Syncretic Post-Biological Digital Identity: Hybridizing Mixed Reality Data Transfer Systems

Abstract

This paper offers a contribution to an emerging culturally orientated discourse regarding mixed reality interaction. It seeks to analyse syncretic, hybridized agency, particularly in mixed reality data transfer systems. Recent developments in bridging autonomous relationships with digital representation through mixed reality interfacing, have brought about the need for further analysis of these new 'post-biological', hybridized states of being that traverse traditional paradigms of time and space. Roy Ascott's concept of syncretism may facilitate further understanding of multi-layered world views, both material and metaphysical, that are emerging from our engagement with such pervasive computational technologies and post-biological systems. Syncretism has traditionally been regarded as an attempt to harmonise and analogise [1] Citing recent examples of practical research outcomes, this paper will analyse what Gilles Deleuze and Fèlix Guattari have called 'deterritorialisation' of the human body through its dispersion throughout multiple reality manifestations and how mixed reality data transfer might constitute a 'reterritorialising' effect on syncretic post-biological digital identity construction [2].