Introduction Data Made Flesh

Since at least the late 1940s, an apparently solid distinction between “information” and “the flesh” has enabled a wide variety of research programs, practical applications, and virtual landscapes. For example, the research program known as the Human Genome Project promises to extract an informational essence from human bodies for use by the practical applications of genetic engineering. Moreover, this distinction is essential to many elements of popular virtual landscapes from the body-teleporter technology represented in Star Trek to the more recent distinction between bodies and information in The Matrix. All of these projects and imaginings officially ground themselves on the distinction between immaterial, transcendent information and fleshy, unique bodies. Information, so this story goes, exists between elements, whereas bodies are the elements themselves. Information underwrites signs and syntax, whereas the flesh is the medium of cells and organs. Information, in short, operates through the metaphysics of absence, whereas bodies depend on the metaphysics of presence. ¹