stelarc

Stelarc is a performance artist who uses technological advances to enhance the human body.
He believes the body is obsolete -- which means the body is out of date and useless.
Most of his performances include mutating his body using some form of technology or futuristic idea. He has added a third mechanical arm to his body. He has implanted a third ear on himself.
Stelarc the Monograph is a compilation of essays taking a critical look at his art.
Ch 1
Jane Goodall writes that Stelarc believes "we have brought ourselves to an evolutionary crisis point by generating a technological environment to which we cannot effectively adapt as a purely biological species." (1)
This relates to the World Transhumanist link. This organization is made up of advocates for researching technological advances that can better human life.
This idea is hard for people to grasp because it has been embedded in us through media that the advancement of technology leads to the destruction of the human race. The "paranoid scenario" has stigmitized the development of human-related technology.
Stelarc believes that technology is considered an environment and that the human bodies will be unfit for this enviorment without technological evolution.
He wants to create "hybrid humans" with the "organic and synthetic coming together." He belives that this "parasitic relationship" goes both ways.
The fear of extinction motivated Stelarc's imagination.
The third hand was operated by EMG signals from the abdominal muscles and encorporated a feedback system to create the sense of touch.
He also suspended his entire body by hooks through his skin surrounded by natural objects, such as rocks.
Stelarc's goal is unlike Darwanism because he is attempting to eliminate the struggle between technology and human life. He wants to make them work together.
Avatar: an emissary from a transcendent world--a diety incarnate or a spiritual emanation. Mythologically, it can take the guise of an uncanny double. When avatars break into the "virtual world" hysteria usually ensues. Stelar believes the opposite--"the body performs best as its image."
He split his nervous system so that one side of his body was not controlled by him. He had it wired to a touch screen in a different country and they were controlling it. He later did this via random Internet Activity.
Stelarc believes we must abandon agency, consciousness, and deliberation as we know them to evolve.
Fear and terror, however, are the least controllable instinctual reactions -- and these emotions are conjured through Stelarc's work because it breaks the idea of a "self."
Stelarc also plans to create a "talking head." It is an avatar that greets a person before they speak and then adapts the conversation--sort of like Eliza.