The present article expounds on Mark B. N. Hansen's definition of the "newness" of new media and proposes "the intensity of embodiment" as a key parameter in gauging the newness of new media. Hansen replaces Henri Bergson's "subtraction" with "framing" in his explication of how we perceive digital images. His "newness" mostly refers to an increase in the body's centrality, invariably initiated by "a displacement of the framing function of medial interfaces back to the body." The article accepts Hansen's notion of the body's greater centrality, but questions the relevance of some of his artwork examples. Besides probing for blind spots in Hansen's arguments, it considers the so-called newness of new media in terms of the intensity of embodiment. Further, it suggests that embodiment has roots in cybernetics, for the accomplishment of a cognitive act involves cooperation between man and machine, i.e., man and machine merging into a distributed cognitive system, forming a circuit wherein a cognitive act is consummated. Lastly, the article explains the formation of the circuit and the emergence within it of "reembodiment," the intensity and scope of which have never been experienced via old media.
