Presentation of Stelarc

Contigent & Contestable Futures: Zombie, Cyborg & Phantom Bodies

Stelarc is one of the most celebrated artists in the world working within technology and the visual arts.He is a performance artist who has visually probed and acoustically amplified his body. He has used medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, Virtual Reality systems, the Internet and biotechnology to engineer intimate and involuntary interfaces with the body. He explores Alternate Anatomical Architectures with augmented and extended body constructs.

He has performed with a THIRD HAND, an EXTENDED ARM, a VIRTUAL ARM, a STOMACH SCULPTURE and EXOSKELETON, a 6-legged walking robot. His FRACTAL FLESH, PING BODY and PARASITE performances explored involuntary, remote and internet choreography of the body with electrical stimulation of the muscles. His PROSTHETIC HEAD is an embodied conversational agent that speaks to the person who interrogates it. He is surgically constructing an EXTRA EAR on his arm that will be internet enabled, making it a publicly accessible acoustical organ for people in other places.