Art or the work of fanatical mad people?

2009-01-06T16:48:45+01:00

My blog is basically about new media cultures and how technology has impacted our lives to such a degree that some now see it as a possibility to live as half-man and half-machine. The fact alone that I am writing a blog to be assessed as an academic piece of work which will contribute towards my final degree still seems a little ludicrous. However it helps to illustrate the extent to which technology has affected our lives and how it now dictates the way we live. The blog format also allows for experimental licence and for a more relaxed version of an essay in which we are able to upload pictures and videos in order to aid our work. One major interest that has risen personally is the idea of our lives and technology being inter-connected to the extremes that it now becomes hard to decipher between the two, therefore I will be mainly focusing upon the seminar in which we looked at and discussed as well as tried to understand Orlan (a plastic surgery artist) and Stelarc's (a performance artist) motives and what they were striving to actually achieve by sculpting and manipulating their bodies. I will also be looking to include the use of pictures, videos etc in order to fully utilise the blog.

If you were to look for an academic or professional description of Stelarc then you would probably quite easily find the following description: Australian-based performance artist who incorporates themes of cyborgization and other human-machine interfaces in his work. However Stelarc is much more than a performance artist and I would personally see him as revolutionist in the field of art striving to ‘better’ the human body through the use of technology. The above picture is of Stelarc and his famous third ear which he had inserted in his arm all in the name of art. He had spent 10 years searching for a surgeon who was willing to perform the controversial operation. The ear which was made in a laboratory from human cartilage was at first not a working ear but more of the frame of the human ear. However Stelarc as usual went further than most would ever dream and decided to have a tiny microphone implanted in his third ear that would connect to a Bluetooth transmitter so that you could hear what his third ear was hearing.
However Stelarc is not just well-known for his controversial third ear operation, he is also renowned for his work in experimenting with the use of technology and machinery as additional limbs or even as the main controller of his actions and movements. For example his project avatar flirts with the idea of a technologically based centre being in entire control of his body and its movements. Stelarc’s plan was to attach electromagnetic sensors to his limbs and head with each sensor being controlled by a remote control. From the control you would then be able to control his limbs movements by pressing the corresponding button.
For Stelarc technology and machinery is the next logical step when addressing the issue of prosthetic limbs and even organs. Stelarc one day hopes to see the human body as one efficient working machine with humans left with little need to eat or drink, he sees the skin being manipulated and enhanced so that it can feed the human body using sunlight through the process of photosynthesis much like a plant. He feels with such a process in place then the human body could survive without its organs and could have them replaced with machines that would complete equal tasks but in a much faster and efficient manner. The following video helps to illustrate just some of Stelarc’s work....

Now what I have just discussed and what you would have just seen in the video clip gives a good insight into the work of Stelarc and the direction in which his work is heading. You will also have a basic understanding upon his views of how technology should be used and the way, in which he views the human body, however the question that begs for many and me included is why?? Is Stelarc a groundbreaking genius who has made significant advancements in the endless possibilities of technology? Or should he be viewed as a fanatical mad man who has simply pushed his dreams and thoughts to the extremes of absurd and bizarre?
Personally I feel that whilst the way in which he uses the technology is at times impressive, I still can’t help but think that it is all a bit pointless no matter which angle or point of view you analyze it from. However while I am quick to judge I must note that his work in the projects where he surgically inserted a third ear and created a third mechanically working arm would hold weight in an argument to suggest that he is not a fanatical mad man. The advancements he has made here would be enormous foundations to be built upon to harness his theories in order create a better version of prosthetic limbs. However it is unclear Stelarc has done it for this reason or to try and illustrate his own theory and belief of turning the entire body into one working machine, which again for me throws his work back into the realms of absurd and bizarre. If you were to take it from an artistic point of view then I would not begrudge you for thinking that this is simply not art, what artistic talent has Stelarc performed or illustrated. If you take his third working arm for example and the picture which shows how it works and is assembled then would I or another person not be able to create the exact replica of Stelarc’s arm? Yet I do not and would not class myself as an artist. It seems to me that Stelarc is simply a man whose experimental nature has whipped up some frenzy and hype due to his unorthodox approach to the worlds of art and technology.

Orlan is a French artist but like Stelarc she comes with a hidden twist. As you have most likely already noticed from the picture on the left, Orlan has two bumps above her eyebrows where she has had implants inserted to give her the raised area you can see. In short Orlan uses plastic surgery as the medium and the tool for her art. Orlan’s inspiration for her work was to acquire the beauty as suggested by artists such as Botticelli, Boucher and Da Vinci and her case studies were the women who featured in these artists’ paintings and how they looked in their work, it would later be named the ‘Reincarnation of Saint-Orlan’.
“The ‘Reincarnation of Saint-Orlan’ which started in 1990, involved a series of plastic surgeries in the course of which the artist started to morph herself with respect to some of the most well known historical paintings and sculptures.” (www.wikipedia.org) From the numerous surgeries Orlan hoped to have the chin of Botticelli’s Venus, the nose of Gerome’s Psyche, the lips of Francois Boucher’s Europa, the eyes of Diana from a sixteenth century French school of Fontainebleu painting and the forehead of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa

. Botticelli’s Venus

However Orlan did not pick these particular female figures because of the beauty they illustrate or reflect but because of the stories associated with each and every one of them. For example she chooses Gerome’s Psyche because of her fragility and vulnerability within the soul, and Diana because despite being inferior to the gods and men she was still leader of the goddesses and women. However such an approach towards art and her personal appearance has caused controversy in both the worlds of art and even feminism. Many feminists see Orlan as an anti-feminist due to the form that she seems to so desire and the methods she uses in order to achieve this form. She bases her appearance on images and illustrations drawn and sculpted by men, therefore she is basing her appearance on representations of how a man views or wishes a woman to look. But it is not just this that many feminists find hard to swallow; it is also the way in which instead of rejecting plastic surgery she whole heartedly embraces it. She turns the surgery room into her own personal theatre where the focus no longer remains upon the surgeon but switches to Orlan; she refuses to take local anaesthetic and remains awake during her operations with a camera recording the entire act. She takes something that many fin d disturbing or immoral and transforms it into this entertaining circus act, however it is not the surgery she wishes to be highlighted but the ‘beauty’ of her own body.
"I can observe my own body cut open, without suffering!... I see myself all the way down to my entrails; a new mirror stage. "I can see to the heart of my lover; his splendid design has nothing to do with sickly sentimentalities"- Darling, I love your spleen; I love your liver; I adore your pancreas, and the line of your femur excites me." (Orlan from Carnal Art Manifesto)
However it is not just her body that she uses as a canvas, Orlan also uses her own blood obtained during her numerous operations in order to later paint with it creating carnal art, it is also projects like this that have given Orlan her celebrity status. From this and the above quote from Orlan you start to understand that she genuinely believes and sees some form of beauty and artistic medium within plastic surgery. But is she right or even sane to see these things within surgery? Personally I disagree with the feminists as they seem to have missed the point of what this is actually all about, she has not picked these women because of their beauty but because of what they represent or what they are associated with, she is not merely trying to replicate the ‘perfect’ woman in a mans eyes. Could Orlan perhaps not also be mocking the idea of a perfect woman, using herself to proof that if you took all the best features from these women then you do not necessarily get the perfect woman you may have dreamed you would. However like Stelarc before her, what artistic talent is she actually portraying by simply lying on an operation table and allowing someone to cut her up and stitch her back together? Is the surgeon not the true artist in this scenario? The use of the surgery room for many is disturbing and confusing, can art really take place in such an environment?
But who I am to say what is and what isn’t classed as art? While I have been quick to judge and interpret both Stelarc and Orlan and categorise them as anything but artists I think it is important to note a few things. Does Orlan not just show us what we have seen hundreds of times on medical programmes but in a new innovative and entertaining way, despite her inspirations for the surgery? And does Stelarc not simply illustrate to us the possible endless boundaries there is when it comes to man and machine? Has man not always experimented with technology and their own bodies in order to develop, grow and learn? While I still feel there methods are drastic and unorthodox it is wrong to simply cast them aside, modern art is no longer confined to the four edges of a piece of paper or canvas, it can now be expressed through dance, music and it appears even surgery. While many will disagree and find these people odd or bizarre, you can’t help but being drawn to what you are being shown on the screen, the change they are undergoing and the way in which they are doing it. For myself Stelarc and Orlan represent what art is about today, with little importance drawn to whether it’s achieved using a brush or a scalpel.

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new media cultures jazz and what not

Art or the work of fanatical mad people?