The Body Digital

“A contemplative and deeply profound meditation on the deepest questions of human existence.” —Science

“A poetic and well-observed text, which offers the reader a different way of understanding humanity’s relationship with technology… the reader is likely to come away enriched and perhaps even hopeful.” —Physics World

“A welcome road map for those trying to make sense of the fear and hype around new technologies like AI.” —Publishers Weekly

“The Body Digital offers a nuanced portrait of the human, as told through the machines we design and build. Each chapter names an aspect of the body as a locus for our impulse for machine-making: voice, hand, ear, foot. What emerges is a rich and poetic set of insights that suggest our technologies, far more than mere artifacts of human intellect, are intimately bound up in an urgent and profound desire to connect with each other and with the sensuous world around us.” —Kat Mustatea, author of Voidopolis

“In an age where our lives are increasingly mediated by screens and sensors, Vanessa Chang delivers a powerful and much-needed counter-narrative to the myth of a disembodied digital existence … The Body Digital is a call to look beyond the cold, sterile interfaces and see the warm, messy, and deeply human story that technology has always told. By challenging us to recognize our physical selves in the digital world, Chang provides a vital roadmap for navigating our present and a powerful vision for a future where we are not just users of technology, but its rightful, embodied architects. The leads to new and wildly imaginative ideas about how we think about thought and the underlying physical properties that makes our data-driven world so powerful. A must-read.” —DJ Spooky (Paul B. Miller)

“The Body Digital is a propulsive read that explores how technologies can reinvent the way we understand ourselves, and how those reinventions inspire new innovations in turn. Impressive in scope, this book guides readers through engaging examples from across the globe, expanding conversations across disciplines from disability studies through technology studies. Tracing the feedback loop between bodies and new inventions, Vanessa Chang sheds new light on everything from automata through AI, vinyl through fiction. Anyone who feels worried about what AI might mean for human life or interested in the history of the human-built world will want to pick this book up and discuss it with friends.” —Jennifer L. Lieberman, author of Power Lines: Electricity in American Life

“What does it mean for bodies and machines to co-evolve? Vanessa Chang’s marvelous meditation on this question will tune your senses to patterns of technological change generations in the making. Lyrical, rigorous, intellectually omnivorous.” —Fred Turner, Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication, Stanford University

“A beautifully fresh synthesis. Chang accompanies the reader like a curious fellow traveler, guiding us through a cultural history of our bodies and their many machines. Taking us from the very familiar and even nostalgic—music box, camera, Walkman—to the novelties of virtual reality, social media, and AI, Chang weaves her study of tools with provocative contemporary critiques and creative experiments that help us see our bodies and our tech with fresh eyes.” —Sara Hendren, author of What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World