[Synapse elist] Introductory statements...

[Stelarc]

Hi Ju and Brad and Lizbeth-

Beaut to hear from you all. I've been in transit and just started a  
residency yesterday so its been a hectic last few days.

Here are some general statements to contextualize my performances and  
projects.

The suspensions became a strategy of physically exhausting the body  
and exposing it as obsolete, empty,  involuntary and inadequate. The  
posture of indifference that enabled these performances to occur and  
unfold and the anxiety and uncertainty that they generated also  
produced the desire to redesign.

Augmenting the body is about exploring alternate anatomical  
architectures. Allowing a biological body to become an extended  
operational system. Coupled with technology, the body performs beyond  
the boundaries of its skin and beyond the local space it inhabits.

By Fractal Flesh I mean  bodies and bits of bodies spatially separated  
but electronically connected, generating recurring patterns of  
interactive activity at varying scales. Phantom Flesh will result from  
the increasing proliferation of haptics on the internet making it  
possible to create a potent physical presence of remote bodies and  
machines systems.

A prosthesis in these performances and projects is seen not as a sign  
of lack, but rather as a symptom of excess. Technology proliferates  
and becomes biocompatible in both scale and substance. Thus making  
possible a Third Hand, an Extended Arm, a Stomach Sculpture, an  
Exoskeleton 6-legged walking machine and an Extra Ear. The Prosthetic  
Head is a conversational system- coupled to a  body there is the  
possibility of interesting verbal exchanges and facial expressions.

This is not so much a concern about the human body, but about  
alternate embodiment. Of chimeric constructs of muscle and mechanism,  
of virtual and actual interfaces, of animal and insect locomotion.

There is no need to accept the biological  and evolutionary status quo  
of the body. The body in its present form and with its present  
functions is inadequate. The body has always been impaired.

I'm in London about 3 times a year with my Brunel University  
commitments, so hopefully we can meet up sometime soon. My next  
extended stay in London is in October...

Best wishes-

Stelarc

Performance Artist

Chair in Performance Art
School of Arts
Brunel University West London

Senior Research Fellow & Artist in Residence
MARCS Laboratories
University of Western Sydney

www.stelarc.va.com.au
Mobile: +61-408-437-517