He pioneered the frontiers of the human body, using his own as a medium and exhibition space– a body that "sometimes seems to include the possibility of terminality" (William Gibson). Artist, icon, a phenomenon, and honoured internationally as a distinguished scholar and researcher, Stelarc continues to open up new scenarios in the understanding of the human body related to our time. He has performed with a Third Hand, an Extended Arm and with 6-legged walking robots. He is surgically constructing and stem cell growing an ear on his arm. Working in the interface between the body and the machine, employing virtual reality, robotics, medical instruments, prosthetics, the Internet and biotechnology, Stelarc is among the most celebrated artists in the world working in the field of technology applied to visual arts.
(Documentary) Stelarc explains how he has visually probed and acoustically amplified his body. Using medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, Virtual Reality systems, the Internet and biotechnology, Stelarc explores Alternative Anatomical Architectures with augmented and extended body constructs.
RECLINING STICKMAN is a 9m long robot, actuated by antagonistically bundled pneumatic rubber muscles. Visitors at the AGSA can insert their own choreography from a control panel. Anyone, anywhere at any time can remotely access and actuate the robot. A background algorithm intermittently animates the robot if no one intervenes. The droning motor sounds, the solenoid clicks and the muscles compressing and contracting, extending and exhausting are amplified, registering the limb motions and extending the physical presence of the robot. STELARC performed for 5 hours continuously positioned on the torso of the robot on Saturday 29 Feb 2020, 11.30 am – […]
EAR ON ARM SUSPENSION is a performance where the body is suspended above a 4m long sculpture. 16 hooks were inserted along the back of the torso, arms and legs to equally distribute the body’s weight. As it was winched up, the body assumed its full weight, stretching its skin. Because of the braided steel cable untwisting as it assumed the full weight, it begins to untwist and the body begins to spin, first one way and then the other. What was first imagined as a 5-minute performance ended up being 15 minutes. The performance was about a counterpoint in scale. […]
This is an interactive, online performance that explores the physiological and aesthetic experience of a fragmented, distributed, de-synchronized, distracted and involuntary body – wired and under surveillance. Wearing a heads-up display, the artist sees with the eyes of someone in London, and hears with the ears of someone in New York, whilst simultaneously, anyone, anywhere can program the exoskeleton with a touch-screen interface and generate involuntary movements of his right arm. The performance was for 5 days, 6 hours a day continuously. His vision was disconnected from his hearing and his arm was disconnected from his intention. It is as if […]
This is a performance where the body’s trajectory, velocity and position/orientation in space were choreographed by a 6-degree-of-freedom industrial robot arm operating within a 3m diameter task envelope. The resulting sound of the robot motors registers the kind of movement, acoustically amplifying the choreography. The programming was done offline and then transferred to the robot controller. The performance was done with one of the programmers having his thumb on the kill switch, in case the robot did something unexpectedly. The body and the robot become one interactive and aesthetic operational and performing system. When the choreography was completed, the body was […]
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