Twenty two years ago in 1999 Stelarc, Tony Figallo and myself headed for a local park in Richmond and Stelarc slipped his arm into what he called an Extended Arm. He wanted to be photographed at night so that his body and the mechanical arm would stand out against a black background. In order to achieve this I was co-opted to hold a bright light towards Stelarc’s body whilst Tony Figallo took photographs. The light attracted mosquitoes and I was bitten several times. But why this memory at this time?
This is a photograph of one of the slides of the photographs.
This morning I saw the Future U exhibition at the RMIT Gallery in Swanston Street, Melbourne and it was only the second time I’d been in such close proximity to Stelarc’s Extended Arm as a stand-alone cybernetic art object. Its intricate, benign construction is complementary to a video recording of Stelarc’s Stick Man performance, which was compelling in that Stelarc, who occasionally grimaced, looked decidedly uncomfortable being twisted and turned in that confining contraption. Well worth seeing the taped performance but I was left thinking that this kind of technology is not only an imposition (regardless of his choice, or our choice to enter into relationships with cybernetics), but restraining and controlling in its obvious strength. More so than the human intrinsically integrated with it.
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