The Body Digital: A Brief History of Humans and Machines from Cuckoo Clocks to ChatGPT

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Vanessa Chang

The Body Digital

A Brief History of Humans and Machines from Cuckoo Clocks to ChatGPT

Vanessa Chang

$45

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Melville House Publishing
04 November 2025

Social services & welfare, criminology

A dazzling tour of the history of technology and its complex relationship to the

human body-from a Silicon Valley expert and scholar of technology

A dazzling tour of the history of technology and its complex relationship to the human body

What is the relationship between our bodies and our senses and technology? In today's world of blinding technological change, of artificial intelligence and deepfakes and Chat GPT, it is easy to forget that we have always had complicated relations with technology-whether that technology is computers, player pianos, and even eyeglasses.

In this wide-ranging and fascinating study, Vanessa Chang takes us on a historical tour of the interactions between our bodies and machines, showing that the advent of new technologies has always been met with varied reactions, from misplaced fear to tragic over-optimism. The result is cultural critique of the highest order and a profound demonstration of the eternal truth that in order to understand the future, we must look to the past.

By: Vanessa Chang
Imprint: Melville House Publishing
Country of Publication: United States [Currently unable to ship to USA: see Shipping Info]
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 140mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9781685891978
ISBN 10: 1685891977
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 04 November 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

The Body Digital A History of Humans and Machines 1. Introduction: A map of the body, and a timeline of a history 2. Hand: Signatures, handwriting, and automation 3. Voice: Words into sound; wax cylinders to AutoTune 4. Ear: Music and cognition; mixtapes, player pianos, and the computer 5. Eye: The Eye of the Camera; surveillance, video, reality, and deep-fakes 6. Foot: A machine called a city; from flaneurs to pedometers 7. Body: Moving through space; Multi-user dungeons, dioramas, and VR 8. Mind: A story of boundaries; texts and the recording of thought 9. Afterword: An uncertain future, and a plan for tomorrow

Vanessa Chang is the Director of Programs at Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology. She has been a lecturer in Visual & Critical Studies at California College of the Arts, lead curator with CODAME Art & Tech, and a SOMArts Curatorial Resident 2019-2020. She has a PhD in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University, where she researched electronic gesture across the arts and was a Geballe Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center, where she also led the Graphic Narrative Project. Her essays and reviews have been published in Slate, Noema, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Wired.

Reviews for The Body Digital: A Brief History of Humans and Machines from Cuckoo Clocks to ChatGPT

""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 and Bodymouth ""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