00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:16 On Suspension Performances
00:10:38 On Representation and Replicas
00:18:54 On Surveillance and Inside the Body
00:25:21 On Space and Time
00:31:12 On the Future
00:36:54 On Freedom and Constraints
00:43:28 On Technological Dependence
00:47:10 On Presence and the Human
00:51:25 On Embodiment
00:55:15 On Art and Performance
00:58:28 On Documentation and Reenactment
01:02:14 On Utopia and Dystopia
01:04:29 On Robot Performances
01:09:46 On Interactivity
01:16:27 On a More Radical Anatomy
01:18:32 On Birth and Death
01:21:11 Credits
In the fifth episode of our momentum series titled, “How to Augment, Insert and Interface?”, Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage) talks with artist Stelarc about his major performance works and his vision and understanding of the human body. The two artists elegantly slide through the sciences of biology, physics and engineering, to philosophy confronting existential questions about notions of space, time, freedom and ultimately: life and death. They examine and interrogate representations and replicas, technology and the illusion of agency. They see the human in an evolutionary oscillation between the actual and the virtual, within comparative anatomies and the possibilities and limits of the biological body.
Stelarc is a Cyprus-born Australian performance artist whose works focus on augmenting and amplifying the capabilities of the human body. Most of his projects are centred on his concept that “the human body is obsolete”. Stelarc pioneered the frontiers of the human body, using his own body as both a medium of expression and as a host for a work of art. Artist, phenomenon, and articulate thinker, Stelarc continues to generate new scenarios speculating about the body in the technological terrain that it now inhabits. His radical performances often involve sophisticated technological devices, prosthetics, robotics, the internet, virtuality and biotechnology integrated with his body. In numerous performances, he has suspended himself in flesh hook suspensions, and in 2006 he had an ear surgically constructed and cell-grown on his left arm. In 2010 he was awarded the Ars Electronica Golden Nica Hybrid Arts Prize. In 2015 he received the Australia Council’s Emerging and Experimental Arts Award. Stelarc’s artwork is represented by the Scott Livesey Galleries in Melbourne, Australia.
Welcome to the momentum of autumn 2021.
