ATC Lecture: Stelarc (Performance Artist, Melbourne): The Comatose, the Cadaver, and the Chimera April 2, 2012

Flesh is circulating. Organs are extracted and exchanged. 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 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 abundence. 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. Perhaps what it means to be human is not to remain human at all.

Stelarc is an Australian artist who has performed extensively in Japan, Europe and the USA, in a range of contexts including new music, dance and media art festivals, and experimental theatre. He has used medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, virtual reality systems and the internet to explore alternate, intimate and involuntary interfaces with the body. He was a Senior Research Fellow at MARCS Auditory Labs from 2006-2011 with the THINKING HEAD project. He is Chair in Performance Art, Brunel University London. In 2010 he was awarded the Ars Electronica Hybrid Arts Prize. Stelarc's artwork is represented by SCOTT LIVESEY GALLERIES, Melbourne.

The ATC series is produced by the Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM), with support from the Office of the Vice Chancellor and Provost, and the Center for Information Technology in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). Additional support provided by Meyer Sound, Theo Armour, and Tom Delay.

Official Website: http://bcnm.berkeley.edu