[Synapse elist] cultural conformity and drifting metaphors

[Erika Lincoln]

Stelarc---"Anyway, insect or animal-like exoskeletons
that significantly extend  
operation or disturbingly alter appearance would cause
problems of  
functioning in social spaces. Our architectural spaces
are made for  
bipedal humans so any multi-legged locomotion systems
would be clumsy  
in confined spaces but also would, most likely, be
scary in their  
speed and strangeness."

I certainly agree with this point, It makes me think
of integration and how prosthetics and devices really
are about conforming then they are about enhancing. 

I also wonder if this may not be addressed enough in
the art/tech arena? 

Stelarc, I am not too sure about your statement about
"That electronic circuitry externalizes our nervous
system...", 
 
Yes it is a metaphor, but I think that the use of
metaphor at times gets taken literally.

Erika


Hi Brad,

In elaborating on your queries-

"I’m curious how Stelarc personally understands the
relationships that
he has with his body extensions? I remember Howard
Cargill’s
observation of a Stelarc performance where he talked
about the
antagonistic and opposing relationship between a
technological
prosthesis and the body, and yet, he noted that these
dualities still
advanced “towards an awkward Harmony”.  I wonder if
Stelarc has ever
felt ‘natural’ in his experiments with an augmented
body? (Especially
the six legged Exoskeleton for it appears to me that
has real
potential in the future for the mobility impaired to
go four wheel
driving/ six leg walking)."

Legged locomotion would certainly be advantageous in
off-the-road,  
rough terrain. Walking machines are becoming more
flexible, versatile  
and have more stable and dynamically balanced gaits.
Where bipedal  
locomotion itself might not be adequate in certain
environments a body  
with insect-like or animal-like locomotion might
actually perform  
better- constructing a useful chimera.

Some interesting walking and jumping robots-

http://youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x8y48BBUAw

Anyway, insect or animal-like exoskeletons that
significantly extend  
operation or disturbingly alter appearance would cause
problems of  
functioning in social spaces. Our architectural spaces
are made for  
bipedal humans so any multi-legged locomotion systems
would be clumsy  
in confined spaces but also would, most likely, be
scary in their  
speed and strangeness.

Machine driven wheels or machine actuated legs operate
with weight,  
friction and structural stress. Perhaps machines that
hover and glide  
might be more effective and efficient ways of moving
bodies smoothly  
and more quietly...

I have never thought of the Third Hand, the Extended
Arm or the  
Exoskeleton walking robot in utilitarian terms or as
being enabling as  
such. It has been more about exploring alternate
anatomical  
architectures. And what it means to experience these
intimate and  
often involuntary interfaces with technology. What's
interesting  
artistically is messing with these systems, seeing
what is possible.  
What surprising outcomes might eventuate. What
slippage there may be  
between intention and what actually happens.

I guess I've avoided seeing all this in terms of what
is natural or  
not. We're never simply born a biological body. We are
born into a  
historical moment with certain social constraints and
cultural  
conditionings. With varying physical appearances and
varying physical  
capabilities- and yes sometimes with what might be
physical  
impairments. In any case, at any other moment, we may
suffer an injury  
that results in some kind of augmentation being
necessary. But that  
augmentation need not be what allows us to perform
within the norm but  
will possibly allow us to operate in alternate and
extended ways.

Perhaps it's not useful to think in dualities anymore,
of seeing the  
body and its technologies as "antagonistic and
opposing relationships"  
as Howard suggests. As the prosthetic augmentation in
these projects  
and performances has always been in the realm of
contingency (not of  
necessity) and thus in the realm of excess, there has
been willing  
complicity in the relationship of the body and its
machines.  I have  
not seen prosthetic augmentation merely as mechanical
or electronic  
hardware. The Virtual Arm (a manipulator for a virtual
task  
environment) and the Prosthetic Head (an embodied
conversational agent  
that speaks to the person who interrogates it) allow
you to function  
with virtual entities in mixed realities. And the
Extra Ear is a  
project about a soft prosthesis- about surgically
constructing and  
stem cell engineering a publicly accessible organ for
people in other  
places. We have evolved soft internal organs to better
function in the  
world, now we can engineer external additional organs,
internet  
enabled, to better function in the technological
terrain that we now  
inhabit.

One of the better articles on my performances, in
reference to the  
prosthetic and the chimera in Kant was written by
Howard Caygill. See-

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0425/is_n1_v56/ai_19827691/pg_1

The other issue Brad touched upon is the seduction of
symbiosis. It  
would be  meaningful to try to articulate this
experience without  
resorting to metaphysical assumptions of self and
subjectivity or what  
is done consciously or sub-consciously by the body.
Certainly it is  
about intimate and effective interface between the
body and the  
technology. Attaining a complexity and immediacy of
feedback loops  
between the body and its machine so that they can
perform in  
synchronicity, effortlessly and seamlessly-  then
there is no longer  
an issue  of who or what is in control.
To conclude,  HAL, a Japanese exoskeleton for human
augmentation-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSP46lWvxJ4&feature=related

And there are a number of similar ones with more overt
military use  
(impressive non-the-less) such as the Berkeley Bionics
Human  
Exoskeleton-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdK2y3lphmE

It's not easy to avoid medical-military discourses
when considering  
human augmentation.

Also in speaking of what is natural, I do like
Marshall McLuhan's idea  
that technology is the external organs of the body.
That electronic  
circuitry externalizes our nervous system...

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





Erika Lincoln
Electronic Media Artist
Winnipeg/Manitoba/Canada
http://www.lincolnlab.net


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