Body/Machine/Commodity

It is not a new idea or a new practice to combine the body with technology. We wear clothes, we use toothpaste, we ingest supplements and hormone pills which change our shapes and physiologies.

We've treated our bodies like machines long before using machines in our bodies. That is what the entire health industry is premised on: your body is a machine which needs to be "fueled" with certain things like 'electrolytes.' The machine is the epitome of perfect utility so we aspire to that homogenized goal. We aspire to that perfect alienation of ourselves to ourselves, to make ourselves the products of our own labour, to become valued commodities.

Just think of how we write our CVs, trying literally to sell ourselves to the highest bidder. Just think of botox, implants, and fingernail polish. We are a lot of work to make these days. I just hope that my exchange value doesn't drop with the influx of all these other people-products that look just like me.