Stelarc – Bodies without desires

An interview with Australian artist Stelarc on art and the body: the mechanistic body, the extended body, the enhanced body, the individual body. A body that, as Stelarc says, has no longer desires but rather machinic trajectories of systemic excess.

Nelli Kambouri/Pavlos Hatzopoulos: Interconnections between the corporeal and the machinic can be found in different forms in the work of different artists in the past, most of which have imagined them as “avant-guard futuristic” scenarios. Today, however, scientific and technological practice often seems to be far more creative, imaginative and avant-guard than art. Where do you situate your work in relation to the past artists working on similar themes, but also to current scientific and technological research?

Stelarc: Well, the seductiveness of scientific and technological practice is essentially in its explanatory power and its utilitarian outcomes. It’s discourse is often one of enabling. Art practice is not so much about affirming but rather of exposing, of undermining, of deconstructing. It generates anxiety and ambivalence. The relationship between art and science is problematic and perhaps not possible to position on the same plane of creativity and imagination. Artists have a multiplicity and diversity of agendas and actualizations. These projects and performances are not about in sci-fi speculation about the future nor about aesthetic art production for museums. They might be considered as tentative probes. What is important is constructing an interface, experiencing it directly and thereby more meaningfully articulating the situation.

N.K./P.H.: Your work has focused on interconnectivity and prosthesis, adding parts to the body, connecting it with machines and remote agents. Would you agree, however, that disconnectivity and abstraction are also characteristics of the information age? What about the bodies that have these types of desires?

Stelarc: Well, abstraction certainly is. New technologies generate unexpected information and images that are beyond the human scale. In this sense the world becomes increasingly abstract, beyond human sensory experience and cerebral computation. And certainly a kind of existential alienation can result. In becoming wired we enhance not only our individuality but also our individuation. Telematic and virtual systems allow for remote communication, but also expose and empty that experience of connectedness. The experience becomes something other and that other is the feeling of alienation. Information flow both directs bodies and simultaneously overwhelms them. There may not be information overload but the excess of information generates a fatal sense of loss, of an inability to absorb, process and understand it all. Bodies no longer have desires but rather machinic trajectories of systemic excess.

N.K./P.H.: Would you say that the bodies you have created are in some evolutionary sense better that the biological body?

Stelarc: Oh, these augmented and extended bodies are constructed as alternate anatomical architectures. Simultaneously exposing the inadequacies and capabilities of the biological body and exploring how a THIRD HAND, an EXTENDED ARM, a VIRTUAL BODY, a PROSTHETIC HEAD and an EXTRA EAR might alter and adjust the body’s operation and awareness. What is immediately apparent is that it is not a simple process of addition, but also results in subtraction. Giving the right arm an additional hand constrains that arm. Performing as your avatar creates a fluidity and multiplicity but in turn undermines a sense of identity. Making your extra ear a publicly accessible organ for people in other places generates personal problems of privacy. Augmenting does not always mean enhancing. What it does do is expose the radical obsolescence of the body.

N.K./P.H.: Extending your body has often meant intense pain. Where there any moments when you were too afraid or could not stand the pain any more, at which point you were forced to break with your machinic extensions?

Stelarc: Most of the projects and performances have been physically or technically challenging. The project that was especially problematic in both had to do with an insertion, rather than an extension. The STOMACH SCULPTURE was the most difficult to manage as it went beyond painful experience to coping with gagging and feeling ill. The FRACTAL FLESH, PING BODY and PARASITE performances involved involuntary limb motion using a muscle stimulation system, which resulted in “split body” experiences. To generate large movements involved coping with as much as 50 volts of stimulation. That was quite difficult to manage over a period of several days or even several hours. The body has been exposed as obsolete, empty, invaded and involuntary in many of its actions. The “split body” experiences of having half of your body performing involuntarily (either prompted by people in other places or by fluctuating data from the internet) undermines notions of a single agency and control. The body performs with a posture of indifference- as opposed to expectation. With expectation the possibilities quickly collapse into actualities. Everything quickly becomes predictable. Being indifferent allows the action to unfold in its own way and with its own rhythm. And in retrospect the SUSPENSION performances have been a strategy to physically exhaust the body, to expose its inadequacies. With all these activities, there was always a fine line between doing and not doing them. But generally the performance occurred in the way it was conceived.

N.K./P.H.: In your work it is fascinating how the individuality of the body is being lost, while the multiplicity of connections with machinic agents is being brought to the forefront. Could you describe how the experiences you have been through in your performances have changed your own identity as a white, male, Australian artist?

Stelarc: Hmm, there has always been a question of what constitutes an individual. And certainly in these projects and performance the notion of the individual is queried. I would though like to make a distinction between individuality and individuation. Increasing interconnectedness might enhance individuality but not meaningfully affect our individuation. Discourses of the individual, of gender and of cultural identity have not been prominent in these projects and performances. That’s not to deny the importance of these for others. Only that these have not been factors in evaluating any change in this body. Nonetheless, what does become apparent is not any affirmation but rather of a problematizing of these categories. Being born in Cyprus, growing up in Australia, having lived in Japan for 20 years and married to a Mexican girl for 20 years and now constantly traveling undermines any meaningful sense of identity or attachment.

N.K./P.H.: There is a strange fascination and fear with the prospect of machines becoming completely autonomous. What has happened to the “Prosthetic Head” since 2004? Has it or any other parts you have built work become more autonomous after taking part in your performances?

Stelarc: We still perpetuate Frankensteinian and Faustian concerns in the way we use technology. Perhaps we should not characterize the emergence of autonomous (and intelligent) machines as neither especially fascinating nor something to fear. Rather, it makes evolutionary, operational and ontological sense. Yes, this may generate new anxieties and uncertainties. But also new possibilities. Chimeric architectures of alternate awareness and operations are a post-evolutionary imperative. Humans need to be challenged by thinking machines, replicants and robots! Perhaps what it means to be human is not to remain human in this form and with these functions. It may be plausible that future projects become increasingly interactive and autonomous. The PROSTHETIC HEAD was engineered in 2002, first shown in 2003. It is now the basis for the THINKING HEAD project, one funded by the Australian Research Council. This 5-year research involves a number of universities in Australia, Germany and Denmark, led by Denis Burnham at the MARCS Labs at the University of Western Sydney. The general aims are to construct a higher fidelity 3D head model that would be capable of better lip syncing and facial expressions. With a modular software architecture that would facilitate the plugging in of new capabilities, and to have more feedback of the user and the world with sound and vision systems for location of the user in the space, head tracking, face recognition and mood detection. This will result in a more interactive and seductive agent. And perhaps one that might be considered autonomous and intelligent in modest ways.