Virtual collaboration as co-enacting intercorporeality
基于梅洛-庞蒂的体现间性理论，通过一个纯虚拟协作案例，揭示身体表达如何通过数字技术重新物质化，提出共同在场、共同定向和共同投入等过程构成虚拟体现的新视角。
This paper draws on Merleau-Ponty’s perspective on intercorporeality to inquire into the role of the body in virtual collaboration. Merleau-Ponty redefines the human body beyond pure physicality, as material-semiotic processes between self and other. From this perspective, meaningful engagements are based on the intertwinement of bodily activities including gestures and displays. Drawing on a rich case of an exclusively virtual collaboration, this paper illuminates how bodily expressivity is rematerialised through digital technology. The findings show how distributed bodies pattern an intercorporeal armature constituted of processes of co-presencing, co-orienting, and co-investing. The paper problematises claims of virtual disembodiment and advances current understanding of how body and technology merge to make virtual collaboration possible. The rich empirical insights are synthesised into four main theoretical propositions that constitute a novel perspective on virtual intercorporeality. This perspective advances our understanding of virtual embodiment and elaborates the role of technology and language in the process of mutual attunement between bodies.