元宇宙视域下“虚拟身体在场”的美学探析

An aesthetic analysis of“virtual body presence”under metaverse vision

2021年Facebook更名为Meta,引发了关于元宇宙讨论的热潮。当代科技的迅猛发展为元宇宙概念的不断丰富注入了强大动力,进而为人类基于新的实践方式构建新的生存空间、创造新的审美方式、孕育新的文明提供了可能性。在这一过程中,人的自然肉身不断被技术和信息所改造,“身体”被建构为“人—机—网”的新型存在系统。主体的认识、实践和审美活动以新的“在场”方式将人的本质力量对象化,审美主体发生重构与转型。新型身体与新型空间的互动关系极大地影响着主体的生存境遇,人与他人、人与社会、人与自然以及人与自身的关系发生着深刻的变革。一方面,技术延伸了人的身体,丰富了“在场”的含义,赋予了人类“身不在”而可“临其境”的掌控力和能动性;另一方面,元宇宙的构建使现实世界与虚拟世界深度交融,其技术化、符号化、信息化的特点模糊了身体的界限,遮蔽了数字虚拟空间对人的身心的支配,产生了身体异化的新形式,深刻地影响了人的审美感知,并冲击了启蒙运动以来所建构的人的主体性,人在这种虚拟世界中的主体性存在具有符号化、离散化、碎片化、忘我性等特征。因此,人类需要在多种身体形式、多种在场方式及其复杂关系中更新对世界、对人类自身的认识和反思,在数字化、网络化、技术化进程中开辟新的艺术创作和审美接受方式,以在新的世界中真正实现“每个人全面而自由的发展”。

In 2021,Facebook changed its name to Meta,sparking a buzz of discussion about the Metaverse.The rapid development of contemporary technology has injected powerful impetus into the enrichment of the concept of the Metaverse,making it possible for human to build a new living space as well as to create new aesthetic ways based on the new practical methods,so as to breed a new human civilization.In such process,human's natural body is constantly transformed by technology and information,“Body”is existed as a new system of“man-machine-network”.The cognitive,practical and aesthetic activities of the subject objectify man's essential power in a new“presence”way.Thus,the aesthetic subject has been reconstructed and transformed.The interaction between the new body and the new space greatly affects the living situation of the subject.Profound changes have taken place in the relationship between the individual and others,society,nature,as well as himself.On the one hand,technology extends human's body,enriches the meaning of“presence”,and gives people much activeness to control themselves of being“absent”but“immersive”.On the other hand,the construction of the Metaverse deeply integrates the reality with the virtual world,its characteristics of technicalization,symbolization and informatization indistinct the boundary of the body,block the dominance of the digital virtual space over human's body and mind,create a new form of body alienation.It has impacted people's aesthetic perception,and shaken human's subjectivity which constructed since the Enlightenment movement.Subjectivity in such virtual-reality world has characteristics such as symbolization,discretization,fragmentation and selflessness.Therefore,Human Beings need to renew their understanding and reflection on the world and themselves in a variety of body forms,various ways of presence and their complex relationships,and open up new ways of artistic creation and aesthetic reception in the process of networking and technology,so as to truly realize“the comprehensive and free development of everyone”in the new world.