Stelarc Suspension Event + Scott Livesey Gallery - March 2012

What can an artist hope to achieve by repeating actions that he accomplished twenty four years ago, especially since those events or actions are so well documented and discussed in the public domain and within academia? I ask this question because the performance artist Stelarc recently undertook a short suspension event at Scott Livesey Gallery in Armadale in Melbourne, which involved the insertion of sixteen sharp steel shark hooks into his back, thighs, calves and arms. Apparently he was suspended above the large sculpture of his ear on arm for approximately sixteen minutes. I was not invited to the performance event so may only undertake a reading based on my viewing of various photographs floating around the internet and one in particular (the photographer unacknowledged) printed on page three of the Age Newspaper on Wednesday 14 March 2012. I’ve re-photographed a section of the photograph which is above.

My immediate reactions were that this was nothing new for Stelarc who has performed many suspension events between 1976 and 1988; so I asked myself what is this repetition and duplication about? Perhaps the insertion of the hooks, metaphorically representing the intrusion of technology into the body serve to underscore the sculptural form, which itself mirrors the actual ear growing on Stelarc’s arm and speaks to the way that contemporary biomedicine may be deployed in order to modify the human form. In both the suspension event and the ear on arm operation, the skin on Stelarc’s body was stretched in order to accommodate an alien construct, one incommensurate with human bodily material. And this suspension event in which technology enters the body for a minimal period of time is contrasted with a permanently implanted technology, one that has now been fully incorporated in Stelarc’s body and psyche. Since technology is no longer antithesis to the human condition what does Stelarc’s artwork say to us in the 21^st Century? Is he simply restating his initial position about ubiquitous technology and its obvious impact on human and non-human life forms, or does it broach a wider philosophical viewpoint. I’m drawn immediately to Nietzsche’s notion of the eternal return, because of the clear weight he places on his return to past actions and their echo in more recent work, however it is to Nietsche’s embracing of life in its joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain that resonates for me in this work, but perhaps that’s too easy a reading, or one that I am most comfortable with whilst considering this recent performance event. For, as much as I would like to perceive this as ‘new’ it IS a return to early body imagery and action.

I imagine that since Stelarc would not have undertaken this performance lightly, then we too must give it the seriousness it deserves and not only focus upon the pain that he experienced or the reaction of those witnessing the event (noted prominently in Ashley Crawford’s write up of the event in the Age), for my knowledge of Stelarc’s process is that he would have considered any pain experienced necessary for him to undertake the performance and to present the philosophical aspects, therefore pain is a byproduct, rather than emphasis or outcome of the event. Of course, I did notice (in the Age photograph) that Stelarc’s head was quite blushed and I assume that the reddish coloration may have been caused by an anxiety response to the pain or the situation, but I say this only as an aside, for I am mostly interested in the body politic and in this particular instant the aesthetics or contrast between the very warm and fleshy architectural aspects and presence of Stelarc’s naked body, against and above what we can only imagine as the cold, hard surface of the ear on arm sculpture. The body moving, the sculpture in stasis; Stelarc’s fluid body, swaying, changeable from moment to moment; the sculpture fixed, immoveable, a mere simulacrum of the original body; active and passive components inhabiting the space of the gallery. The white walls, the white sculpture, and Stelarc’s fleshy body tones, a play of difference; a passionate display of gasping breath and bleeding flesh in the somewhat sterile conditions of the orderly and rational exhibition space. The perfect, unflawed, large-scale ear on arm, a tricky object to contemplate alongside the imperfect aging and damaged flesh that hangs like so much meat to be penetrated, severed, re(organ)ized and ultimately if need be, modified and adapted by technology. If Stelarc’s performance event at Lorne last year revealed vulnerability of the human body and suggested a rebirth or resurrection, then this performance also reiterates that position.

Julie Clarke (copyright 2012)