Multiplication and Division: Embodied Action in Digital Space-Time

Abstract

The interaction between corporeality and information in the context of the digital interface is, as Anna Munster (2006) notes, characterized by the distinctly spatio-temporal processes of both “multiplication (doubling) and division (splitting).” In this experience, the body’s “image, sensation, and action” mutate to align with the speeds of the informational universe, translating physical action into digital results and dividing attention between multiple spatio-temporalities. This paper considers such conjunctions and disjunctions within and through the applied media theory project Division Pixel Suppliers created at the University of Waterloo Critical Media Lab, focusing specifically on how embodied action in the digital interface of the arcade-cabinet installation is characterized by a fracturing of space and time that places interactants into a particular relationship with their technical environment.