Stelarc has used medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, virtual reality systems and the internet to explore alternate, intimate and involuntary interfaces with the body.Stelarc performs with a third hand, a virtual arm, a virtual body and a stomach sculpture. He has acoustically and visually probed the body by amplifying brainwaves, blood-flow and muscle signals, and filmed the inside of his lungs, stomach and colon (approximately two metres of internal space). Using internet connectivity performances such as Ping Body and Parasite probe notions of telematic scaling and the engineering of external, extended and virtual nervous systems for the body. Recently he completed Exoskeleton a pneumatically powered 6-legged walking machine actuated by arm gestures. Current projects include the Extra Ear - a surgically constructed ear as an additional facial feature that, coupled with a modem and a wearable computer, will act as an internet antenna, able to hear RealAudio™ sounds. Movatar is an intelligent avatar that will be able to perform in the real world by possessing a physical body. It will have a sound feedback loop from the body giving the virtual entity an ear in the world. Extended Arm consists of a manipulator with eleven degrees-of-freedom that extends his arm to primate proportions and a Motion Prosthesis - an intelligent, compliant servo-mechanism that enables the performance of precise, repetitive and accelerated prompting or programming of the arms in real-time.
In 1995 Stelarc received a three year Fellowship from the Australia Council and in 1997 he was appointed Honorary Professor of Art and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University. In 1999 he was appointed as a Senior Research Scholar for the Faculty of Art and Design at the Nottingham Trent University, and in 2003 became Principal Research Fellow in the Performance Arts Digital Research Unit there. In the spring of 2006 he was appointed Professor in the School of Arts at Brunel University.
Image credits: Stelarc, Walking Head Robot, 2003; Blender, 2005 www.stelarc.va.com.au
Thanks to ANAT (the Australian Network for Art and Technology) for their support
 Artist's website www.stelarc.va.com.au
Media release pdf
Opening night - EAF social page - hotter than the Advertiser!
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