Performance artist Stelarc profiled in the NYT

The New York Times has published an article about one of my favorite people on the planet, the Australian performance artist Stelarc. His art focuses heavily on futurism and extending the capabilities of the human body, and as such, most of his pieces are centered around his concept that the human body is obsolete. From the article:

The body, however, has its ways of fighting back against the 5-year, or 500-year plans of its owners. Geneticists report that our own genes are still evolving, to what end, no one can guess. No supercomputer can yet predict from simply reading a sequence of A’s, C’s, T’s and G’s that make up a genetic code what creature will emerge.

The progression to postnatural history may be a painful birth if the experience of Stelarc, 62, who splits his time between Brunel University in West London and the University of Western Sydney in Australia, is any example. The body, he says, is obsolete and needs to map its “post-evolutionary strategies.”

To that end, Stelarc has outfitted himself at times with an extra hand (nonsurgically), swallowed a camera that would explore the sculpture of his stomach and hung himself in the air on hooks. For a show called “Fractal Flesh,” he wired half his body, in Luxembourg, up to muscle stimulation equipment that could be controlled by computers in Paris, Helsinki and Amsterdam. The result, he told an interviewer later, “was a split body experience.”

The ear on his arm, he said, is a work in progress that has required a couple of surgeries so far. It took him 12 years to find the doctors and the financing, which was provided by the Discovery Channel as part of a series in experimental surgery, to do the work.

Read the entire NYT article.

As an aside, I had the great pleasure of meeting Stelarc when he keynoted at TransVision 2004. Unlike the anti-social Steve Mann (who also gave a keynote presentation), he stayed and mingled with the conference attendees for the entire weekend -- he's a very warm and approachable guy. He was even in attendance for my talk on working the conscious canvas, which was a great honour (yes, I'm a fanboy).

Cyber-mermaid

This image of the amputee mermaid is all over the place, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to post it on my blog. For many transhumanists, this is a dream come true. More here and here.

Totally cool electronic tattoo display powered by blood

This wireless blood-fueled display was recently shown at the Greener Gadgets Design Competition. It's a subcutaneously implanted touch-screen that operates as a cell phone display, with the potential for 3G video calls that are visible just underneath the skin. It's powered by a fuel cell that converts the energy found in blood.

One way to become a cyborg

Now that's what I call a radical body modification.

Stelarc's third ear

Stelarc has been talking about this for years, and now I see that he's actually done it:




Marcelo (aka k0re) writes: "Stelarc [is] going to implant a mic that will connect to a bluetooth transmitter to connect the ear to the internet! and another surgery to give the ear more definition."

Stelarc's talk at Transmediale

Stelarc's recent talk at Transmediale has been covered at We Make Money Not Art.

Stelarc is an Australian performance artist who uses medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, virtual reality systems and the Internet to explore alternate, intimate and involuntary interfaces with the body.

As an aside, I had the great pleasure of meeting Stelarc when he keynoted at TransVision 2004. Unlike the anti-social Steve Mann (who also gave a keynote presentation), he stayed and mingled with the conference attendees for the entire weekend -- he's a very warm and approachable guy. He was even in attendance for my talk on working the conscious canvas, which was a great honour.

I suspect that Stelarc go down as one of the greatest visionary artists of our time.

Certain minds and certain bodies

I'm the kind of person who learns by doing. This blog is largely a place for me to think out loud as I figure things out and formulate my arguments and opinions. It's not uncommon for me to change my mind about some things, or to be persuaded by someone else's arguments.

I also learn from my mistakes. I don't like having to learn that way, of course -- who does? But the Buddhist in me often welcomes these types of negative experiences; I know full well that I'll find something of value and grow from the experience.

Which brings me to the topic of this post, which has to do with one of the arguments I made in defense of the Ashley Treatment. In my article, Helping Families Care for the Helpless, I stated,

"...the treatments will endow her with a body that more closely matches her cognitive state – both in terms of her physical size and bodily functioning. The estrogen treatment is not what is grotesque here. Rather, it is the prospect of having a full-grown and fertile woman endowed with the mind of a baby."

This quote was strewn across the media soon after the Ashley X story broke. While it made for a provocative sound bite, I have since changed my mind about this particular argument.

Now, that said, I want to reiterate that I am still absolutely in support of the Ashley Treatment; what I am retracting here is this specific line of reasoning.

It is inaccurate to suggest that certain minds go with certain bodies. As a proponent of neurodiversity and morphological freedoms, I am in favour of the notion that different minds can be mixed and matched with different bodies. Moreover, it is arbitrary and inappropriate to suggest that that a particular psychological state 'belongs' with a particular morphology. Thus, the suggestion that Ashley's body should be modified such that it better 'matches' her cognitive state (which is that of a 3-month old) is unjustified.

Other arguments in support of the Ashley Treatment, such as increased levels of comfort, safety and health, are clearly more relevant to the issue, as are such factors as personhood considerations and caregivers' rights.

Thanks go out to Anne Corwin and James Hughes for engaging me in this discussion.

"You are the platform"

Journalist Quinn Norton recently gave a talk at the 23rd Chaos Communication Congress which took place in Berlin during the first week of January 2007. Her presentation was titled, "Body hacking - Functional body modification. You are the platform."

From her presentation description,

How society is likely to react to enhancement technologies or enhanced humans? Early adopters face dangers including pain, disfigurement, and death- how will that shape progress? Technology and flesh are going to come together, but will they come together in you? Bring your own stories of modification, and you own ideas about what constitutes post human- and whether that's a good or bad thing.

A number of years ago Norton had a magnet implanted in the tip of one of her fingers -- an idea that was pioneered by the likes of Jesse Jarrell and Steve Haworth. She started to sense electro-magnetic fields, she could feel her laptop's hard drive spinning, she could could tell if an electrical cord was live, and feel running motors and security devices. The implant endowed her, for all intents and purposes, with a sixth sense.

For her lecture, Norton tackled a number of issues that touched upon the therapy versus enhancement debate. To reveal the arbitrariness of therapy v. enhancement, she noted such advancements as LASIK (laser eye surgery), stomach staples (to prevent obesity), Modafinil (sleep replacement pharma), and IUDs (intrauterine devices). Loooking forward, Quinn described the potential for such things as tooth phone implants and neural pacemakers.

As a pro-enhancement advocate, Norton also warned about the need for medical tourism and a rising black market. She is equally concerned that only the sick will receive treatment while soldiers get enhanced. Norton asks, " How do we create a non-medical human-market for altering ourselves?"

Read more here. Check out some of her slides here.