by Carlhole » Sat 19 May 2007, 01:31:42
Stelarc, posthumanist and artist, implants "third ear" inside his arm
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BoingBoing.net', 'E')arlier this year, Stelarc finally found a medical doctor willing to implant a cell-cultivated ear beneath the skin on the artist's forearm.
The resulting body-mod is shown here. Photo by Nina Sellars, who is also married to the artist.
Stelarc is apparently planning to go through a few more surgeries to give it more definition.
"He's also going to implant a mic inside the ear that will connect to a bluetooth transmitter, so the ear can broadcast audio from the internet wirelessly," explains former BB guestblogger and sometimes Stelarc collaborator Karen Marcelo. "That Stelarc, always got something up his sleeve! He likes to say that too. "
Stelarc in Ritopek$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BoingBoing.net', 'M')ost people in Belgrade have never heard of Stelarc and just vaguely know of Ritopek.
I met Stelarc last week in Athens, where I listened to his literally heartbreaking presentation on the obsolete human condition and the body's failure to follow the technological arc of his cyber-desires.
He spoke of breaking the boundaries between death and life by preserving bodies in plastic, by repairing bodies with 3D fabricated artificial organs, of unborn future people grown in vitro outside the wombs of women.
The linear analog counting of our lifespans will cease; we will not longer tread a natural path from life to death... We must find a different, truer way of talking and living.
Humans have always feared themselves and their capacities, in past, in present, and in future: man is an obsolete body in the space of The Other.
Very postmodern: very posthuman...