Matthew Rowley 06/04/2010

Multimedia Theatre (DR670) - Convenor: Rosemary Klich

Major Essay

Q)How does multimedia performance explore and challenge existing

understandings of the body? Refer in detail to at least two works.

Multimedia Performance: Exploring and Challenging the

Understandings of the Human Body
Throughout history, theatre has been used to explore the uses and limitations of the human body;
whether it is exploring its physical strength and flexibility, through dance; its coordination through
mock sword fights; or what it can symbolise, through mime or gesture. However, some more
modern performances explore and challenge mankind’s understanding of the body itself. Is it still
useful in this modern, technology-driven society? Furthermore, is it even needed in theatre - a
medium which is based purely on physical human performance? This essay will explore multimedia
artists and performances that ask these questions, so as to challenge the understanding of the body
and its place in performance. The contemporary artists and performers who will be discussed in this
essay (Stelarc, Laurie Anderson and dance company Chunky Move) all use different technology in
their multimedia performances to make their point.

Stelarc, an Australian multimedia artist, is continually exploring the human body and its integration
with technology. Over the course of his career, he has had an additional, robotic arm attached to his
body, had his muscles controlled by computers and even plans to have a third ear attached to his left
arm. Stelarc is a firm believer in the notion that the “body is obsolete”, a term he coined himself
(BNET 2004). Stelarc’s reasoning for his controversial statement is that in this digital age, mankind
has reached such a technological highpoint that the human body is simply not compatible with the
world which has been created around it:

“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-equipped to cope
with its new extraterrestrial environment.”

Stelarc

(Stelarc)

Stelarc is not the first artist to question the limitations of the human body. In the radio play, To Have
Done with the Judgment of God (1947) drama theorist, Antonin Artaud saw that the human body
was limiting mankind’s abilities. The human body ages, becomes sick, becomes tired quickly and the
human mind’s ambitions, aspirations and imagination can too often outstrip the body’s physical
abilities and its biological constraints:

“When you will have made him a body without organs,

then you will have delivered him from all his automatic reactions
and restored him to his true freedom”

(Sontag 1976, 571)

Matthew Rowley 06/04/2010
Multimedia Theatre (DR670) - Convenor: Rosemary Klich
Major Essay

It is only without the body, as both Artaud and Stelarc theorise, that human mind can truly express
itself in a physical manner. A contradiction of terms, it would seem, as the only way to express
oneself physically is by using the body. Stelarc’s answer to this is to enhance or replace the body
with technology:

“...only successful body-machine symbiosis can release us from our biological and ecological
containment”

(Berghaus 2005, 253)

Machines never tire, age or become sick and can be bigger, stronger and faster than the human
body. But, as of this date, even though many major organs and joints can be preplaced with new or
artificial ones there is no artificial replacement for the human mind. A human brain with a
mechanical body, a human-machine hybrid, is the perfect solution to this problem. Stelarc calls this
melding of human and machine the Bionaut.

He believes that it is “...time to escape the tyranny of biology and evolutionary development...”
(Berghaus 2005, 253). To illustrate his viewpoint, and to experiment with the notion of the Bionaut,
Stelarc presented many different multimedia performances over a period of thirteen years, which he
cumulatively and fittingly named The Body is Obsolete. This period of work used technology to
challenge many of the traditional views of the body and conventions of the body in performance.

One of the earlier works in Stelarc’s series was entitled Exoskeleton (1998). The performance
consisted of the artist piloting a three metre wide, 600 kilogram, five-legged machine around the
stage. The machine’s electrical relays and pneumatic actuators were recorded my microphones,
highly amplified and played back to the audience. Stelarc used this to translate the machine’s
movements into a kind of music as it translated his “...human gait into insect-like locomotion”
(Stelarc 2005). When highlighted by the amplified sound of its movements, the huge, advanced
machine had become a mechanical body for Stelarc to perform with. In this performance, Stelarc’s
mechanical body was more important than his human one, bigger, more visually impressive and the
main focus of the production. Stelarc had removed the human body from performance, but further
works in the series went further than this to remove more of the human element from performance.

Stelarc further pushed and explores the notion of man and machine in performance in another of his
The Body is Obsolete performances, Fractal Flesh (1995). Fractal Flesh saw the muscles in Stelarc’s
limbs connected to a series of control computers. The computers could electrically induce
involuntary movement in Stelarc’s muscles, meaning that Stelarc was not in control of his own body.
He had removed the need for the brain and mind in performance. This is a stark contrast to more
traditional performance types, such as dance and physical theatre, which focus and rely on the
performer having complete control of his/her body. Fractal Flesh becomes even more radical when
it is taken into account that the audience was in control of the movements. Stelarc was performing
live via a video link from Luxemburg to audiences in Paris, Helsinki and Amsterdam. The audience in
each location could use a touch screen computer interface to operate Stelarc’s limbs. In this
production, the performer’s body “...becomes a host for the desires of remote agents...” (Stelarc
2005). This is radically different from the conventions of dramatic theatre, whereby the audience has
no control over the action, where as in Fractal Flesh the audience is firmly in charge. Even in
Matthew Rowley 06/04/2010
Multimedia Theatre (DR670) - Convenor: Rosemary Klich
Major Essay

dramatic productions that claim to include audience participation, the audience cannot control the
actors themselves, only direct them; meaning that the performer has the last say in his actions and is
therefore in charge of his own body. In dramatic theatre, the actor is not only in control of his own
body but also the audience’s mind, by manipulating it on an emotional level, controlling the
audience’s feelings with the actions of the actor/actress. The way the actor performs on stage,
his/her apparent emotional state, affects that of the audience; which at its most effective can cause
the audience great elation or emotional lows. Fractal Flesh not only opposes this performance
convention but attacks it; the audience is placed in actual control of the performer and can
figuratively and literally bend him/her to its will as if to punish the performer on a physical level for
manipulating the audience on an emotional level. Stelarc himself describes the process of electrically
stimulated involuntary movement as painful; so when this is coupled with, and exacerbated by, the
fact that the performance lasted for four hours this makes for quite a strong point. (Stelarc 2005)
Whereas, Exoskeleton had removed the need for the human body in performance, Fractal Flesh had
removed the need for the human mind.

As if not content with removing the mind from performance, Stelarc’s continuing work Prosthetic
Head (2002-Present) seeks to remove the human mind and body. Prosthetic Head is a fully moving
virtual model of Stelarc’s head which has be sophistically programmed to converse with an audience
member. The Head is intended to be projected four metres high in a darkened room and an
audience member can type messages to the head on a keyboard. The head then converses with the
audience member out loud through its own, synthesized voice. The head’s responses were initially
written by Stelarc, but the complex programming and constant updating of the database of
responses allows the head to have more and more complex and realistic conversations. The head
can even ask its own questions to the audience member and change the subject to one that is has
better knowledge of. Because of this, even though it is his image and responses, Stelarc claims that
the head will reach such a state of artificial intelligence that there will come a point where the
original artist cannot be held responsible for the head’s actions. With Prosthetic Head, Stelarc
created a performance independent from both the human body and the human mind. He has
removed from performance one of its defining criteria, the need for a physical performer.

Another artist whose use of technology has questioned the human body in performance is American
performance artist and musician, Laurie Anderson. In sections of her 1984 performance, Home of
the Brave, Anderson and her fellow performers appeared on stage in loose fitting suits with gloves
and masks, thus hiding the human body’s gender, body shape, face, hair and skin from the
audience’s view. By doing this, Anderson has removed all the unique expressive qualities from the
human body, leaving just a basic humanoid shape, a symbolic performer that stands in for the body.
This contrasts performance types which rely on multiple elements of the body’s capabilities, such as
dramatic theatre (which relies on facial expression and voice) and also contrasts those forms of
performance that mainly rely on single elements, such as opera (which largely depends on the
voice).

The only unique expressive quality left of Anderson in Home of the Brave was her voice, and even
this had been removed. Anderson’s real voice was recorded and then run through a computerised
Matthew Rowley 06/04/2010
Multimedia Theatre (DR670) - Convenor: Rosemary Klich
Major Essay

synthesiser, turning her female, human voice into a deep, artificial, computerised one. She now had
virtually no human qualities remaining. This use of technology further removed the human element
from performance, giving Anderson an appearance and sound more similar to that of a humanoid
robot than that of a human being. Much like a robot, Anderson’s body had become a human-shaped
vessel for technology; with her human features and voice removed, the only focus for the audience
was the computerised voice. Thus, In this performance, the only way in which the body could
express itself clearly was by working alongside technology, the two working in a Bionaut-like
symbiosis; Anderson would not be heard by the audience without the technology and the
technology would not function without input from Anderson’s voice.

However, later in Home of the Brave, Anderson used a digitised violin to manipulate a recording of
the author William S. Burroughs. The recording, which stated “Listen to My Voice”, had been
augmented using the same effects as those applied to Anderson’s voice. This meant that Anderson’s
violin was capable of performing the same task as her own body, the act of speaking. The violin even
seemed to brag about this; repeatedly commanding the audience to “listen to my voice”. In a
Stelarcian manner, the technologies of the violin and computer were showing the audience that
technology could do the same task as well as, if not better than, the human body. In Home of the
Brave, the human body had been outshone by the technology used in the show; the body had been
used as just a medium through which to show the marvels of technology.

The notion of the human body working as a medium though which to demonstrate technology, has
been further explored in Chunky Move’s production, Glow (2006-Present). The performance consists
of a dancer dancing on an interactive floor. The dancer’s movements are tracked by cameras and the
shape of her body and the speed of her movements manipulate and control a computer-generated
graphical presentation. This is then projected from above, displaying not only on the floor, but also
on the dancer herself. She is intentionally dressed in a plain and light-coloured leotard, so that the
projection can be clearly seen on her body, almost as if she were part of the floor. The projected
graphics are in bright, vibrant colours and patterns and are constantly changing, providing the
audience with a more visually appealing image from the graphics than from the dancer. This is the
polar opposite of more traditional dance performance; which focuses on the abilities of the human
body. Traditionally in dance, any technology or media used (such as music and lighting) is solely for
the purpose of complementing and drawing attention to the dancers’ movements. In Glow,
however, it is the dancer’s movements that are used to draw attention to the technology; the dancer
is just the operator and coordinator of the real performance at hand, namely that of the computer.
The computer and its associated technology is the real dancer in the performance; it is more varied
and visually engaging and its capabilities extend beyond that of the body of the human dancer, it is
an “extended motion of their movement, a visual expression of internal states” (Chunky Move
2010). Not only does the technology outperform the dancer in its own right, it also extends the
dancer’s movements. By doing so it further strengthens the view shared by Stelarc and Anderson
alike; that the body can not only be enhanced by technology but can also out-perform it.

In conclusion, the three artists mentioned above have used technology in their multimedia
performances to explore and challenge the understandings of the human body. Moreover, these
artists have even gone as far as to question whether or not there is a need for the human body in
performance at all. With the ever increasing technological advancements in the fields of engineering,
Matthew Rowley 06/04/2010
Multimedia Theatre (DR670) - Convenor: Rosemary Klich
Major Essay

electronics, computing and bioengineering, technology is bettering the abilities of the human body
and performing ever more impressive feats than the human body could ever possibly attempt.
Stelarc has even demonstrated that a performance can still exist, not only without the body, but also
without the brain. And, in some circumstances, without the need for both. However, as much as
technology advances, there will never be an artificial system as intelligent, insightful and imaginative
as the human brain. It may be possible for a performer to be completely virtual and free of the
human body but a machine cannot match the human brain. A machine may be able to manipulate
and process data faster than any human but it cannot (and will never be able to) imagine, never be
able to create true art or feel any emotion. The afore mentioned artists may have pointed out the
limits and shortcomings of the body and how technology can overcome these, but one part of the
human body must always be part of performance; the unmatchable natural machine that is the
human brain. It is the brain that conceives the performance in the first place, even if it, ultimately, is
not required in the performance itself. The performance may not need the brain to operate, but it
needs the brain to create it at its inception. It is because of this that the aforementioned artists,
despite their opinions and best efforts, can never create a performance that doesn’t need the body.

Word Count: 2,662

Matthew Rowley 06/04/2010
Multimedia Theatre (DR670) - Convenor: Rosemary Klich
Major Essay

Bibliography
Berghaus, Günter (2005) Avent-Garde Performance – Live and Electronic Technologies, Basingstoke:
Palgrave MacMillan.

BNET, Reference Publications, Is the body Obsolete?, 2004 [Website]

Available at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_n63/ai_7675115/

Accessed: 4/4/2010

Books and writers, William (Seward) Burroughs (1914-1997), 2008 [Website]

Available at: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/wbburrou.htm

Accessed: 8/4/2010

Chucky Move, 2010 [Website]

Available at: http://www.chunkymove.com/

Accessed: 4/4/2010

Florida International University, Dr. Steven Mizach – Homepage, The CyberAnthropology Page,
Cyberhuman, 1992. [Website]

Avalisble at: http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/stelarc.html

Accessed 5/4/2010

IMDb, William S. Burroughs, 2010 [Website]

Available at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0123221/

Accessed: 8/4/2010

Kaye, Nick (2007) Multi-Media – Video Installation Performance, Oxon: Routledge.

Matthew Rowley 06/04/2010
Multimedia Theatre (DR670) - Convenor: Rosemary Klich
Major Essay

Rush, Michael (2005) New Media in Art, London: Thames and Hudson.

Sontag, Susan (ed) (1976) Antonin Artaud – Selected Writings, University of California Press.

Stanford University, Extended-Body: Interview with Stelarc [Website]

Avaliable at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/stelarc/a29-extended_body.html

Accessed 5/4/2010

Stelarc, Obsolete Body, [Website]

Available at: http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/obsolete/obsolete.html

Accessed: 4/4/2010

Stelarc : the body is obsolete. 2005 [DVD] Melbourne : Contemporary Arts Media

The Originals: Laurie Anderson. 1990 [Video] United States: Distribution Access