Some of My Favourite Web Sites Are Art
http://www.alberta.com/unfamiliarart/

Project #12:

BODIES INCORPORATED
Victoria Vesna
http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/bodiesinc

The more virtual we get, the more obsessed we become with the "real"
world, especially with bodies. This has been true for generations–think
of Mary Shelly's book Frankenstein, an iconic exploration of our fears
and fantasies of artificial and human bodies. At that early point, in
the Industrial Age, artists were interested in the impact of technology
on our potential to recreate ourselves. This interest persists: the
"body" is, not surprisingly, one of the biggest themes of net art.

Victoria Vesna's "Bodies INCorporated"–considered old school in web
art–is a massive online community where users create and maintain
virtual bodies. At Bodies INCorporated the user goes shopping. You order
your very own virtual body, give it (him? her?) a whole set of shapes,
characteristics and tendencies. Finally, one can view the prosthetic
body in 3D and interact in the Bodies INC. virtual space.

Playing on the word "incorporate," Vesna is interested in both corporate
business practices and the corporeal body. Users earn "shares" based on
how involved they are in the various activites and options on offer.
Consequently, more shares allow for greater participation in the
community of body-owners.

At one level Bodies INCorporated is absurd, and seems almost surreal:
why try to put real bodies on the very unreal web? On another level,
this project addresses the need for personhood and identity–a
particularly urgent need in electronic space.