Prosthetic Medium
“Shapeshifting requires the ability to transcend your attachments, in particular your ego attachments to identity and who you are. If you can get over your attachment to labeling yourself and your cherishing of your identity, you can be virtually anybody. You can slip in and out of different shells, even different animal forms or deity forms.”
― Zeena Schreck
In order to talk about the Prosthetic Medium it is imperative that we first establish the mind and body as two separate entities with the body being the extension to physical form and abilities and the mind being a platform of thought, identity, and knowledge. The Prosthetic Medium is the space in which we develop this thoughts, identity, and knowledge online. While arguably one presents slightly different personas to those that they interact with in the real world, the online self is drastically different than any form of the real-life self. I label this online persona a medium because it is an agency of control, you control who you present to the world and what they can see. You could in real life be a barista at Starbucks serving pumpkin spice lattes while forcing a perky smile to guests as they struggle to order while online you are a man named Benjamin with a generic stock photo as your profile image. The anonymity that comes with this space is a dualism of positive and negative effects one being that the Prosthetic Medium can be a much more outgoing, happier you and while this sounds ideal in thought, what effect does this have the physical real world you? The relationship between the real world you and the prosthetic medium is, as coined by Ulrike Schultze, a co-constructive relationship in that while we build space in which the prosthetic medium manifests, in turn, the prosthetic medium also builds and alters us. As Ulrike Schultze says, "We become what the technology allows us to be".
There are no limitations to what or who you can be when you're online, you are what you want to resemble. Whether that be a dragon or the opposite gender. The Prosthetic Medium proposes the idea that anyone can be what they want to be and that they are not limited to the confines of social offline standards. In turn, the Prosthetic Medium also affects the real-world by breaking down stereotypes of what it means to be a certain gender or species. The virtual spaces in which it inhabits are intersections of "embodied experiences, social experiences, psychological experiences, [and] sexual experiences" and experimentation within these experiences online can "open the mind up to new demands for everyday life in the physical world." This is to say by developing and interacting with the Prosthetic Mind we open up an entire discourse of ideas on what it means to exist, live, and be who/what you are.
The experiences, both good and bad, that are encountered online while in pursuit of the real, true, and perfect "you" break down old social constructs and build new ones in its place. But this very same logic can prove to be problematic, in the frantic search for your online persona, you lose touch with the real world you and the two become totally separate incomparable entities. This is explored in the episode Be Right Back in the hit TV series Black Mirror. Ash did not resemble his android recreation at all, despite having been built from all of his activity online. His wife could even tell the difference in that she was so used to him ignoring her, and being his usual self that when this recreated version of him was, in actuality, a better version of him as it actually listened to her and paid attention to her. While there were other reasons instigating Martha's dislike of the android Ash, this still stands as a good example of how our online personas can deviate from our real-life self to the point of the two being polar opposites.
The ability to control who you are is a powerful weapon, but it is also an essential gateway into progressing socially, psychologically, and philosophically when it comes to engaging with one another and gaining your identity.
