| John Armitage on Fri, 14 Apr 2000 10:10:09 +0200 (CEST) |
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| [Nettime-bold] FW: [CSL]: A-R-C: Stelarc Interview |
-----Original Message-----
From: John Armitage
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2000 9:06 AM
To: 'cyber-society-live@mailbase.ac.uk'
Subject: [CSL]: A-R-C: Stelarc Interview
Hi all
The new issue of a-r-c is out.
See below for contents and a new interview with the cybernetic performance
artist Stelarc.
John
===========================
From: a-r-c [mailto:vas01arc@gold.ac.uk]
Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2000 8:38 PM
To: a-r-c@gold.ac.uk
Subject: Stelarc Interview
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########################
PRESS RELEASE
########################
13 April 2000
An interview of Stelarc by Yiannis Melanitis has been added to the
-reference- section of a-r-c
<http://a-r-c.gold.ac.uk/reference.html#articles>
The interview took place in Athens, Greece, as part of the first
performances
by Stelarc in Greece.
Yiannis Melanitis invited and curated Stelarc presentations in Greece.
-----------------------------------------------
a-r-c
journal of art research and critical curating
URL: http://a-r-c.gold.ac.uk
e-mail: a-r-c@gold.ac.uk
editor: Poli Cárdenas
e-mail: p.cardenas@gold.ac.uk
====================================================================
Stelarc: interview by Yiannis Melanitis
November 1999
Yiannis Melanitis. OK Stelarc, it's nice to meet in Greece
Stelarc. Thanks
YM. First let's talk about the body, which you consider as an
overloaded space of information that reacts in a spasmodic
way... You have talked about the realisation of the moment
that the body becomes obsolete. Do you consider this
rgalisation as a start, as the beginning of something?
S. Well, I think that in enduring all of these performances what
became apparent was the obsolescence of the body. Not to see
the body as a means by which you could be empowered but
rather as a structure that has physiological and psychological
limitations. The experience of doing the performances was the
realisation that the body was obsolete. Doing these actions you
didn't have the experience that you were empowering the human
body or that these were some kind of pseudo-scientific
explorations of the body. Rather these performances revealed the
psychological and physical limitations.
So, for those reasons the body is obsolete. But you are looking at
a body now that if its' internal temperature varies three or four
degrees it's in serious health risk, if it loses 10% of it's body
fluids
it's dead! So the body's survival parameters are very slim. The
body can only live minutes without air, a week without water, may
be a month without food. It only averages 70 years in good health
and it's a problem if you are already 50!
-----(Laughter)
| top |
YM. After all, how do you experience yourself inside these
constructed environments you create, as a part of data flux
or as a conscious operator?
S. Although the"earlier performances were physically difficult, the
more recent ones are technically complex and when the body is
plugged into this complex system of feedback loops, of images of
data, when the body is being hard-wired to the machinery then, at
it's more successful moments, there is a kind of synergistic
symbiosis where you really do lose a sense of self and become
part of this operating system and the body. Then, in this flux of
data flow, the body is immersed in these images, the body is
directing the movements of a six-legged walking machine or even
being the host for an internal sculpture. There were moments in
those performances where the technology and the body came
together to form one coherent and collaborating system of parts...
YM. ... a cyborg...
S. Well, that's right... I mean... instead of saying a "cyborg"
though as a kind of medical-military model, as a kind of
Terminator 2 cyborg, as a body with its organs ripped out and
replaced by technological parts, imagine a cyborg being rather a
multiplicity of bodies spatially separated but electronically
connected to other bodies in other places, with the Internet as a
crude external nervous system. And in this way a cyborg body
becomes this extended operational system of collaborating parts.
| top |
YM. So, can we"speak for the "intent of the cyborg"? I mean,
where is the intent when you do not exactly realise where
the data is coming from, is it from the inside or the outside?
S. Well, the thing is, of course, it's an interesting question
because I've always felt that making a decision of human intention
or human agency is not the simple decision made by an
ego-driven body. In other words, is it meaningful to consider
locating the mind inside a body anymore? And, even more
radically, is it meaningful to consider having a mind at all, in the
traditional metaphysical sense? So we can construct intelligence
and awareness as not necessarily something that happens in your
body or inside my body but rather that which happens between us
in the medium of the language within which we communicate, in
the social institutions within which we operate, in the cultures that
we've been conditioned to at this point of time in our history and
so on... and that depends on our point of view or frame of
reference. So the issue of choice, the issue of free agency is a
questionable one!
We've always been afraid of zombies because seemingly they
have no mind of their own, they perform involuntarilyS they may
be controlled by someone else. We also are very anxious about
the idea of the cyborg, which is a body that"is increasingly
automated, mechanised, so we fear the zombie, we fear the
cyborg, but we actually fear what we have always been and what
we have already become.
| top |
YM. There have been major advances in robotics in the
previous years. However, this huge progress seems to have
slowed down at present, probably because all essential
steps have already been achieved. You consider the cyborg
as a system that interacts in an environment of new
experiences. So extending my previous question, could you
speak for the "consciousness" of the cyborg"?
S. Well, I don't think, I mean... with the speculation you shouldn¹t
see it as a kind of "either/or" situation... and it is speculation;
it is
not a dogmatic formulation of some utopian vision. In other words,
when we talk about re-designing the body, when we talk about the
idea of the cyborg, it can have many forms and other functions,
so one scenario is the medical-military idea of the cyborg body,
another one is the cyborg system that I talked about... of remotely
connected and collaborating bodies.
There is another one where micro-miniaturised technology, you
know, in the form of nano-machines, micro-miniaturised
technology that can be inserted inside the body... and in that
situation a lot of technology in tje future will be invisible because
it
will be inside the body. The body will become a host for
micro-miniaturised machines, the body becomes a host, not only
for virus and bacteria but also for a colony of nano-machines. We
can re-colonise the human body. We can construct better
surveillance systems for the interior structure, for this alternate
body that becomes a host. The body becomes the landscape of
machines, machines are no longer in the human horizon but
within the human body itself.
| top |
YM. Nevertheless the body is still a place that gives
unpredictable outputs, an unpredictable field of possibilities.
Machines, on the contrary, are usually considered to be
quite predictable...
S: Yeah, but some machines are not very predictable...
-----(Laughter)
Well, of course, that's an argument about whether machines could
become truly intelligent or conscious, that machines are, you
know, automated and human beings are unpredictable therefore
human beings might be more creative and human beings might be
more aware. But there is another way of looking at that, you see,
instead of... that is, with the metaphysical assumption that there is
some inner essence in the body. As I said, the other way of
looking at it is to... for example studying insects: insects don't
have big brains but they have survivef the longest. They do this
because they have some hard-wired instinctual behaviour. If a
small robot has a pressure sensor, a proximity sensor, a heat
sensor and a light sensor, if it has those four or five sensors then
it can survive in an unpredictable world with very little brainpower.
How does it do this? Well, if you think of intelligence or if you
think of the complexity of behaviour not being the result of an
internal brain but rather the complexity of the environment that it
inhabits. THE TERRAIN CONTOURS OUR BEHAVIOUR.
So, in other words, the complexity of the real world generates an
unpredictable behaviour in a little insect... and if we see behaviour
in this way, constructed by a complex environment, then a lot of
our problems disappear philosophically.
YM. This seems to be very necessary, you know, nowadays...
S: Yeah...
| top |
YM. So the point is that dealing with "actions instead of
theories" you actually experience something instead of being
an external observer. Wiener talked about a gap between
mechanology and mechanology of communication. Is there a
similar gap in our days between the elgctronic age and the
bio-technological age?
S. We've made increasing advances in our instrumentation and
electronic tools that biotechnology becomes possible. Genetic
splicing becomes a common-day occurrence, [as will] genetic
modification in the future, especially with the genome project, the
mapping of all the human genes - and every day we read about
some new part of the DNA structure that is involved with
Alzheimer's or Huttigton's disease... So I think... I don't see this
as
a kind of discontinuity, I think that the age of mechanical
engineering led to electrical engineering and that made computer
technology possible and therefore more sophisticated software
programming and so on... One doesn't have to see it as a
discontinuity or a dislocation and if we think of those as different
technical strategies rather than thinking about the particular
technologies in themselves then, it's a lot easier to understand.
I mean, technology, I think, comes from the Greek word "tekhne"
meaning "skills", so technology is not just about hardware but
rather a way of skilfully manipulating, a way of technically
modifying, a way of electronically constructing... and, in this way,
biotechnology becomes possible.
| top |
YM. Does this cyborg demonstrate a positive power,
potentially opposed to the passivity thct Christianity
proposes? In one of our previous conversations you told me
you were an atheist.
S. Well, yes. The more and more I do the less, I think, I have a
mind of my own. Certainly the idea of a self or a soul recedes
further into the background and, I guess, if you can explain the
world without resorting to fanciful theories then you should. I feel
a lot of our science has gone about explaining phenomena and
the physiology of the body which don't have to resort to those
outmoded metaphysical assumptions...
YM: Yeah... considering the body as an agent in a data space
it is the space that becomes questionable instead of the
agent... As E. Tzafesta said, "(Once) solving the problems of
space the agent responds automatically".
S: Well, that's one way of looking at it, that's what I was alluding
to
before when I said the complexity of your behaviour has probably
more to do with the complexity of the environment than your
internal, you know, DNA coding... Of course, the body is
programmed with a certain genetic repertoire and this repertoire
of movement, of behaviour, of stimulus and response is codified
by society, by the culture we're brought up in... So then, we bow
in respect, we smile when we are pleased, we shake hands when
we first meet someone... These are codified rituals of behaviour
thct society sanctions and you're encouraged to perform them.
But that's... it's sort of a kind of an arbitrary construct. It's not
of
necessity but of contingency.
| top |
YM. Moreover, each logical system has some indispensable
inherent restrictions...
S. I think any system or any structure allows a certain channelling
of operation and energy but this is also conditional. I mean, if you
want to travel at 100 km an hour you have to travel on the right
side of the road, on a freeway, you have to stop at red lights and
resume on green lights, you have to have a licence. In other
words, in an increasingly complex, technological terrain, there are
more and more rules of conditioning, of constraint, of control but
without these constrains and controls you wouldn't have the ability
to move so fast. So, I see no dilemma about this issue of control. I
mean, the issue of control in itself is not a bad thing, it's the
political abuse and pathological human reasoning that results in
some abuse of the system or some abuse of the cultural
conditionings that are necessary for us to perform in
extra-ordinary ways.
We can't... I mean, if we're just simply running on foot we can't
really cause a disaster even if we run into someone but if we are
out of control in a car or if an aeroplane crashes then, of course,
there are these very big disasters. Paul Virilio talks about this
notion of the accident; that with every new technology there is a
new kind of accident...
-----(Laughter)
| top |
YM. That's why I would like to ask you about the new
projects you are making now, the extra earS inspired by the
MIT mouse with the ear on its back.
S: Actually, it has been a big problem to try to get that done.
Firstly because it goes beyond the bounds of ordinary cosmetic
surgery, in other words, it's not just about changing the shape of
your lips or eyes or noseS or whatever. This is really about more
re-constructive surgical techniques. Using your own skin and
cartridge from your ribcage it would be possible to construct an
ear that looks like a human ear but it wouldn't have the functions
of an ear. If you implanted a sound chip and a proximity sensor
inside your ear anyone getting close to it would hear a sound. So,
in other words, this ear wouldn't be able to hear but it would be
able to speak to the person who is close to it. Or, if you saw this
ear as a kind of Internet antenna - connected to a modem and a
wearable computer this extra ear will be able to receive and
transmit real audio sounds. This would augment the local sounds
that the actual ears heard. So you¹d have this sort of "global mix"
of real audio sounds with the local sounds of the REAL ears.
This extra ear was a project that was begun one year and a half
ago when I did a laser scan of my head at the Curtain University
of Technology in Perth. That enabled me to construct a quite
convincing life-like 3D model of the head with an extra ear and we
made a GIF animation so the head turns from the normal side to
the side with the two ears and, I think, if this project is
completed... and, as far as I'm concerned, it's not going to be
interesting unless it is completed. I mean, I'm not really concerned
about simulation or presentation by computer modelling. What's
intriguing is not only to simulate these possibilities, but also to
actually construct and to experience them. So the experience of
these alternate interfaces is of importance.
| top |
YM. So, what is the stance of the artist today? I mean, has it
always been revolutionary?
S. Well, I think, I've always been uneasy about the artist as simply
a craftsperson who just simply makes or produces cultural
artefacts that are considered beautiful or sensitive or whatever...
What's more intriguing is the artist who works with ideas, who
uses their art as a means of exploring the personal and the public
and who tries to get a sense of what it means to exist in the
world... and I'm much happier if the artist is seen as a poet or a
philosopher than as a craftsperson.
YM. ...but, at the same time, "just as we are near the end of
our physiology we're at the end of our philosophy"...
-----(Laughter)
S. Well, I think that's an appropriate quote of mine... What I was
trying to say when I said that, you know, just as we are near the
end of our physiology we're at the end of our philosophy is that
idea that the body is a kind of architectural structure for
awareness. If we were to redesign our bodies we would be
redefining what it means to be human. Altering our architecture
would mean adjusting our awareness in the world. So imagine the
world of a dog that sees only in black and white or the world of a
snake that only sees in heat patterns or the world of a bat that
images the world in ultra-sound waves. So it's intriguing that
human architecture structures our awareness and restricts our
operation... and... Do we accept this biological status quo? Or, do
we consider redefining the body, do we consider re-designing it,
is the body seen as a prosthetic body with bits of technology
attachef to it?
With the Movatar project the body itself becomes a prosthesis for
the behaviour of an intelligent agent. In other words what is being
created is an inverse motion capture system where an intelligent,
autonomous and operational avatar would be able to perform in
the real world by possessing a physical body... and if electrodes
were not only on its' legs but also on its' facial muscles then the
avatar will not only be able to move and manipulate in the real
world but it would also be able to express its emotions by
controlling the facial muscles of the human body. So, here we
have a situation where an absent, obsolete and invaded body
performs involuntarily for avatars on the Internet!
-----(Laughter)
| top |
YM. Exactly... so, this is your latest project, right?
S. Yes, the intelligent avatar, the Movatar, is the most recent
project and it will be first performed at Cyber Cultures in Sydney
next August, so it has to be ready by then...
YM: Thank you...
S: Me too...
Athens, 27.11.1999
Athens School of Fine Art
Audio-typing and translation by Sevasti Despina
Yiannis Melanitis curated the first Stelarc's presentations in
Greece. He is
now curating the project "New Body" which is concerned with art and
biotechnology. "New Body" will be presented in Athens in 2004
connected to
the Olympics and supported by the World Conference of Information
Technology Enterprises. Yiannis Melanitis is an artist working in the
area of
interactive performances. In "Superhuman", Melanitis's last proposal,
he
suggests a purposeful mutation of the human body, one that considers
humans as nature's organs to future mutations. Other projects involve
robotics, interactive music and web-art.
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