The work I find the most interesting is the PING BODY done by Stelarc.
Stelarc is a Greek-Australian performance artist whose works always related to modern technology, robotic invention and human bodies. He investigates the capabilities of human body. " The human body is obsolete" is one of his famous statements.
PING BODY was made in 1996. It is about adding a third hand on a person and the third hand is stimulated by muscle and the virtual nerve by using the internet. Stelarc invented a muscle stimlatation system. A set of muscle stimulating electrodes were put on different parts of a human body, so the third hand was connected with muscle on the real body. By these electodes, the muscles, for example, on legs ca remote and control the movement of the third hand.
This project is kind of exploring an external and virtual nervous system in a body body. The third hand can do wrist rotation, thumb rotation, individual finger flexion with each finger splitting open and it is made by the materials like stainless steel, aluminium and acrylic.
I think it raises an issue that the technology seems going to overwhelm the actual and physical world. Stelarc reveals that the robotic third hand can almost do what a real hand can do, it can be attached to a physical body and can be controlled by the innovated virtual nervous system, it implies that technology starts involving in our natural and physical body which may make people become reliable on technology. Technology is going to dominate our world and our bodies become the passive agent. Another thing I find interesting about PING BODY is it integrating the physical body and the Interent. Because "the stimulation was triggered by Internet traffic itself-the flow of data. 'Ping' commands were randomly sent to Internet domains. The ping values would be directed to muscles of the body through an interface." (Christiane Paul, "Body and Identity" in Digital art, 167) I think it is true that nowadays, we seems really cannot live without internet. If one day my computer cannot connect to Interent, I really feel unsecured.
I think it raises an issue that the technology seems going to overwhelm the actual and physical world. Stelarc reveals that the robotic third hand can almost do what a real hand can do, it can be attached to a physical body and can be controlled by the innovated virtual nervous system, it implies that technology starts involving in our natural and physical body which may make people become reliable on technology. Technology is going to dominate our world and our bodies become the passive agent. Another thing I find interesting about PING BODY is it integrating the physical body and the Interent. Because "the stimulation was triggered by Internet traffic itself-the flow of data. 'Ping' commands were randomly sent to Internet domains. The ping values would be directed to muscles of the body through an interface." (Christiane Paul, "Body and Identity" in Digital art, 167) I think it is true that nowadays, we seems really cannot live without internet. If one day my computer cannot connect to Interent, I really feel unsecured.
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