DISEMBODIED
artistic research into post-bodily human existence
(in production)
Producer:
Studio Biarritz
This project is supported by:
Act award STRP
Immerse Interact
CBK Rotterdam - Art Office
Stichting Niemeijer Fonds
Municipality Rotterdam
Mondriaanfonds
Sundance Interdisciplinary Grantee award
Droom en Daad - Makerslab
EMAP Residdency - Werkleitz
Next Talent Program
An initiative of Playgrounds and partners. Financed by Provincie Noord-Brabant & Kunstloc
The Dis_embodied Project is a long-term artistic research initiative driven by interdisciplinary collaboration and experimental practice. Our central research question—what does it mean to be human without a body?—is investigated not through theoretical speculation alone, but through artistic, multi-sensory experimentation. By bringing together patients’ experiences (including those of Cotard syndrome), scientists, philosophers, medical professionals, dancers, and artists, we construct immersive environments in which disembodiment can be explored as both lived reality and speculative future.
Consciousness—where it resides and how it generates a sense of self—remains one of the most profound unsolved questions in science and philosophy. As technological frontiers such as artificial intelligence, neural uploading, and exoskeleton technologies challenge the centrality of the biological body, the hypothetical prospect of existing without a body edges closer to plausibility. The Dis_embodied works as a LAB to responds to this cultural and technological shift by developing artistic experiments that make our relationship to the body tangible, fragile, and negotiable.
Our research manifests through diverse media: a three-screen video installation juxtaposing human, scientific, and AI perspectives on disembodiment; a multi-sensory installation within a sensory deprivation tank; immersive audio works using bone conduction sound; documentary portraits intertwining personal stories of bodily loss with scientific investigations into consciousness; and VR projects incorporating wearable technologies. Each experiment functions as both artwork and research apparatus—testing how sensory disruption, narrative framing, and technological mediation reshape bodily awareness and self-perception.
Mediums
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How Ai live disembodied - a 3 Screen Video installation with the human, science and AI subjective perspective on disembodiment (2024-2025)
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How I lost my body - Multi-sensory installation in a sensory deprivation tank (in production)
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Immersive audio installation with bone conduction sound (post-production)
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Short documentary with personal stories of losing your body & scientists research consciousness (2026)
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Long documentary (research phase)
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Interactive VR-project with wearables (in development)
Goals
Rather than seeking definitive answers, the Dis_embodied Project stages experiential inquiries. Through artistic research-driven experiments, we create spaces where participants confront the instability of embodiment and reconsider the foundations of identity. If believing one does not exist can alter who one is, then the body is not merely a vessel but an active co-creator of selfhood. By investigating the limits and thresholds of embodiment, we aim to expand existing knowledge and invite new forms of dialogue between art, science, and lived experience—before the question of living without a body becomes no longer speculative, but real.