Reclining StickMan
史泰拉克 | Stelarc
1. Re-Wired / Re-Mixed: Event for Dismembered Body (2016)
Performance (Documentary) | 5’21”
2. StickMan / miniStickMan (2018)
Performance (Documentary) | 2’33”
3. Reclining StickMaN (2020)
Performance (Documentary) | 4’31”
These projects and performances interrogate issues of embodiment, agency and aliveness in an age of online connectivity and interactivity, exploring alternative anatomical architectures.
In “ReWired/ReMixed”, for 5 days, 6 hours every day continuously, the body could only see with the eyes of someone in London, could only hear with the ears of someone in New York, whilst anyone, anywhere could access the artist’s right arm via the exoskeleton and remotely choreograph it. This was a sharing of senses and a distributing of agency. The gallery audience could see and hear what the artist was experiencing, projected in the gallery space. The performance was streamed live, allowing the online audience to monitor their interactivity
The performance and installation was part of the “Radical Ecologies” exhibition at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), Perth, 2016.
“StickMan” is a minimal but full-body exoskeleton that algorithmically actuates the body for a continuous 5-hour performance. The body is simultaneously a possessed and performing body. The artist is able to pivot on one leg to manipulate his shadow and modulate the video feedback. In the later iteration of the performance, a miniStickMan was engineered allowing the audience to insert their own choreography by bending the limbs of the miniStickMan and pressing play. A kind of electronic voodoo.
This work was developed and performed at Chrissie Parrot Arts for the “Daedalus Project” as part of “Fringe World 2017”, Perth.
For the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, a 9m long X 4m high stick figure robot was engineered. The “Reclining StickMan” was actuated by pneumatic rubber muscles. The bending arms and legs and continuous rotating on its axis generated its choreography. There was both local interaction via a panel of switches and online interactivity allowing anyone, anywhere at any time to access the robot and remotely actuate it. The compressed air sounds of the muscles inflating and contracting, exhausting and extending, the solenoid clicks and the droning of the rotational motor generated the soundscape
Presented as part of the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres.
2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres Photographer- Saul Steed
2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres Photographer- Saul Steed
Artist description
Stelarc is an Australian performance artist. His projects explore alternative anatomical architectures, interrogating issues of embodiment, agency, identity and the Post-Human. Between 1973-1975 he visually probed 3m of internal space and acoustically amplified his body. Between 1976-1989 he realised 27 body suspensions with insertions into the skin. He has performed with a Third Hand, a Stomach Sculpture and Exoskeleton, a six-legged walking robot. Fractal Flesh, Ping Body and Parasite explore remote and involuntary choreography using muscle stimulation systems. In 2006, an ear was surgically constructed on his arm. With the Propel performance, 2015, his body was attached to the end of an industrial robot arm and the position/orientation, trajectory and velocity of the body was precisely choreographed. RWRM, 2015, explored the sharing of visual and acoustical senses and the distributing of agency online. StickMan, 2017, is a minimal but full-body exoskeleton that algorithmically actuates the body. Commissioned for the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Reclining StickMan is a 9m long, 4m high stick figure robot, actuated by pneumatic rubber muscles, that can be remotely controlled with online. 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. His artwork is represented by the Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne. www.stelarc.org