Scaffolding the Self in Onlife

Martin Heidegger and Gaston Bachelard, phenomenological philosophers of dwelling and the notion of self, claimed that essentially, we have to dwell in order to be able to think. Building the dwelling is synonymous of being in Heidegger’s perspective, which means that constructing a shelter for our vulnerable bodies is a prerogative for fulfilling our potentials as humans. These constructs are physical materialisations of our experiences and knowledge of how it is to be a body and closely connected to the way we are in the world. It is being-in-the-world. These are constructions, frameworks, or scaffolds (Gestell) that uphold and withhold, on an existential level, identity, and selfhood. Without these scaffolds, we are left to the dangers and atrocities of life. The general opinion of Heidegger is that modernity has been systematically constructing cages, caves, and boxes that alienate and distance man from his true being. Technology has separated man from himself and made the opposite of true scaffolding, and hence from supporting man in his life. This chapter discusses the notions of scaffolding and enframing in relation to construction of identity and selfhood in virtual reality, as well as reflection on the possibilities of meaningful and responsible Onlife existence. Scaffolding is, as every scaffold-builder would know, an impossible individual enterprise. Actually, scaffolding has been seen as the ultimate metaphor for the collective and social endeavour, where the construction of the medieval cathedral has become iconic. Scaffolding in the Onlife reality, or making “digital assemblages”, should be seen as actions of self -determination together with others, which means that the possible outcomes of scaffolds are both results of what the scaffold withholds, contains, and conceals, and the processes of co-construction, co-creation, co-shaping, and co-constitution with others in the scaffolding. The scaffold mediates this dynamic and fluctuating reality in between selves, others, and technologies.