Stelarc, lockdown and the obsolete body
During ACMI’s closure, I had the opportunity to be redeployed into the collections team. Having worked with the visitor experience and exhibitions teams both presenting and preparing our exhibitions for public viewing, it was to be a wonderful opportunity to learn about and gain insight into the operations of the collections team.
Within the ACMI Collection sits an incredibly special archive. The Stelarc Collection. This is the collection I have been given to work on.
For those of you who do not know, Stelarc is an Australian performance artist who incorporates technology and body modifications to push the boundaries of the body’s physical capabilities. Over the last 50 years, he has used robotics, medical procedures and virtual realities to extend the possibilities of the human body. He is most well known for performances suspending his body from hooks pierced through his skin, events featuring a robotic third arm, and the surgical implant of an extra ear on his left forearm.
The Stelarc Collection, donated to ACMI by the artist, is an impressive archive of moving image and still images, consisting of events, performances and behind-the-scenes footage. The works range from early internal body probes and suspension events to technological enhancements such as the Third Hand and exoskeletons, all of which are currently being digitised at ACMI.
My work on the project began with a limited duration of five months while ACMI was closed for redevelopment. Thanks to Covid-19 and Melbourne’s lockdowns, the work was extended into limbo and what felt like an endless rabbit hole. Time was blurred and the amount of information about Stelarc was limitless as I researched the events and performances, each one a slight variation of the last.
Let me set the scene for where my thinking was at.
I attended art school at VCA in the mid-90s where there was a heavy focus on performance art, looking at not only Stelarc’s early suspension works, but also work by his contemporaries such as Mike Parr and Jill Orr. I attended Stelarc’s performances with his Third Hand and talks at RMIT regarding the ear implanted onto his arm. I went to see performances by the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow and Annie Sprinkle. I attended performances at warehouses by Futrelic alongside Stelarc and piercing performances by Damage Deluxe, who later became Stelarc’s piercing assistant. And more recently, I have worked with Georgia Banks and Casey Jenkins. All these artists explore physical possibilities. Hence, I am not new to watching artists participate in self-inflicted body manipulation.
So, when I was asked to work on the Stelarc Collection, you can see how it seems like a quite normal thing for me to take on. As it turns out, even after having attended and viewed so many performances of bodies pushed to the extreme, I have my limitations.
I also knew all there was to know about Stelarc. Or so I thought.
What unfolded was a deep dive into the five decades-long oeuvre of the performance artist, through the extensive documentation donated to ACMI. Stelarc’s work is not for the faint-hearted. If anyone has ever been to one of his performances, you will understand the intrigue and, at times, repulsion that comes with viewing, watching and experiencing Stelarc’s events, as he pushes his body to the limits.
To me, the performances had previously seemed to be on a superficial level. What I discovered was the depth, research and time put into his work, creating layers of intricacies, variations and nuances in each performance.
Quality checking the collection meant watching and re-watching every second of each video, often in slow motion, looking for any glitches or loss of image acquired during the process. And, given the content of Stelarc’s performances, not being able to look away could be considered torture. If blood and body parts are not your thing, then Stelarc’s suspension performances are not for you. I have seen more than my fair share of hook suspensions by various artists and other performance art, which includes piercing and other acts considered as self-harm.
I have always been fascinated by mind over matter and people pushing bodily boundaries. It is a choice here, choosing to watch others perform great feats of physical endurance. (Disclaimer: I am NOT a sadist. I admire people’s ability to tolerate pain and push physical boundaries; I dislike seeing people in pain). But I must keep looking. HAVE TO. That is the job description. If I look away, I might miss something — a glitch, or a fault in the recording of U-matic video to digital image. Something crucial that tells us it needs to be re-digitised.
But when it comes to not being able to look away due to the nature of the job, I realised I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I had not considered that a lot of the footage was taken behind the scenes, as well as of the performances themselves. The videographers were there from the preparation stage, where, for the suspension works, the hooks were being inserted into Stelarc’s flesh at various points over his body. Multiple videos and footage feature piercing hooks pushing through flesh. And I can watch this. But during the work Event for Stretched Skin №4, performed in Munich in 1977 (figures 1.1 and 1.2), one of the assistants piercing Stelarc could not get a hook through the skin. It took over six excruciating minutes to pierce the flesh. Six minutes is a long time watching, waiting, as the pressure of the hook is obvious, unsuccessful in its mission. Eventually, it succeeds to break the surface of the flesh on the other side, and a slow stream of blood begins to flow. Then, pliers were implemented to force the hook entirely through the flesh, and I could not look away. It was the longest six minutes and 54 seconds of my life.
Here, I realised: yes, I AM squeamish. Or I am getting old.
I endured long excruciating amounts of time watching, up close, the insertion of meat hooks and internal bodily fluids, but getting up close and personal with the performance artist’s excrement took it to a whole new level. And the puddles of liquid that seeped into the plywood covering the ground where Stelarc lived during a several days’ long performance? I realised there was so much I did not know about Stelarc before beginning this and now I know more than I cared to know.
While viewing footage of Stelarc’s early internal probes, recordings and X-rays of organs and bodily movements, I watched as the camera passed through the esophagus, through saliva and other fluids, and my curiosity to see how the internal body looks overtook me. Although as the camera was taken out, I could not help but feel sick as Stelarc gagged.
I began making diary entries about my experience and reactions watching the videos. Three entries describe the ‘peak’ of these experiences.
“I reached a new level today. After a week of watching videos of endurance performances of Stelarc, with a camera operator obsessed with close ups of Stelarc’s stools, I thought nothing could bother me after that. I found a renewed appreciation for his hook suspensions, marveling once again, as I did when I was younger, at his endurance of pain. Today’s video of the performance Modulate / Meditate: Event for Modified Man (figures 2.1 and 2.2) was too much. It was not the tying of his lips together. Having had my lips pierced I could relate easily, and a dear friend’s street show consisted of sewing her lips together. The trick was she had four holes from previous piercings. So this was easy, but I was not expecting him to sew his eyelids shut (thinking back I do not know why I had not expected this. I had heard of these performances before but had not seen documentation of it). Thankfully, I got to this stage at the end of my workday, with the Easter break ahead to recover, and have time away and mentally prepare before finishing the final minutes of Stelarc sewing his eyelids shut.”
“Now I am back. How to get through it? I need a distraction. A treat while watching? Mmm… chocolate eclairs? Yum.”
“After dragging it out, much preparation and heightened nervousness, it was all over in three minutes, and they only filmed one eye. I was actually deflated and disappointed.”
Anti-climactic.
Despite the gore and awkward moments, what has been so great about this project was having time to understand Stelarc’s concept of the obsolete body.
Performing with robotics including an extra arm, laser eyes, projections in the background, the body actuated by an internet interface and adding an extra ear to his left arm, Stelarc has put technology at the forefront of his work. He considers the body — the human body — to be an obsolete format. We can only evolve through extending the body and going beyond its own matter and limitations with the employment of technology.
Throughout writing this, Stelarc’s latest project was on display at the Australian Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) and accessible online. Reclining Stickman is a robot in the shape of a stick figure, large enough to be an extension of Stelarc’s body and performed on its own. With a body control mechanism and online interface to interact with the robot, audiences were able to program a series of movements. My chance to poke and prod the body. I enjoyed the distance this extends as well as the connectivity to live performance.
Having so much time to spend researching, watching and collating has been quite an experience.
So, to delve as I have, has been incredible. To be reminded and see afresh the lengths Stelarc has gone to, and continues to go, in extending and enhancing the body and its capabilities, and to be reminded of his influence on the Melbourne art scene, especially in the 70s to 90s. During lockdown, all our bodies became, somewhat, obsolete, as we connected with others through Zoom meetings, online parties and other digital means. The impacts of lockdown have made us weary and wary of the future, for our bodies, how we travel and how we communicate, locally and globally. In this current climate, technologically and globally, our bodies have become obsolete.
With thanks to the ACMI Collections team and Stelarc.
