Alternate Anatomical Architectures: The Cadaver, The Comatose, and The Chimera

Speaker
Stelarc
Professor and Performance Artist, School of Arts, Brunel University

When
-

Where
Gates and Hillman Centers 4401 (Rashid Auditorium)

Description

Flesh is circulating. Organs are extracted and exchanged. The blood flowing in my body today might be flowing in your body tomorrow (if you are 0+). Limbs detached from a dead body can be reanimated on a living body. Ova are fertilized by sperm that was once frozen. The skin cells from an impotent male can now become sperm cells. And more interestingly there is the possibility that the skin cells from female bodies can be re-engineered into sperm cells. The face of a donor body becomes a third face on the recipient. Cadavers can be preserved forever with plastination whilst comatose bodies can be sustained indefinitely on life-support systems. Cryogenically suspended bodies await reanimation at some imagined future. The dead, the near-dead, and the yet to be born now exist simultaneously. And if body parts can be stem-cell grown or Organ Printed, then organs will be in abundance. Organs will be in excess. There will be organs awaiting bodies. Organs Without Bodies. This is the age of the Cadaver, the Comatose and the Chimera. The Chimera is the body that performs with mixed realities. A biological body, augmented with technology and managing data streams in virtual systems. Liminal spaces proliferate, blurring what it means to be a body and whether it is any longer meaningful to remain human. Perhaps what it means to be human is not to remain human at all.

Speaker's Bio

Stelarc has used medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, Virtual Reality systems, the Internet and biotechnology to explore alternate, intimate and involuntary interfaces with the body. He has performed with a THIRD HAND, a VIRTUAL ARM, a STOMACH SCULPTURE and EXOSKELETON, a 6-legged walking robot. His PROSTHETIC HEAD is an embodied conversational agent that speaks to the person who interrogates it. He is surgically constructing an EAR ON ARM that will be internet enabled. In 1997 he was appointed Honorary Professor of Art and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. In 2003 he was awarded an Honorary Degree of Laws by Monash University. He received a New Projects grant from the Australia Council in 2010 to develop a micro-robot. Last year he was also awarded the Prix Ars Electronica Hybrid Arts Prize. He is currently Chair in Performance Art, School of Arts, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UK. He is also Senior Research Fellow and Visiting Artist at the MARCS Auditory Labs at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. Stelarc’s artwork is represented by the SCOTT LIVESEY GALLERIES in Melbourne.

Speaker's Website
http://stelarc.org/?catID=20247

Host
Steven Dow