Stelarc

Stelarc is the most celebrated artist in the world working within technology and thevisual arts. He is both an artist and a phenomenon, using his body as medium and exhibition space.Working in the interface between the body and the machine, employing virtual reality, robotics,medical instruments, prosthetics, and the Internet, Stelarc's art includes physical acts that don'talways look survivable -- or, as science fiction novelist William Gibson puts it in his foreword,"sometimes seem to include the possibility of terminality."Stelarc's projects include Third Hand, agrasping and wrist rotating mechanism with a rudimentary sense of touch that is attached to theartist and activated by EMG from other body areas; Amplified Body, in which the artist performsacoustically with his brainwaves, muscles, pulse, and blood flow signals; and the Stomach Sculpture,a device -- or "aesthetic adornment" -- placed in the artist's stomach and presented through video.Works in progress include the Extra Ear Project, a soft prosthesis of skin and cartilage to beconstructed on the artist's arm. Stelarc's work both reflects and determines new directions inperformance art and body art. Although there have been hundreds of articles written about Stelarcsince he began performing in the late 1960s, Stelarc: The Monograph is the first comprehensive studyof Stelarc's work practice in over thirty years. Gathering a range of writers who approach the workfrom a variety of perspectives, it includes William Gibson's account of his meetings with Stelarc,Arthur and Marilouise Kroker's emphatic "WE ARE ALL STELARCS NOW," and Stelarc himself inconversation with Marquard Smith. Taken together, these writers give us a multiplicity of ways tothink about Stelarc.

William Gibson is the author of many books, including Neuromancer and, most recently, Pattern Recognition.