Stelarc is possibly one of the most prolific artists in the history of body suspension, and also has a very important place when it comes to body modification and prosthetics. He’s influenced my mode of thought when it comes to body suspension as an art form, more than almost any other person in the medium. Having started exploring things like suspension, robotics, and body hacking as early as the 1960s, he is a pioneer across both the art world, and academia.
Stelarc’s thesis is based around the idea that the human body is obsolete. This is a loaded concept, and he approaches the mind-body puzzle from more of a scientific perspective, as opposed to a spiritual one. While his installation work has always been centered around pushing boundaries both physically and mentally, he has also explored even more obscure things like jamming a freaking prosthetic ear in his arm. Why would he do that? Read about it here. The man is a walking piece of experimental art.
One of the wildest things this guy has done, is drive around an exoskeleton with 6 pneumatic arms. This crazy looking shit was back in 2003, and it was awesome, but is predated by literally decades of his explorations into prosthetics and robotics. What always stands out to me about his work is that he naturally collaborates with other; programmers, skin mechanics like myself, and media teams as well, you name it, he’s worked with them. A true performance artist, in my humble opinion.
I am lucky enough to say that I got to work on one of his projects (co-led by my dear friend Håvve Fjell), in 2013: “Shadow Suspension.” While I was not involved with the suspension aspects of this performance/installation, I set up all of the live streaming for the event. An honor, truly.
Be sure to google the fuck out of this guy, it’s pretty crazy how much he has done across so many decades now. What are some artists that you can think of that have explored strange corners of creativity like he has? Drop a comment!