skin. Through them, we can discriminate also a character from a human. Art meets science in the way we imaginate and realize forms and sensibilities with technology:"...the science fiction writers try to imagine what would happen if our tecnology and societies - and our mind themselves - were differently composed." (Marvin Minsky) This cartography is also a sentimental journey. As Sherazade, I like to entertain my listeners and weave stories through words and images. That is the way to construct my bodies and narratives: bodies impregnated with lights and words and visual/virtual poetries that express and move themselves like a body. Once upon a time... (Grin) Kika Nery My Home is working hard to give virtual existence to her bodies. I am preparing a new structure of this site in dynamic HTML and java pieces. For a better visualization of this work, configure your screen to 800x600.

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