“Prosthetics, Robotics and Remote Existence: Post Evolutionary Strategies” presented by Stelarc

Symposium:

• SISEA: Second International Symposium on Electronic Art
• More presentations from SISEA:  

• Facets of Electronic Art

• Prosthetics, Robotics and Remote Existence: Post Evolutionary Strategies

• Stelarc

Venue(s):

• Cultural Center de Oosterpoort, Groningen, Netherlands

• It is time to question whether a bipedal, breathing body with binocular vision and a 1400cc brain is an adequate biological form. It cannot cope with the quantity, complexity and quality of information it has accumulated; it is intimidated by the precision, speed and power of technology and it is biologically ill-equiped to cope with its new extraterrestrial environmment. The body is neither a very efficient nor a very durable structure. It malfunctions often and fatigues quickly: its performance is determined by its age. It is susceptible to disease and is doomed to a certain and early death. Its survival parameters are very slim -it can survive only weeks without food, days without water and minutes without oxygen. The body’s LACK OF MODULAR DESIGN and its over-reactive immunological system make it difficult to replace malfuncting organs. It might be the height of technological folly to consider the body obsolete in form and function, yet it might be the highest of human realizations. For it is only when the body becomes aware of its present position that it can map its postevolutionary strategies. It is no longer a matter of perpetuating the human species by REPRODUCTION, but of enhancing the individual by REDESIGNING. What is significant is no longer male-female intercourse but human-machine interface. THE BODY IS OBSOLETE. We are at the end of philosophy and human physiology. Human thought recedes into the human past.

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