Stelarc

Stelarc's Handswriting "Evolution"

Maki Gallery, Tokio, 22 May 1982. Photo by Akiro Okada

“…Working in the interface between the body and the machine, he employs virtual reality, robotics, medical instruments, prosthetics, the Internet and biotechnology. Stelarc’s art includes physical acts that don’t always look survivable-or as science fiction novelist William Gibson puts it in his foreword, “sometimes seem to include the possibility of terminality.” (From Stelarc, The Monograph, The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 2005)

Is the actor, artist, filmmaker, farmer, soldier, different in any fundamental way in terms of the reality of his/her life? Are the players of online games, a stripper in Second Life, an Ebay entrepreneur, living a life less “real” than the banker, the Jihadist or the Olympic marathon runner? And if so, what or where is the difference? Is it in the space where the performance takes place, is it the intensity of pain or pleasure or the time spent in a particular activity that defines reality? if not, then what? How is performance different from real life (RL)? How is RL different from virtual life (VL)? How do both coexist? Other than questions of embodiment, which many theoreticians deal with, they are in a certain way indistinguishable from each other. In Koyaanisqatski, architectfilmmaker Godfrey Reggio evidences how humans are part of the pattern or flow of information that constitutes the world at large. The utilization of technical means such as high speed or time-lapse photography allows Reggio to discover and reveal those things that make us who we are in the time and place where we find ourselves, in this “life out- of-balance”.

From "Roboethics and Performance"
Arturo Sinclair, Krems 2008

Noosphere

The material basis [of science] has directed attention

to things as opposed to values.

We look for the creation of a nonhuman type

Unhindered by morality, tenderness, or internal volition—

It is the perfect slave and the perfect soldier.

Artificial systems of perception and cognition are melded together

In this meeting and conjoining of minds and machines,

the distinction between them offers a starting point for developing

a more subtle understanding of the profound implications-

“You could almost feel the pulse of the other person …

it was uncannily human-like—the sensation of sinews and muscle—

not at all like feeling a machine.”

Telerobotics employs the terminology of “master” and “slave”

to describe the relationship between

The artist,

the active human agent who issues instructions,

and Galatea,

the passive mechanical apparatus that executes them.

The emotional and intellectual impact of this

is difficult to grasp without experiencing it directly.

The affective power of such virtual exchanges

was conceived to create a “planetary fairytale”,

questioning therefore our premises in conceiving.

One participant reported feeling rejected.



The user’s remote location can protect her

from dangerous environmental conditions

like the Surrealists’ game poetically revealed.

Aspects of traditional narrative structure may remain,

civilization [may] never recover.


The following is a response to some of the recent course readings,
including the Ascott article, the Keep article, the Hayles article, and
others. This poem was created using the “cut-up method” and the
Shanken article, "NeMe: Tele-Agency: Telematics, Telerobotics, and
the Art of Meaning".