Stelarc: The Monograph

Stelarc: The Monograph by Jones, Amelia. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780262195188.

Stelarc is the most celebrated artist in the world working within technology and the visual arts. He is both an artist and a phenomenon, using his body as medium and exhibition space. Working in the interface between the body and the machine, employing virtual reality, robotics, medical instruments, prosthetics, and the Internet, Stelarcs art includes physical acts that dont always look survivable—or, as science fiction novelist William Gibson puts it in his foreword, "sometimes seem to include the possibility of terminality." Stelarcs projects include Third Hand, a grasping and wrist rotating mechanism with a rudimentary sense of touch that is attached to the artist and activated by EMG from other body areas; Amplified Body, in which the artist performs acoustically with his brainwaves, muscles, pulse, and blood flow signals; and the Stomach Sculpture, a device—or "aesthetic adornment"—placed in the artists stomach and presented through video. Works in progress include the Extra Ear Project, a soft prosthesis of skin and cartilage to be constructed on the artists arm. Stelarcs work both reflects and determines new directions in performance art and body art. Although there have been hundreds of articles written about Stelarc since he began performing in the late 1960s, Stelarc: The Monograph is the first comprehensive study of Stelarcs work practice in over thirty years. Gathering a range of writers who approach the work from a variety of perspectives, it includes William Gibsons account of his meetings with Stelarc, Arthur and Marilouise Krokers emphatic "WE ARE ALL STELARCS NOW," and Stelarc himself in conversation with Marquard Smith. Taken together, these writers give us a multiplicity of ways to think about Stelarc.