The Comatose, the Cadaver, and the Chimera: Alternate Anatomical Architectures
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 has developed and performed with a Third Hand, a Virtual Arm, a Virtual Body and a Stomach Sculpture. He has done 25 body Suspensions with insertions into the skin. Projects such as Fractal Flesh and Ping Body have explored remote access to the body's muscular and nervous systems. Recent projects include the Extra Ear, the Extended Arm, Exoskeleton and a Motion Prosthesis - an intelligent, compliant servo-mechanism that enables the performance of precise, repetitive and accelerated programming of the arms in real time.
In 1995, Stelarc received a three-year fellowship from the Visual Arts/Craft Board of the Australia Council. In 1997, he was appointed Honorary Professor of Art and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University. In 1998, he was artist-in-residence for Hamburg City. In 1999, he was re-appointed as a Senior Research Scholar for the Faculty of Art and Design at the Nottingham Trent University. In 2000 he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Monash University. His artwork is represented by the Sherman Galleries in Sydney. ( from Australian Center for the Moving Image )