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Join the SSN Data Cultures stream and performance artist Stelarc as he presents" Excess and Indifference: Embodiment, aliveness and agency"
The SSN Data Cultures stream is thrilled to welcome Stelarc to present a seminar at Deakin Downtown on 10 October. After his talk, Stelarc will be in discussion with Professor Stefan Greuter. The seminar will also be streamed to YouTube Live, at this link. Please register for in-person or online attendence.
EXCESS AND INDIFFERENCE: Embodiment, Aliveness and Agency
The body in excess has become a contemporary chimera of meat, metal and code. Subjectively, the body experiences itself as an extruded system, rather than an enclosed structure. We continuously slide between offline and online worlds, navigating from physical nano-scales to virtual non-places. The body increasingly inhabits abstract realms of the highly hypothetical and of streaming subjectivity. The self becomes situated beyond the skin, and the body is emptied. But this emptiness is not an emptiness of lack but rather a radical emptiness through excess. An emptiness from the extrusion and extension of its capabilities, its augmented sensory antennae and its increasingly remote functioning. What becomes important is not merely the body’s identity, but its connectivity – not its mobility or location, but its interface. What it means to be human is perhaps not to remain human at all. In this age of body hacking, gene mapping, prosthetic augmentation, organ swapping, face transplants and synthetic skin, what it means to be a body and what it means to be human and what generates aliveness and agency becomes problematic. At the time when the individual body is threatened existentially by fatally being infected by biological viruses, the human species is confronted by the more pervasive and invasive ontological risk of infection by its techno-digital artifacts and entities.
Brief Biographical notes: Stelarc
Stelarc’s projects explore alternative anatomical architectures. He has performed with a Third Hand, a Stomach Sculpture and a 6-legged walking robot. In Fractal Flesh his body was remotely choreographed using muscle stimulation. In 2006 an ear was surgically constructed on his arm. In 2016, for Re-Wired/Re-Mixed, for 6 hours every day for 5 ays, he could only see with the eyes of someone on London, could only hear with the ears of someone in NY, but anyone, anywhere could access his right arm and remotely actuate it. Commissioned for the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Reclining StickMan is a 9m long, 4m high robot that is algorithmically actuated and can be remotely controlled with online interactivity. He has exhibited and performed in Asia, Europe, USA, Mexico and Brazil. In 1996 he was made an Honorary Professor of Art and Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University and in 2002 was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws by Monash University. In 2010 he was awarded the Ars Electronica Golden Nica Hybrid Arts Prize. In 2015 he received the Australia Council’s Emerging and Experimental Arts Award. In 2016 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Ionian University, Corfu. And in 2023 he received an Honorary Doctorate from the Academy of Fine Arts, Krakow. www.stelarc.org
Discussant Bio: Stefan Greuter
Stefan Greuter is a Professor of Screen and Design and Director of the Deakin Motion Lab at Deakin University, Melbourne. His research blends game design, immersive screen experiences, and emerging technologies to create impactful applications in serious games and user experiences. With a proven ability to build transdisciplinary academic teams, Stefan leads a talented group of researchers and professionals, translating cutting-edge research into practical industry solutions. His work focuses on designing immersive and mixed reality user experiences through strategic collaboration with leaders in academia and industry.
Event Contact:
ssn-info@deakin.edu.auShare