Is the body technology or is it nature, is it mechanics or is it soul? In her project, Gwen Bingle examines the history of fitness and wellness: „Under the Sign of the Body: technology, commodification and embodied consciousness in late 20th century Germany“. She shows how various visions of the body are articulated in modern body management ethics and points out the shift from „I have a body“ to „I’m a body“. In addition to that, technologies such as functional food promise to resolve the weaknesses of nature, in order to create an even better nature. Do these modern body management ideologies finally lead to a new soft commercial type of eugenics, „the survival (or the thriving) of the fittest, healthiest and most beautiful“?
Linklist: Technikgeschichte an der TU München, Wellness (Wikipedia), Fitness (Wikipedia), Deutscher Wellness Verband, Lebensreform (Wikipedia), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Wikipedia), Michel Foucault, quote: „le souci de soi“, Jeremy Rifkin (Wikipedia), Ylang-Ylang (Wikipedia)
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