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Goodbye Body

Created at 30. Oct. 2025

by Aisling Phelan

‘Goodbye Body’ is a speculative video work that stages a farewell to the biological body and an initiation into the vast expanse of digital existence. Framed as an intimate and reflective letter, the artist acknowledges the resilience and beauty of her physical form, while also confronting its limitations as she narrates her decision to transcend the confines of flesh and blood, to upload her mind and embrace the boundless possibilities of digital consciousness.

The piece unfolds as both a personal meditation and a broader exploration of posthuman potential. It engages with the tension between body and mind by speculating that selfhood and identity are no longer singular or anchored, but shifting, distributed, and transmittable. ‘Goodbye Body’ positions the body not as a site of purity or permanence but as a vessel that can be released, reimagined, or even redesigned. It situates this speculative departure within humanity’s longer desire to create life beyond death, an impulse once fulfilled through religious belief and now through technological intervention.

In doing so, the work invites viewers to contemplate the complex entanglement of human experience and technological advancement. It asks what is gained and what is lost in the process of migration from physical to digital realms, and whether consciousness can ever truly be separated from its organic substrate. By weaving together evocative visuals and a deeply personal narrative, the piece becomes both elegy and experiment, an offering to the past body and a projection into potential futures.

‘Goodbye Body’ ultimately serves as an exploration of identity, embodiment, and the essence of what it means to be human in an age where the digital and physical increasingly converge. Rather than presenting technology as either salvation or threat, it inhabits the uneasy middle ground, acknowledging our fascination, scepticism, and fear, while suggesting that moments of rupture may open onto new ways of imagining humanity.

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