[Synapse elist] Elist discussion: goes live later today

[Brad Nunn]

Hi All,

Thank you Vicki for starting this discussion.

I am a professional sculptor, public artist, part time lecturer and  
researcher who experiences a malfunctioning body, a body that has in  
the past been labelled ‘disabled’, but now a body that I understand as  
impaired. From the perspective of artist living with such impairment,  
I have investigated the two prevailing notions of the prosthesis as  
they are imagined and enacted by artists: compensatory prosthetic  
augmentation of the so-called ‘disabled’ body, and bio-tech prosthetic  
‘enhancement’ of so-called ‘normal’ (or ‘able’) bodies for a high-tech  
future.

The discourses of cyberculture have speculated on the potential of  
technology in reconfiguring, or redesigning, or reshaping, or evolving  
a body that will overcome the limitations of the fleshy body. As my  
body is impaired I heartily welcome these promises and I yearn for the  
day that my deviant flesh be corrected by a technological  
intervention. But still, I am very much aware that day has yet to come  
and those promises have yet to be delivered.

When I was a child in the 70s I was excited by the possibility of  
super human cyborgs like TV’s ‘Six Million Dollar Man’. It seemed to  
me that just around the corner was a future where damaged bodies could  
be repaired with super human abilities. However 15 years ago, a stroke- 
like brain haemorrhage changed the way I understand the world, and in  
particular, the human body’s relationship with technology. I remember  
once that as I traveled to the dining room of the hospital in my  
wheelchair, with my limbs braced and clutching my special knife, I  
truly was a cyborg, but alas, one who was from the wrong side of the  
tracks.

Even though a part of me still optimistically looks towards a  
fantastic future of technological body augmentation, I nevertheless  
cannot dislocate myself from the reality of the present. I find that  
these two binaries, these two understandings, of fantasy and reality  
have become reflected and extended onto the way that I know of my  
being. Here, this self-knowing is expressed in the form of a left side  
good / right side bad dichotomy. Viewed from the good, normal,  
obedient and positive aspect of my bodily perspective, my thinking and  
my art embrace the fantastic possibilities of a future bio-tech body.  
(The format of my artwork here is often that of sculptures that are  
representations of hybridized anthropomorphised bio-mech  
figurations.)  And yet, seen from the bad, dysfunctional, disobedient  
and deviant aspect of my bodily perspective, my thinking and my art  
probes the reality of impaired bodies and the way it is possible for  
them to ‘know of’ their disability aids. (The format of my artwork  
here is often that of sculptures that speak of enablement and irony,  
of whimsy and the subjective knowing that a user may have with their  
prosthesis.

As I’ve just explained, I tend to pigeon-hole the two related  
augmentation practices into quite separate boxes. I’m interested in  
how others understand this type of relationship, from this point in  
time and from a first world perspective, and what importance they put  
on it in their work?


To view some images of my work, go to Artworkers Alliance website www.artworkers.org
Select ‘Looking for an artist’, ‘Browse artist’, ‘click on ‘Click here  
to start browsing’, ‘Artist search’, then type in ‘Brad Nunn’


Brad