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ERIC LETOURNEAU MEETS
STELARC (interview in English)
André Éric Létourneau
a rencontré Stelarc en 1995 suite àune performance
produite par l'ACREQ. Cette entrevue est publiée sur le site
du Navire Night avec l'aimable autorisation d'Éric Létourneau.
Tous droits réservés c. Eric Létourneau 2000
Stelarc nous parle
de l'une de ses performances cybernétiques où
son corps est mis en interaction avec un réseau informatique
destiné à stimuler le système nerveux
par l'envoi de pulsations électriques à travers
différents muscles. La musique est ainsi générée
par l'ensemble des senseurs placés un peu partout sur
le corps.
On
peut rejoindre Eric
Létourneau à l'adresse suivante : eric_létourneau@yahoo.com
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Stelarc: The performance was a combination of automatic
motion, involuntary movement, the programmed robot and also
some improvised actions. The robot wasn't the only thing programmed,
the body was also programmed by series of stimulation, electrods
to different muscles and to the arms. So, we preprogrammed
the muscles stimulated. It was sending about 60 volts to each
of the muscle points
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Éric Létourneau: Is
it painful?
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Stelarc: Well, it was quite difficult at times. The body
was moving up and down involuntarely, out of control. Conceptually,
then the body was split in two. On the one side, there was
voltage in, controlling the body. On the other side, there
were pick up electrods, picking up into the signals of the
body. We had voltage out controlling not only sounds but controlling
the third hand as well, the movements of the third hand.
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É.L.: How exactly do
you use also the sounds from your body? |
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| Stelarc: We use the combination
of live amplified body signals, sampled sounds and also synthesyzed
sounds which would trigged by the position of the arms, the
head, the leg. There were censors on the head and the arms and
the leg so that if you tilted your head, lifted your arms or
bent your leg, these trigged sounds as well as the internal
muscle signals and hearthbeat will also have brain waves, blood
flow and also the sounds of the third hand motors are amplified.
So, there is a combination of buzzing, beeping, woping, clicking,
wushing sound, a combination of rythmic random and --- sounds
but only sounds had sources that were related to the body itself. |
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É.L.: So, there's two kinds of sounds
inside the body. There is the sound which can be audible by
the human ear like the heartbeat and also this kind of sounds
like the brain waves which their frequencies that are not
audible. So, how do you deal with this matter?
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| Stelarc: Effectively,
in a lot of cases you're just picking up electrical signals
from microvolts to millivolts. These preamplified using musical
instrumentation and then either you go to directly to analog
synthesizers or these days going from analog to digital converter
and going MIDI. So there are various ways to construct the acoustical
modulations. |
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É.L.: How
do you chose the particular sounds from the synthesizer or the
sampler. What makes you chose some sounds more than other? |
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Stelarc: The particular sounds . . . The important thing
really is for the sounds to indicate the internal body activity.
So, I'm not interested in using the body signals as kind of
controled signals to trigger bells or charms or to play a
violin or to make both sounds. To me this would be rather
uninteresting. The sounds that are chosed are in my mind sorts
of neutral sounds without any real sort of association and
which indicates the internal activity of the body and of course
part of the performances varying that physiological activity
in various ways. So you can slightly slow up or slowly speed
up the heartbeat by controling the breathing. You can relax
and low the brain waves from beta to alpha. You can constrict
the arthery of the wrist and go from a " rrrrhhhrhrhrhrh"
wushing the blood sound to " tk … tk … tk … " as the constricted
and then when you relax again, " wowowowohhh " : the blood
gushes out again from the --- so this combination of physiological
control and electronic modulation sounds.
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É.L.: For example, what is your
technique to control your brain waves ?
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Stelarc: As I had indicated, by relaxing with the brain
waves by controling the breathing with the heartbeat by physically
constricting ...
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| É.L.: It
look so close to meditation techniques. Did you study some specific
technics? |
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Stelarc : It's just that I've been using these technics
now for over 25 years. I haven't done any sort of methodical
and there's no one who told me how to do this but just having
performed with the sounds and signals for over 25 years, you
learn some control and you learn how to modulate the signals
in various ways.
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É.L.: I've noticed during the performance
that the public was really affected by the sounds from the
body. It's like a " common sense " of sounds. How do you feel
this communion between your own internal sounds and how the
audience gets into specific states of mind when they are listening
to the sounds.
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| Stelarc: You have to understand that the performance
isn't a kind of entertainment for other people. I mean, essentially
what you are doing is you're setting up the body in a complex
sort of extended Cybersystem of technology. The body experiences
alternate and different possibilities with performance. The
reason for doing the performance is not an entertainment for
others. If others are there to witness the performance or to
experience these amplified signals and see the body involved
into the move and kind of experience the esthetic combination
of human body and the robot motions, that's fine, but I'm not
so concerned and I never have structured my performances for
other people. It's only incidental . that they … On the other
hand, in this performance where we had four speakers around
the platform on which I was performing, I was hearing everything
that the audience was hearing. I simply didn't have two monitor
speakers, there were four speakers around me, and it was possible
to spacialize the sound, to move the sound around. Now the sound
was so strong at the end that, even inside my body, I was feeling
a resonating vibrating physical shaking perhaps even more than
people were out there, because the speakers were even closer
to me. Because of the slightly different . . . In other words,
it's my body signals that are amplified but they're feeding
back and then return affecting my body again. You've got it
sligjhtly, a kind of feedback effect, and it's very very difficult
to cope with that. I mean it was very distressing at some points.
It was both difficult physically and acoustically to do the
performance. |
| É.L.: However, you're taking care
of the presentation, of the esthetic aspect too because you
conceived all these performances so I think you must have an
idea how you present these elements during the performance.
What makes you decide how you will present these elements? Jocelyn
Robert told me that when you arrive to a place to build a performance,
you only arrive with your medical apparatus and you must build
and program everything there on the spot so how can you decide
when you're in a specific space and place to do a specific kind
of programing . . . |
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| Stelarc: That's right.
It is structured in terms of the specific space that I'm performing
and the visual acoustical virtual elements that's the only thing
that we haven't think about; the virtual body. You have a situation
where my involuntary body was controling or actuating a virtual
body in the same space as the programmed robot. With the virtual
body, there were seven separate electromagnetic sensors. The
body was actually operating in a strong electromagnetic field.
We got the assistance of Softimage here in Montreal. We met
my arm movements to the virtual camera views looking at the
virtual body. So, for example, if I lifted my left arm, up and
down, the virtual body would turn on its horizontal axis. If
I move my right arm backwards and forwards, the virtual body
would rotate on its vertical axis. If I move backwards or forwards,
the virtual body appeared or disappeared. These controls with
the virtual body were another aspect of the performance and
these images were displayed for the audience. These images were
displayed on a large screen positioned above the robot and the
body. As well as that we had projected texts, words and phrases
that elicited certain conceptual and esthetic ideas about what
was happening. Althoug the body was fully amplified in its movements
and its internal physiology. Of course it was silent in terms
of voice and I guess the text replaced the voice of the body,
and the body that was involuntary, the body that was silent,
verbally, is all meanted by the text projected on the screen,
and the text was projected at different speeds, in different
combinations. So, there was always different combinations and
associations between the words and other words and the words
and the images which are changing. |
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| É.L.: Why
did you chose to make a projection of the text and not using
the voice, because the voice can influence the brain waves and
other elements related to biofeedback ? |
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| Stelarc: It will make
too much sounds ! The point is that there would have been too
much acoustical activities so the text was a kind of . . . The
silence of the text was necessary for the sound of the preamplified
body. |
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| É.L.: How did you program the association
between all these little words or the sentences. Did you program
it or is it a random process during the performance? |
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Stelarc: It's programmed in the sense that
you've got a certain number of words that you have chosen.
You have a range of combination of these words. You have planed
the speed of each projection, but in setting up this program,
you know that there will be some random and unexpected combination
between words and images. It's the same with the performance.
The body was programmed, the robot was programmed. The virtual
body was actuated by the involuntary body, but within this
structure, which was fairly tight, there was a lot of improvisation
and the performance is about live composing of the sounds,
and real time choreography of the images. That's what is interesting
for me about the event, not that everything is preprogrammed
but that, in a structure, you generate unpredictable and interesting
new associations between these elements of motion information
feedback, amplified sound, virtual images between body and
machine. Those relationships come up with some interesting
and alternate new esthetics.
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| É.L.: What was the relationship
between the movements of the robots on stage that was " dancing
" with you … |
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| É.L
: … and all the other elements? |
Stelarc : Yes. We took
a day to program the robot. The robot was a funik ? robot that
we got from CRIC (Center for industrial research) and a program
from CRIC. Sylvain Larocque assisted me to program this robot.
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| É.L.:
Did you plan to use this robot before you came in Montreal or
you just decided here on the spot? |
Stelarc: We were trying for a long time to get the robot.
It took more than a day to do the programming of the robot.
You have to imagine that the total structure was planed in
such a way that all these elements have some kind of relationship,
have some kind of a static effect. It's not wide chance that
these things happen.
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| É.L.:
About, these electric impulsions to your body, I mean the shocks
which make you move with the robot,…. What is the connection
between these movements of the robot and these impulsions? |
Stelarc: There's no hard wide connection, but there's certainly
a program connection and there's certainly an esthetic connection
in that : I programmed my body, I programmed the robot. Of
course, I see these movements as related and some of the movements
of the robot were programmed deliberately to fit in with some
of the movements of the body. Sometimes, it's been possible
to have a hard wide control of the robot. For example, I could
control the speed of the robot or I could interrupt the robot's
program to insert a subroutine but here in Montreal, that
was impossible, because of the time and because of the difficulty
that we had. Sometimes there had been effect a hard wide interaction.
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| É.L.: There's
a certain element of danger too because the robot can really
hit you violently… |
Stelarc: Usually, I have to sign some letter that gives up
… for responsibility. Of course, there's always a possibility
of an accident and especially when the robot is moving very
fast, but this hasn't happened. Usually, of course, I'm very
careful. Some of my movements are of course avoiding the robot
!
(Eric and Stelarc laughs…)
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| É.L.: I heard
about your work when you were working with the suspension. What
was the relationship between this type of work and the work
you are doing now? |
Stelarc: In fact, the first suspension event occured after
I began my third hand project. These performances were going
simultaneously. I did 20 suspension events using insertions
into the skin. I have appearing … 13 years and these were
at the same time as the amplified and extended technology
performed with the body. A lot of these suspension events
did use technology. A lot of these suspension events had amplified
body signals and sounds or use big motors or machines to spin
the body and move the body in space. The relationship, then,
was not so different, and all of the performances have a characteristic
physical difficulty about them. I mean with the suspension
events, it's more clearly obvious that it's a painful and
difficult experience but people don't realize that the electrical
stimulation of the body for involuntary movements …
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| Eric : … is painful too… |
Stelarc : … is difficult, and also I've done things like
I have made three films in the inside of my body. I made a sculpture
that was designed for the inside of my stomach. This was an
electronic sculpture which open and close, extent and retract
it, flashing light, beeping sound. This is actually inserted
inside the body. The objects are into the body and activated
and we made a good internal video tape of this sculpture. That
was the most difficult thing physically and physiologically
that I've done but as I said, people just see the insertions
into the skin and cannot clearly understand what's difficult
but if you insert something into your body, if you get two or
three cables down into your body and if you're filming you have
to keep it down there for a long time. It took two days and
six attempts to do this. People don't really see and understand
the physical difficulty. |
| É.L.: No anesthesia? |
Stelarc: No, never. The suspension event never used any anesthesia
at all and there's no special technic. I've never been to
India...
(Laughs… )
Stelarc : No one showed me how to do this. It was all trial
and era but mostly it was trial with success and there were
few errors and probably we couldn't really have aforded too
many error.
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| É.L.: This
is really quite amazing. Jocelyn Robert was talking to me about
this performance where you were suspended and there was a circle
stone. |
Stelarc: This one was very interesting. The body's
width was counterbalance by the ring of rocks. One rock for
each insertion point. This performance was done with the body
sitting down on the floor when all the insertions were done.
The cables from the rocks which were already suspended with
slip knots were connected to the body and then when everything
was ready, the body quickly tighted at each of the cables, release
the slip knots and as the rocks come down, the body went up
until I balance. I think there was an interesting performance
and, in fact, the body was gently swang from side to side sitting
up ran the musculation in the rocks. So the whole installation
was moving in random ways. |
| É.L.: I have a funny question
about this. Do you believe in God? |
Stelarc: No ! |
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É.L.: Because, I've noticed
some metaphysical . . . maybe I'm wrong, but like this circle
of stone . . . Is there any esoteric reasons for this? |
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Stelarc: Absolutely not. I think certainly one can read a
symbolism in these things if one wants to but then for me
that's trying to comprehend the performances, categorizing
them with past activities instead of evaluating them on the
present conditions. Also we attend to sort of always understand
things using a kind of a rear miror vision mentality always
looking back and trying to kind of connect present activities
with past activities. The ring of rocks for me for example
was simply a mean of counterbalancing the body 's weight and
because this was an easy way to distribute this counterbalance,
the ring of rocks became a kind of a sort of structural and
simple way of doing this. When my body moves up and down when
it's involuntary I mean people might come up and say it looks
like hindu indian dancing but the reason I moved this way
is not to stylistically appropriate hindu, indian dance but
rather the reason my arm moves that way is because I've got
electrods on the deltoids, biceps and flexes and by stimulating
these they produce this kind of movement. So, I think it's
probably impossible to insist and it's probably naïve to insist
that people don't make these associations or read symbolism
into these actions but from the artist point of view, the
artist has no intention and doesn't begin by associative symbolic
statements but rather thinks structurally how the body moves,
the relationship of the body with its machines, how the body
can perform tranceducing into a virtual body. All of these
are the important concepts which are structural not symbolic.
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É.L.: A lot of people are thinking
that the humanity have a kind of common memory and you were
saying that these people were seing your actions they were
making an analogy between indian dances and what you were
doing. Do you think you can, in a certain point, touch this
process of common memory which is maybe a corporeal memory
?
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Stelarc: That's an interesting observation and I think it's
reasonable that one says that but for me I don't go back into
memory but rather begin my work from it, so my work is immersed
in you know cultural and genetic memory rather I'm trying
to come up with strategies that go beyond the begin, certainly
the begin, we can't erase the cultural and genetic memory
but rather than being immersed in it for all sorts of reasons
for security, for spiritual, for cultural and historical reasons
instead of being immersed and contained and capsulated by
this memory. What I like to do is to not to deny it but to
begin from that point and go beyond it and so all of these
strategies are strategies to generate alternates and diverse
possibilities for a body that is no longer purely a biological
form with a limited genetic repertoire function but rather
a body that has technological --- that is extended and transmited
globaly. In other words, a body that performs beyond it's
physiology and the local space that it occupies. What we really
question in here is what it means to have a body whethe, it's
important to remind human and what constitutes intelligence.
Is intelligence and awareness simply located in the body itself
in individual bodies or is awareness or intelligence extruded
into the greater system of things the way operate within.
What's important is not what's in here or what's in there
but rather what occurs between us in the medium of language,
in the social institutions at this moment in history that
we are communicating. I think it's really a matter of what
your frame of references and how you define the situation.
If you want to simply collapse the self, collapse intelligence
and awareness simply into your own biological form, I think
that's a very egocentric and limited way of evaluating what
awareness and intelligence is. On the other hand, we can see
awareness and intelligence as that phenomena which is generated
by bodies interacting through our cultural and historical
languages at this particular point in history and if we define
it in such a way the idea of the wind is himself is much more
fluid, much more flexible and much more dispersive.
(…) So, of the the twenty-seven suspension events, probably
twenty would entitle privacy either in remote locations or
in private galleries. The idea wasn't that these performances
became kind of spectacular actions for large crowds. The only
time that this happened was the two " city suspensions " in
New York and Copenhagen, and when I decided to do a performance
between two buildings over a street in New York or being up
200 feet high in Copenhagen, of course there was a lot of
people there, but the " raison d'être " of doing the performance
wasn't to attract people, it was to perform in this complexed
technological space of the city.
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| É.L.: What was the difference for
you as a performer to perform on the street than on a gallery
? |
Stelarc: The big difference was in New York. I got arrested.
(Laughs) |
| É.L. : You didn't ask for a permission
to do it? |
Stelarc: No. In Copenhagen, the police helped. This is the
difference.
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É.L.: This picture
is from the New York performance. What kind of material did you
use because I cannot see . . .
Stelarc: In the New York performance,
the preparation was done on the fourth floor room and there was
a cable stretched from inside the window to the other side and there
was a kind of police structure that the body was connected to. When
everything was ready, the body came out of the window and slide
along the cable and stopped in the middle of the street. Unfortunately,
the police arrived within five minutes. What was going to be a performance
of 30 or 40 minutes became about 12 minutes by the time the police
arrives. We had locked the downstairs doors of the building but
by the time the police sort of forced themselves in it was about
12 minutes before I was forced to be pulled in. The funny thing
was that when they pulled me in, the first thing I asked for was
my ID …
Eric : And you
were naked…
Stelarc : … and I was naked ! It
was rather difficult under circumstances.
É.L.: This is
quite amazing. What did the policeman say about this?
Stelarc: I went in court but there
were some other serious crimes being judged that day I mean mine
was a relatively minor one. I was charged for being a danger to
the public.
É.L.: Because
you were naked too? Was it a problem ?
Stelarc : No…
É.L. : Because
Yoko Ono and Charlotte Moorman were charged in the sixties for that
in New York city, and after that I think it was OK because she opened
the doors in New York city for the nudity. Were the people who were
watching the performance advised in advance of the event or they
were just passing?
Stelarc: I think some people knew
about it but . . . Your body feels very stiff after the performance.
When you see this " suspension event " you see the hooks into the
skin, you understand in a very direct way that this is painful,
but when you see the body moving, you can't really understand that
there are electrical chocs going to the muscles and the body jigging
around involuntarely, and it is tough and if you were looking closely
at my face then you might notice occasionally some grimacing. When
the stimulation occurs sequencially, you can put up with it. When
all of the sudden five or six points are actuated simultaneously
so you get 60 volts in 60 different parts of your body occuring
at the same time then it's really difficult and it's like the experience
of having a cramp. Your body moves, you can't stop it moving and
it moves in a certain way and you can't fight it. I felt very stiff
the next day. I still feel a little bit stiff.
É.L.: Do you always
feel pain in your life? Because you perform so often !… Laughs …
Stelarc: I think I was more in pain
this morning than the other day. It's not so much that . . . the
focus is not on the physical difficulty, it's just that if you want
to do a particular action, you have to go through those physical
activities and so you have to take the physical consequences of
your ideas. Your ideas are in a sense authenticated by your actions,
but as so we said in gymnastic or in dance or in sports . . . We
don't really notice the physical difficulty unless there is a serious
injury but of course these people have to train and when you see
an athlete jump in the air and catch a ball, this looks very effortless
and it looks stylistically very beautiful but there's a lot of physical
difficulties involved and a lot of training beforehand. The first
time I did the involuntary body movements was just simply with my
one arm, so all my body was in control, but my left arm was out
of control, so I could forget about my left arm and it was pre-programmed
to do some movements and the rest of them my body was controlling
my third hand and other my virtual body and other profile devices.
In this case, most of the body is computed choreographed and so
as I said before, it was an involuntary body actuating a virtual
body trying to stay out of the waves pre-programmed robot so there
was this kind of new complexity where there is a blurring between
what it means to be an " organism " and a " mechanism " and I don't
really like to make the distinction between what a body is and what
a machine is. It's really just on the level of complexity of behavior
rather than on the quality of behavior. You know why I think these
movements remind you of, say, oriental dance. The movements are
so basic, so " primal ". What's you're doing is you're stimulating
only certain muscles very simply, so you're producing kind of very
simple movements which probably were the sorts of movements involved
in primitive dance or early oriental dance. Of course now with a
lot of contemporary dance, movements are much more complex and there's
new relationship being established but I think the movements do
generate primal and primitive sorts of actions.
É.L.: That is
funny . . . if you perform these computerised choreography in Java
or in Japan, the people will read some codes ! I 've studying dances
from Java and Bali, and you really can read some symbols and symbolic
matters in the movements that the machines were making during your
performance.
Stelarc: It was interesting that
some people thought in movements, the movements of the machine generated
a very kind of female sort of a presence, which is interesting to
me because the robot is a very sort of phallic kind of a shape but
when people says that it had a kind of feminine sort of personality
because of the complexity of its movements, then I guess it balanced
that association, but that sorts of associations are not that important
for me. It's more the structural connections and interface rather
than the symbolic.
É.L.: Why did
you use laser eyes for this performance? Is it because this really
makes a connection between the public and you on the stage?
Stelarc: Well, it did. But the "
raison d'être " was not to make a connection with the audience.
But the idea that you've acoustically amplified the body, so you've
extended the body's internal physiology externely to fill the cuboid
space of the warehouse. With the laser eyes, the body is also visually
extended, and the eyes are no longer just passive receivers of light
and images, but project light and by blinking and moving ahead you
can sort of scribble lines in space and so the eyes generate the
images rather than just simply receive the images.
É.L.: Was your
head controlled by the stimulaters?
Stelarc: No, the head was under my
control ! LAUGHS Something have to be under my control ! LAUGHS
… I could twist my body and tilt my head, but everything else was
computer controlled.
É.L.: Because,
you were looking above the people.
Stelarc: It was dangerous if the
lasers were directed into the crowd because it's like about 750
milliwatts per channel and if you get hit directly in the eye for
a second, you could burn the whole retina. There was a little bit
of danger involved with that and I also had to sign a letter taking
responsability for what happens not only with the robot but with
the laser as well… So that's typical.
É.L.: Were you
able to see where the .where the laser beams were directed at ?
Stelarc: I could actually see the
laser beams coming from the eyes and I could see where the lasers
were being directed at but it's not to say that there wasn't a possibility
of an accident but you don't plan for that, you don't expect that
to happen.
É.L.: I'd like
you to talk a little bit about the body art… Now there's kind of
tradition for body artists so, for example, what do you think about
Orlan works, you know this French woman doing the plastic surgery?
Stelarc: I'm very interested in Orlan's
work. I mean her general idea is that she's like computer composite
of mythical features and taken from culpture so from certain statues,
of certain paintings, the eye, or nose or lips, you know… I think
she's had 5 or 6 operations already where she's having a plastic
surgery done to her face to alter her face to conform to these ideal
features. Now, it's got nothing to do with beauty, it's got to do
with in a sense of collapse of the historical and the personal where
her visual identity becomes this composite set of mythical features
and also with her land she had to take the physical consequences
of these ideas so you have this wonderful idea but it's physically
difficult to do and it's a long process taking many years. I think
she's truly a post-modern performance artist in that she appropriates
images from culpture and incorporates them in her own body in a
very physical way.
É.L.: You cannot
never see the whole work, it's really a process…
Stelarc: Yes it is a process. Yes
and there is always been a tradition of body art being very physically
difficult. .. EL : Gina Pane… Stelarc : … and Valerie Export, Chris
Burden in the States, Vito Acconci, Mike Parr in Australia, Marina
Abramovic and Ulay… But I think this is the difference between performance
and painting performance : couples expression with experience. You
don't deal with the illusion, you deal with physical action and
the body has to directly experience these ideas that its generated.
É.L.: In the sixties,
especially in the States, there was a big mystical aura all around
the notion of biofeedback. How can you deal with this because… Because
a lot of people are thinking when you are using biofeedback in your
performance work you are part of this kind . . .
Stelarc: The whole biofeedback thing
was kind of a fad in the late sixties, mid to late sixties, so there's
really nothing that is happening now that hasn't happened since
the early seventies. But for me the concept of biofeedback is very
interesting and the idea that one can acoustically or visually monitor
the body processes and in that while, learn to exert some control
over them and this is really the only way you can learn to physiologically
coordinate your body rhythms but of course traditional activities
like yoga did this with minimal feedback except the general state
of relaxation one felt or a general sort of fuzzy notion of enlightenment
that one was supposed to attain, but for me no amount of a yogic
fine tuning of the body, no amount of medical intervention with
the body, no amount of shamanistic posturing and no amount of athletic
conditioning … is really going to alter the fact that the body is
profundly obsolete that the body has created an information and
a technological --- within which it can't no longer cope and manage
with its machines. We spent 2000 years having a sort of mad ---
and concern of accumulating more and more information and individual
body can no longer absorb and creatively process all this information.
It's now created machines that are much more precise and powerful
so machines often have performed the body and technology also speeds
up the body. Now the body attains planetary escape for a lots of
reason. The body now finds itself in extra-terrestria alien environments.
It's biological and adequacies are apparent. So the question really
is : how can we redesign the body so that the body can match the
performance of its machines and can survive in the varying atmospheric
gravitational and electromagnetic fields off the earth.
É.L.: The body
has a limit … At a certain point of her life, artist like Gina Pane
had to stop her activitiesand a lot of body artists had to stop
to a certain point because the body has a limit. . .
Stelarc: I think the limit with a
lot of performance art was simply either a lack of conviction to
continue doing body art or just a change of esthetic direction.
I mean physically, they could still be doing performance work if
they wanted to. I think in most cases with most of the performance
artists who decided to stop doing performance, it wasn't simply
because they got too old or their performances got too difficult,
but rather simply a change of esthetic direction, a lack of conviction
for all sorts of reasons.
É.L.: You're
not afraid for your own body because you're using a lot of weird
experience…
Stelarc: Sure, of course, you don't
do anything that you deliberately . . . You don't deliberately do
dangerous things although a lot of these are physically difficult
and there is always the possibility of an accident. There is always
the possibility of an accident when you're driving, when you're
crossing the street, when you're flying, when you're working with
any sort of electrical apparatus. I'm now 48, one could say that
yes maybe in ten years physiologically it might be difficult for
me to continue doing certain things but I could certainly be doing
others. Unless there's a change of esthetic direction, I'll continue
doing performance work.
É.L.:
Are you reading abou the long terms impact on the body from these
experience ? When you're using electric stimulations, do you think
eventually, because you're repeating this process for each performance,
problems will appear because of these stimulations?
Stelarc: There might
be some long term affects to some of these technics and processes
the way I use some of these technologies but again I don't do things
that are deliberately damaging to the body. I have a few scares
and perhaps there is some internal effects to some of these experiences
but one can't be in a position to evaluate them fully.
É.L.: You
didn't notice any problem yet?
Stelarc: I'm just losing my hair.
(Laughs…)
É.L.: Thank you
very much Stelarc.
Stelarc: Thank you.
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