Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Posthuman Tendencies in Performance Art
Posthuman Tendencies in Performance Art
POSTHUMAN TENDENCIES IN PERFORMANCE ART: INTERACTION OF BODY
AND CODE
BY: MARKÉTA DOLEJŠOVÁ
ABSTRACT
This paper suggests a convenience of artistic approach to scientific research, while attempting to
embody a theoretical concept of posthuman within the performance art practice. First part of the
text discusses the onset and development of posthumanism as a philosophical and cultural
movement focused on gradual man – machine convergence, the following part then presents
its reflection within the work of selected performance artists. Posthumanism is conceived as
a movement on the border between serious scientific discourse and fiction: Based on the
mathematical theory of communication as well as the legacy of cyberpunk dystopia, it offers a vision
of transition from human to the so‐called posthuman. The posthuman is seen as an offspring of
technoculture, a synthesis of living and artificial, and a loosely evolving entity without fixed
ontological boundaries. Processual existence of posthuman is located beyond any dualistic
categorizations and refuses essentialist approach. It is an attractive subject of science‐fiction stories
and a sexy postmodern slogan, as well as a symbol of transgression of predestinating categories such
as race, gender or social status. However, posthuman is primarily a metaphor adopted by variety of
narratives focused on potential aspects of technologically extended life: From serious scientific
investigations, through science‐fiction, up to its appropriations by the art world. The inherently open
and independent language of art seems to represent a suitable interpretational tool for articulating
the posthuman discourse, while transferring the theoretical concept of posthuman into a vivid and
tangible form.
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 3
1. POSTHUMANISM 8
1.1 HUMAN AND MACHINE: TOGETHER IN THE SYSTEM 10
1.2 THE ADVENT OF POSTHUMAN STUDIES 14
1.3 UNCERTAINTY IS THE MESSAGE 22
2. PERFORMING THE POSTHUMAN 24
2.1 TECHNOLOGY AND FEMALE BODY: PERFORMING A FEMINIST PRAXIS 29
2.2 TECHNO‐ENHANCED QUEER BODIES: GENDERFUCKING IN (CYBER)SPACE 36
2.3 ETHNO‐TECHNO PERFORMANCE: ETHNO‐CYBORGS AND CYBER‐IMMIGRANTS 46
2.4 PERFORMING WITH COMPANION SPECIES: POSTHUMAN FAMILY OF (MICRO)ORGANISMS 51
2.5 MANIPULATED BODIES: PERFORMING THE (BIO)TECHNOPOWER 57
2.6 BODIES UNDER SURVEILLANCE: PERFORMING THE PANOPTICON 63
2.7 SENTIENT SUPERBODIES: ENJOYING THE TECHNO‐EMOTIONAL SENSATIONS 70
CONCLUSION 79
REFERENCES 81
2
INTRODUCTION
In the context of the 21th century we have no choice but to admit that technology, although still
dependent on a creative human input, is not a neutral element. Human life has always been tied with
technology, and the invention of wheel had probably the same social influence as the invention of
computer in its time, however, the man – machine relationship has undergone a profound change
throughout the history. Automation of manufacture production during the Industrial Revolution, rise
of cybernetics, opening of cyberspace and subsequent advent of digital revolution, advance in nano‐
and biotechno science, new methods of genetic engineering...this is just a brief shortlist of
milestones that have marked the chronology of technosocietal progress so far. As we tirelessly
continue to shape new smart machines, apps and protocols, they begin to shape us in a return, while
slowly reforming the social space of its former masters.
The imperative power of technology has always evoked dystopian visions, however, mankind is still
longing for newness and keeps on developing more and more innovations that should make people
faster, stronger, smarter, better. Over the time, technology has become a familiar or even intimate
human companion, and there has been a remarkable shift from a human relationship to technology
to a relationship with technology. What was formerly handled as an object has recently started to be
seen as a subject. This phenomenon can be aptly demonstrated on anthropomorphized
denominations of popular gadgets like iPhone or Android, which are a common vocabulary used all
around the globe. This growing techno‐fetish thus gradually shapes some kind of Humachines
(Poster, 2006), strange hybrid beings balancing on the edge of blood cells and silicon chips.
It was already in early 1980s, when computer won the Time magazine's Person of the Year award.
Following the names such as Mahatma Gandhi, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pope John XXIII. or Martin
Luther King, the world's most influential entity was at once a machine – a symbol of human progress,
as well as fears of dehumanization and loss of human autonomy. The front‐page picture of the
machine was accompanied by a white lifelessly appearing human statue, passively staring at
a computer screen filled with numbers, graphs and charts. It was the computer, who appeared alive
there, leaving the man to passively wait for a command. This notion was further intensified with an
epitaph‐like headline "The Computer Moves In" which was displayed on the front‐page. The
magazine's editorial explained the winner choice in a rather laconic manner:
3
"Point is, it will save you time. Time time time. And we need all the time we can save. Can't kill time
without injuring eternity [...] Time is money. Most of all, time is dreams. And computers give you time
for dreams." 1
1. Time,
Machine of the Year (1982).
The relationship between human organism and computer
th
mechanism was tense already in the early 80 .
Digital revolution of the late 20th century associated with mass expansion of broadband Internet
connection has opened an entirely new social arena, inscribed with a promise of boundless global
communication. Cyberspace has offered a possibility of louse identity formation freed from most of
the prevailing social stereotypes, including those deriving from one's physical appearance, although it
later had to be admitted that long‐term residing under an autonomously created and highly
inauthentic virtual identity bears many drawbacks. A very fitting reflection of the fuzzy nature of
virtual existence offers Mexican performance artist Guillermo Gómez‐Peña (1997), whose work will
be further analyzed in following chapters:
"Today, I'm tired of ex/changing identities in the net. In the past 8 hours, I've been a man, a woman
and a s/he. I've been black, Asian, Mixteco, German and a multi‐hybrid replicant. I've been 10 years
old, 20, 42, 65. I've spoken 7 broken languages. As you can see, I need a break real bad, just want to
be myself for a few minutes. p.s.: my body however remains intact, untouched, unsatisfied,
unattainable, untranslatable."
1
ROSENBLATT, 1983
2
The project, within which the human DNA was decoded known as Human Genome Project was started in October 1990.
4
Gómez‐Peña's quotation briefly sums up the cyber‐identity issues, which are further described in
Michel Heim's (1993) concepts of the Alternate World Syndrome (AWS) and Alternate World Disorder
(AWD). Those and many other drawbacks of anonymous existence in cyberspace such as cybercrime
or cyberbullying, as well as the whole problem of digital divide curtain, have escalated the
ambivalent nature of man – machine relationship even further.
The impression of humankind's weakening control over its technological creations is further
compounded in the context of modern medical science. Thanks to the significant advances in surgical
and prosthetic medicine, physically disabled individuals are nowadays limited by their formerly
irreversible bodily dysfunctions in a distinctively lower rate, but it's not just the handicapped, who
take the advantage. Current medicine can also help to circumvent once immutable (and
unwelcomed) biological givens, such as belonging to a particular sex. However, it's primarily thanks
to the decoding of human genome, which enabled the translation of biological organism into a fully
readable database2, what makes the biomedical science capable to push the limits of human life
cycle. Biotechnology, as a writing technology, plays a crucial role here and evokes some optimistic
predictions regarding the possible dismiss of so far malignant diseases, or biological predispositions
as such. On the other hand, the dystopian visions of human autonomy being deceased in favor of
pharmaceutical companies, which hold the key to the human DNA code, come into question as well.
So far, the sophisticated methods of genetic therapy have been utilized primarily in the reproductive
medicine. Thanks to biotechnological treatment, motherhood has been taken out of certain
biological and social limitations, letting a woman to "trick her body" – at the same time, however,
plunging her into dependency on the technology, which to her suddenly becomes an equally (if not
even more) important element as the body itself.
The growing technological progress and its transformative potential on human nature is a leitmotiv
of posthumanism – a sociocultural and philosophical movement formed in times of burgeoning
cyberculture, surrounded with enthusiastic techno‐optimism as well as conservative techno‐
skepticism. The rise of posthumanist school of thought can be interpreted as a confirmation of the
growing societal concern about the man – machine issue. As this issue falls into a rather vague
discursive field drawing both on facts and anticipations, its investigation should employ a complex
and transdisciplinary approach. The language of analytical scientific research based on hypotheses‐
led methodology thus doesn't seem sufficient in this case, as it bears some limitations inherited in
2
The project, within which the human DNA was decoded known as Human Genome Project was started in October 1990.
Fully decoded human genome, comprising of 20 000 – 25 000 described genes, was published in 2003. See:
<http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/home.shtml>
5
the formal research policy and enforceable compliance of related protocols. To fulfill the promise of
transdisciplinarity, an involvement of less restricted, discovery‐led methodology of artistic research
seems to be useful. Art has an unrestrained ability to formulate thoughts directly, without a duty to
adapt to the most of the existing discursive rules, and the practical nature of artistic research should
therefore bring a valuable perspective into the case.
It may have seemed that art and science have split irreconcilably after the Renaissance era, which
was marked with the idealized figure of intellectual as a polymath: The proliferation of new scientific
fields and deductive research methods in the age of Enlightenment left no room for speculative
methodologies and immeasurable phenomena. The "subjective" world of art has been isolated from
the "objective" one of science, and both fields were declared as incompatible. However, along with
the technological progress and subsequent increase in the expansion of available knowledge, where
researchers need to deal with many immeasurable elements, the Renaissance transdisciplinarity now
undergoes rejuvenation. Artistic appropriation of technology has gained greater importance in the
context of the early 20th century, when a number of new art directions emerged: The machine
aesthetics of Bauhaus, Russian Constructivism or Futurism, Vsevolod Meyerhold's biomechanical
theater or Oskar Schlemmer's triadic ballet being just a few examples.
2. Raoul Hausmann,
Tatlin at home (1920).
A montage showing a portrait of Russian constructivist
Vladimir Tatlin illustrates a Dadaist utopia, where emotions are
turned into mechanical thoughts.
This tendency was further intensified along with the advent of information science and cybernetics,
which gave rise not only to the digerati culture, but also to numerous new media art genres, such as
6
digital art, virtual art or Net art. These are characterized primarily by their interactive nature, which
refers to an integration of viewer as active co‐creator of artwork. Interactive art has led to the
gradual diminishment of the boundaries between spectator and artist, with the latter being
perceived not only as an author of original content, but also as a mediator enabling the audience to
actively enter into a particular situation. Technology has become a key element within this context,
while creating a connection between both sides. However, the technological element also finally re‐
connected the worlds of art and science, becoming their common intersection, as well as, in many
cases, core motivation. The once influential C.P. Snow’s "Two Cultures" theory (1969), which
suggested that those in art and humanities had developed discursive language incompatible with
that of natural sciences, is thus considered obsolete from current point of view. It seems clear that
some more complex perspective, some sort of Third culture need to be adopted (Brockmann, 1995).
Besides the above mentioned, it has been particularly development of biotech‐related art genres
that has recently contributed to the formation of this Third culture. At the last year's Mutamorphosis
conference, neurobiologist Maria Joao Grade Godinho defined her affiliation of institutionalized
scientist as more or less limiting. Based on her collaboration with number of bioartists that occurred
primarily outside official environment of science laboratories, she envisioned a huge potential of this
transdisciplinary approach. According to her, artists and scientists should create innovative
collaborative works, which would transgress the "mere" iconographic values, as well as some
limitations resulting from the restrictive scientific protocols. Moreover, this sci‐art practice should
thereby raise a broad public awareness of social, ethical and political aspects of the current
(bio)technological development.3 Relevance of this transdisciplinary approach has been confirmed by
a number of authors, situated on both sides of the science‐art continuum: Philosopher of science
Paul Feyerabend once highlighted benefits of absurdity and paradox inherited in artistic approach,
which should provide an inspirational methodology for researchers coming from a broad range of
fields. Artist and art theorist Stephen Wilson (2002) defined art and science as two main driving
forces of culture, media artist Vibeke Sorensen assigned the artists with a role of interdisciplinary
practitioners possessing a potential to push the limits of knowledge into entirely new dimensions.4 To
conclude, taking on Wilson's interpretation of technology as knowing how and science as knowing
why, art should be seen as knowing how else or showing why not.
3
Mutamorphosis conference was held on the 8thDecember 2012 in Prague.
4
Quoted in WILSON, 2002, p. 19.
7
Assuming that the above described tendencies to the technological formation of both human being
and society as such, to which I generally refer as posthuman tendencies, represent a relevant aspect
of human life, and accepting the proposition that the language of art is a relevant tool for the
articulation of these tendencies, we are touching the main motivation of this text. However, as the
field of the so‐called posthuman art is rather an extensive one, it is necessary to make the
perspective narrower. Considering the central theme of posthumanism – the impact of technology
on societal formation, which is realized primarily through human body – I have chosen the
perspective of performance art to be the one. Performance art, as a live art based on direct
interventions into the body, reflects those posthuman aspects in various forms: From performances
focused on the mutability of socially established categories such as gender, sexuality or ethnicity, up
to those oriented on ambivalent context of nature – culture balance. Moreover, the spontaneity and
unscriptedness typically inherited in performance art pieces seems to suit the above‐described
nature of artistic research practice very well. I therefore suggest that performance art, utilized as a
formal means of expression, should offer a relevant reflection of the posthuman discourse. This topic
will be discussed at length within following chapters: First part of the paper offers an outline of the
essential characteristics and context of the posthumanist movement, the second part then illustrates
this theoretical background on various examples taken from the performance art practice.
1. POSTHUMANISM
Posthumanism has emerged in the late 1970s, as a philosophical and socio‐cultural movement
located on the liminal border of serious scientific knowledge and science fiction. Based on the
mathematical theory of communication as well as the legacy of cyberpunk dystopia, posthumanism
has envisioned a transition of human into the so‐called posthuman. This process, usually known as
physical disembodiment, originates from the theory of disembodied information, which was first
presented by Claude Shannon in 1940s and got clearer outlines later in the '60s, along with the
advent of cyborg concept.5 Cyborg – a cybernetic organism – brought to the light a vision of artificial
organisms and technologically enhanced humans, who extend their bodies with variety of techno‐
prosthesis, thus expanding both their physical and mental abilities. However, the disembodiment
process has never reached a clear definition, and since its original conception there have been some
major reinterpretations. Some techno‐utopists see it as a truly doable procedure, while envisioning
strategies such as brain scanning or reversible cryopreservation; the less utopian techno‐enthusiasts
use it rather as a metaphor for individual liberation from predestinating socio‐cultural categories. At
5
It should be noted that Shannon had actually never intended to apply his concept of disembodied information onto the
human being, and this appropriation is more a matter of later interpretations.
8
this point, it seems necessary to clarify the (often omitted) distinction between posthumanism and
variety of highly techno‐utopian movements that are usually referred to as transhumanistic.
Although both posthumanism and transhumanism deal with the man – machine issue, and both
actually use the term "posthuman" in their writings, they approach this topic from quite different
perspectives.
From the posthumanist point of view, human is seen as a part of complex universe of animate and
inanimate entities, an actant developing through incessant mutual interaction with surrounding
phenomena – be it animals, plants or non‐living entities (see Bruno Latour's ANT in next chapter).
Technology is understood as an entity with potential to lower distinctions among all those actants,
rather than to empower just one group – in this case most presumably the one made out of humans.
Posthumanism thereby diverges from anthropocentric philosophy, which has been adopted by many
schools throughout the history, starting already with the pre‐Socratic Greek philosophy and
culminating within the Cartesian rationalism.
This posthumanist attitude draws from the tradition of conflict theories, which in the second half of
the 20th century became a breeding ground for many socially engaged movements that have
deliberately denied the notion of white man as a core element of the world order – those most
visible have been the feminist, queer, anti‐racist, green or animal rights ones. In this postmodern and
multi‐culturally oriented context, the anthropocentric reductionism has no longer seemed to be
adequate and began to be replaced with a polycentric or, in the words of feminist scholar Rossi
Braidotti (2006) "post‐anthropocentric" approach. Robert Pepperel (1995), author of Posthuman
manifesto, summarizes the situation as follows:
"Humanists saw themselves as distinct beings in an antagonistic relationship with their surroundings.
Posthumans, on the other hand, regard their own being as embodied in an extended technological
world."
Posthuman is therefore neither a denial of human, nor an attempt to enhance his/r capabilities to
some level of super‐humanness (as it is often mistakenly interpreted). The first one belongs to the
philosophy of radical environmentalist groups such as The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
(VHEM), the latter is then a main interest of the above mentioned transhumanist movement.
Transhumanists strive for a continual improvement of human race, which would lead up to
eudaimonistic state of complex perfection, characterized by abolition of pain and maximization of
9
6
pleasure. There are more ambitious transhumanistic ideals, envisioning a future state of human
techno‐immortality (e.g. Itskov, Stolyarov, Santostasi), as well as some less utopian proposing various
– seemingly more realistic – evolutionary contributions of human enhancement technologies (HET),
such as a construction of fully functional human exocortex or complex gene therapy, which would led
to the deceleration of ageing process. All those predictions are driven by entirely anthropocentric
attitudes and the proposed superiority is necessarily bounded with a certain degree of universality or
universal state of human perfection that actually contradicts the posthumanist desire for plurality
and diversity. Technology, as a medium that should lead to this state, is than seen as a mere tool and
neutral human servant, not as an equal actant.
To sum up, the "transhumanistic posthuman" should be interpreted rather as a "superhuman". The
anti‐anthropocentric "posthumanist posthuman" is, on the contrary, utilized more as a metaphorical
concept that represents the need to blur the boundaries between organic and artificial, human and
nonhuman, materialistic and intangible, high and low, male and female or white and black. To avoid
any misconceptions right at the beginning of this text, I would like to become clear that while
mentioning the term posthuman, I will always refer to this latter concept.
1.1 HUMAN AND MACHINE: TOGETHER IN THE SYSTEM
The man – machine relationship has started to gain a broader importance in the context of Industrial
Revolution, when technology became an essential part of human life, both in terms of factory
production and everyday housekeeping. In the first instance, the mechanization of production and
division of labor led to reduction of social ties between factory workers, whose activity was limited to
a mere economically advantageous work performance, thus increasingly resembling a machinic
operation. New technologies gave rise not only to new patterns of production, but influenced also
interpersonal relationships. Along with this shift they ceased to be perceived as merely passive tools,
fully dependent on human control. This tendency has been further amplified in the 1940s, along with
the advent of Computer revolution. The beginning of research in field of computer technology
brought about emergence of disciplines such as information science or cybernetics, and should be
considered a first step in transition from humanist to posthumanist society. Key variable in this
context is information, and its interpretation as a probabilistic immaterial function without the
necessary relation to the meaning, which eventually gave rise to its definition as disembodied entity.
This definition was first proposed by American mathematicians Claude Shannon and Norbert Wiener,
6
See Transhumanist FAQ <http://www.extropy.org/faq.htm>
10
who defined information as an average amount of surprise, a reverse state of entropy or a signal
oscillating between two or more systems independently on any medium, providing those systems
with necessary energy and thus lowering its inner entropy.7 This notion was then further
conceptualized within series of multidisciplinary gatherings of scientists, engineers and philosophers
called Macy conferences, which were organized regularly between 1934 and 1954. Shannon's and
Wiener's findings further specified by other Macy conferences' attendees have represented a crucial
starting point for the development of research in fields such as artificial intelligence, cognitive
science or system theory. Knowledge of intricate processes occurring within complex mathematical
systems has later been adopted also by social scientists, who began to apply the systemic
mathematical approach onto the social structure, understanding society as a complex system of
intermingled relationships.
An important contribution to the shift of system theory from mathematical into social sciences'
context is attributed to Ludwig von Bertalanffy's General system theory (GST) and Gregory Bateson's
cybernetic epistemology. Bateson saw the world as a series of mutually interacting adaptive systems,
which operate according to the principle of self‐regulation. This principle was further conceptualized
by Chilean biologists Huberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in their theory of autopoietic systems
(from Greek αúτo‐, meaning "self", and ποίησις, meaning "creation"). Although their original notion
of autopoiesis encompassed only living organisms, and was utilized primarily in the field of natural
sciences, it has later been applied also to the broader sociological context. A key work in this regard
is Niklas Luhmann's book Systems theory, where he converted the original meaning of autopoiesis as
an autonomy and self‐creation of living entities into an autonomous self‐creation of social reality.
Luhmann's model of "functionally differentiated society" resembles the structure of human
organism, as it is composed of many interconnected sub‐systems (such as law, economics, science,
education or policy) that interact according to the set of pre‐arranged rules. These are created and
maintained through the process of information exchange that serves (and has actually always served)
as a basic constitutional element of societal order. Society is then seen as a complex communication
network that self‐referentially reduces its own complexity through the compliance of established
rules, rather than as a mere set of individuals.
The network metaphor is further employed in Bruno Latour's Actor‐Network Theory (ANT). Latour
points out how modernist scientific and political institutions rigidly divides nature from society and
sees no relevant differences between living and non‐living entities: each actant within the network,
7
SHANNON; WEAWER, 1965
11
whether a person, organization, animal, plant or inanimate object, represents an equivalent
collaborator (or competitor), and the man – machine relationship is thus understood as entirely
symmetrical. He proposes a model of "cosmopolitics", a vision of common world inhabited by
"progressive compositions" made by "quasi‐subjects" and "quasi‐objects".8 French philosophers
Gilles Deleuze and Pierre‐Félix Guattari maintain similar approach in their rhizomatic philosophy.
Rhizomatic societal structure is a decentralized and unstable one, with no fixed beginning, nor an end
– quite contrary, it resembles a state of constant intermezzo that randomly flows from one place to
another. Rhizomatic structure thereby forms a network of multiple nodes and constitutes
a heterogeneous assemblage, where everything arises from an interaction. No single entity is
definite, nothing is given, and everything is in a state of incessant redefinition say Deleuze and
Guatari in their philosophical nomadism. Rhizomatic existence is thus based on the process of
continual becoming and individual actors are conceptualized as Bodies without organs (BwO),
embodying nothing more than existential potentialities. Individual body is an assemblage of genetic
material, thoughts and abilities to interact; any social group (family, tribe, nation etc.) is then
perceived as an assemblage of BwOs.
3. Oskar Schlemmer,
Figure and Space Delineation (1924).
Notion of human as a part of dense intermingled
network is present also in the geometrical
choreography of Schlemmer's dance performances.
All those sociologic appropriations of system theory have contributed to the notion of society as
a complex and processual structure that does not rely on stable relations and irreversible truths.
Taking new information technologies as core managers of this structure, Frank Webster has
suggested the denomination Information society in the mid '90s. The notion of information as an
essential social unit has later been applied onto the human being itself, thus opening the broad
8
LATOUR, 1993.
12
discursive space for utilization of various posthuman metaphors deriving from the concept of
disembodied "informational body".
The concept of physical disembodiment draws on an idea of free, customizable body, whose core
component is autonomous information, existing independently on its carrier. Nervous system is seen
as a closed circuit working on the basis of feedback loop, genetic code resembles the binary code,
and human organism becomes a programmable entity...however, as the author of original notion of
disembodied information Claude Shannon actually never proposed to apply the concept onto human
organism, we really should avoid all futuristic / transhumanistic preconceptions, and stay on the
metaphorical level when speaking about the disembodied informational body. One of the most
powerful concepts of informational organism has undoubtedly been the already mentioned cyborg
figure. Although originally conceived as a serious space research concept proposed by scientists
Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline to the NASA space program in 1960s, it has later been
assigned with many additional meanings and began to be used as universal symbol of liberation from
predestinating social categories and stereotypes (see e.g. the cyberfeminist movement in chapter
1.4). Moreover, even Clynes and Kline themselves described their cyborg as a useful means to
overcome the Cartesian dualist distinction between mind and body, defining it as a complex
organism, whose life is – thanks to the advantages of technology – freed from hereditary genetic
characteristics.9
One of the first real‐life appropriations of the physical disembodiment philosophy utilized on
everyday basis has been performed by early hacker communities conceived around Massachusetts
Institute of Technology's (MIT's) Tech Model Railroad Club in early 1960s. Members of the Club were
skilled computer programmers, system designers, engineers and various techno‐tinkerers with
different professional background that spent their free time experimenting and playing around not
only with model railroads, but with technology as such. They were enthusiastic about building the
most complicated systems by themselves, and used to elaborate numerous college pranks with their
inventions, thereby establishing the philosophy of hacking. However, this philosophy was driven not
only by techno‐enthusiasm, but also by the so‐called "physical asceticism" that emphasized non‐
physical qualities and skills over the physical appearance. According to the Hacker codex published
by Steven Levy in his book Hackers, heroes of the computer revolution (1984), hackers should be
judged by their hacking skills, and not by "false" criteria such as age, race, sex, education or social
status.
9
See HAYLES, 1999:3.
13
This approach was also adopted by cyberpunk movement, which came into wider recognition as
a science fiction genre. The cyberpunk motto "low‐tech in high‐life" is usually staged within
a dystopian context, where big corporations control the world over new technologies, thus ruining
the natural social order. The central scene of this plot is often cyberspace – a place arranged for
virtual, rather than real existence, where citizens exists only as a bunch of intangible data, leaving
their physical body at a connecting terminal located in real world. Body has function of a mere
container which its user needs to leave behind in order to enter a "true" space of cyber network
where there is no place for human flesh – remember e.g. the Bruce Sterling's Schizmatrix (1985), Neil
Stephenson's Snowcrash (1992) or later Wachowski's Matrix (1999). This fictitious form of radical
physical asceticism resembles the Plato's cave allegory and in a way supports the idea of mind‐body
dualism, thereby contradicting the Clynes and Klines' idea inscribed in a cyborg figure. Cyberpunk
fiction thus contributed to transhumanist visions of mind uploading or whole brain emulation (see
e.g. Moravec, 1990), however, the idea of disembodiment was widely popularized also in the more
serious non‐utopian fields of technocultural studies and in the early '90s the tetrad "physicality –
identity – technology – information" fully entered the STS (science technology and society studies)
discourse (Macek, 2004). The crucial part of this reflection was played by the posthuman studies.
1.2 THE ADVENT OF POSTHUMAN STUDIES
One of the most comprehensive theoretical works within posthuman studies is undoubtedly
Katherine Hayles' How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and
Informatics. Given the date of its publication (1999), it does not belong to the first theoretical works
on posthumanism (there is e.g. Ihab Hassan's Prometheus as Performer from 1977, or already
mentioned Posthuman Condition by Robert Peperell published in 1995); nevertheless, regarding the
content perfection it's considered almost a canonical work.
Hayles sees human as a specific structure based on the tradition of liberal humanism and historical
configuration of corporeality, technology and culture. Posthuman existence, on the other hand, is
seen as based on the numerical computable data, rather than the biological substance. Her
interpretation of posthumanism generally highlights information patterns over materiality, and offers
conceptualization of any entity – in this case a human one – as a manipulated set of information
elements. Following on the Clynes and Klines' cyborg theory as well as cyberpunk fiction, Hayles
continues equating the human brain and the machine's software, the body and the hardware. At the
same time, however, she agrees with the metaphorical character of those equations and denies the
14
transferability of mathematical model of disembodied information onto human entity, seeing it as
a mere ideological lead. She describes corporeality as a topical occurrence, historical coincidence and
consequence of specific cultural contexts, rather than fixed human attribute. Posthuman body is then
approached in social‐constructivist manner, as dynamically evolving entity formed primarily by the
social interactions of its "wearer", through the process highly similar to Deleuzean becoming.
The body of posthuman thereby fits into the feminist discourse, as it is most notably demonstrated in
writing of American biologist and a prominent STS scholar Donna Haraway. In her probably most
popular text Cyborg manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist‐Feminism in the Late Twentieth
Century (1985) Haraway uses the cyborg figure as a symbol of post‐gender society, describing it as
posthuman hybrid which blurs the western social stereotypes and leaves the notion of white
heterosexual man as a supreme creature far behind. Cyborg manifesto draws on the large body of
feminist theories by authors such as Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva or Luce Irigaray, which represents
the main conceptual cornerstones of the '80s and '90s feminist revolution. Haraway's cyborg thus
develops on the Lacanian notion of mirror stage10, putting woman into position of man's constitutive
Other which represent an embodiment of strangeness, irrationality, unfamiliarity and even
monstrosity, as well as on the Freudian notion of woman as uncanny element, confusing poor man's
Self with her mysterious vagina, an organ so familiar and desirable, but strange and filthy as well.11
According to Haraway, it's just this notion of woman's monstrosity that should be overcome by
means of techno‐enhanced genderless cyborg being which wasn't born and raised, but rather
autonomously self‐created, thus evolving completely unaffected by stereotypical gender inscriptions.
Haraway develops on Judith Butler's (2006) notion of gender performativity here, referring to
a conception of gender as not biologically predetermined, but rather socially constructed entity
which may be transformed according to needs and social context of its wearer.
Through 1990s, Haraway's techno‐feminism was adopted and vigorously advocated by the
Cyberfeminist movement, whose call for gender equality was driven by the posthumanist ideas of
new independency and technologically fostered liberation from biological or physical determinism.
The term cyberfeminism first appeared in writing of feminist scholar Sadie Plant, who advocated the
natural and historically substantiated closeness of woman and technology. Presenting a list of their
common factors, such as historical subordination to superior men, alleged absence of own identity
and essence, lack of personal freedom or even the ability to multitask, she suggested that feminist
10
WEBSTER, 2002.
11
AMTOWER, 2011.
15
cyborg synthesizing woman and machine actually represent a very natural creature.12 Paula
Rabinowitz develops on this equation and suggests that woman may actually be interpreted as the
most natural form of posthuman, as neither of them has a clearly defined and recorded historical
background.13 However, the cyberfeminist ideology was articulated mainly in form of subversive
interventions into the cyberspace agora, which were performed by number of cyberfem collectives
such as VNS Matrix or SubRosa.14 Girls from VNS Matrix, who authored one of the seminal
cyberfeminist texts Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st century (1991),15 were invading the
cyberspace with sassy and provocative language, beating the residing phallogocentrism with
weapons such as "laser beams fired from their cunts".16 Although their activities fell silent over the
time, and their attempt to feminize cyberspace has actually never been fulfilled completely, their
contribution to dissemination of posthumanist idea of gender‐free society was undeniable, as their
sharp and uncompromising language managed to spark a great public attention at the time.
4. VNS Matrix,
Cyberfeminist Manifesto (1991)
VNS Matrix's Manifesto heralded the arrival of technofeminity
with typical cyberfeminist language.
The notion of post‐gender cyborg was further utilized in terms of queer and LGBT culture that
promotes sexual diversity and freedom. "One is too few, and two is only one possibility" wrote
Haraway (1985:57) in her manifest, trying to corrupt the pejorative notion of sexual difference as
deviance. This motto has probably inspired another couple of major posthumanist scholars Judith
(Jack) Halberstam and Ira Livingstone, who co‐authored Posthuman Bodies (1995), one of the most
12
PLANT, 1997.
13
BADMINGTON, 2000.
14
For more details see: http://www.cyberfeminism.net/
15
Available at: http://www.sysx.org/gashgirl/VNS/TEXT/PINKMANI.HTM
16
VNS MATRIX, All New Gen <www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/all‐new‐gen/>
16
influential books on posthuman gender and sexuality. Halberstam and Livingstone saw posthuman as
a post‐gender mashup embodying the notion of Otherness in terms of gender and sexuality.
According to them, posthuman body is a symbol of new fragmented identities liberated from
homophobic social imperatives, it is "a screen, a projected image, a body under the sign of AIDS,
17
a contaminated body, a deadly body, a techno‐body, a queer body." Human body, on the contrary,
became to lose itself in the vast fragmentary maze of gender identities and sexual orientations,
18
slowly leaving the "great family of man" and joining a "Zoo of posthumanities" instead.
However, it's not only gender diversity what matters in the Zoo of posthumanities. Although not
gaining such attention, issues related to racial and ethnic Otherness represent another important
aspect of posthuman discourse. There is for example a book "The Souls of Cyberfolk: Posthumanism
as Vernacular Theory" (2005), where its author Thomas Foster conceptualizes cyborg as an embodied
trauma of white heterosexual man, whose position has been threatened by the growing wave of
anti‐racist social movements. Foster highlights that posthuman/cyborg should be seen as a post‐
ethnic creature and offers an example of sci‐fi comics Deathlok, whose main character, Afro‐
American professor Collins, finds himself trapped in a body of war cyborg, a robotic killing machine
programmed to murder several local natives. Collin's painful attempt to defy the preprogrammed
identity inscribed in his new body Foster interprets as a struggle of black man trying to assert himself
in predominant and imperative white environment. He suggests that this multi‐ethnic cyborg figure
not only embodies a trauma of assimilation policy, but also a fact that technologically mediated
identity can never fully substitute natural Self, although it may influence it in a great manner.
As already mentioned, posthumanist disruption of barriers between Self and Other doesn't apply
only to human beings and involves broad range of both animate and inanimate actants. This
approach has been further stressed by Donna Haraway, in her second manifest called Companion
Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and Significant Otherness (2003). There she offers alternative
interpretation of Otherness, shifting the attention from feminist issues to the animal kingdom.
Concerned primarily with dogs, Haraway suggested a model of large posthuman "family of
companion species", comprising both humans and animals, who are supposed to live in a mutually
beneficial trans‐species symbiosis. According to her, dogs help people to define their own identity,
while representing both their Others as well as their "best friends". With this shift, Haraway brings
the notion of posthuman into entirely new dimension, leaving the techno‐feministic field of woman –
17
HALBERSTAM & LIVINGSTONE, 1995, p. 3.
18
Ibid.
17
machine in favor of more natural field of human – animal relationship, where cyborg is one of the
figures but not the dominant one.19
However, the idealized anti‐anthropocentric idea of functional trans‐species symbiosis and balanced
nature – culture interface is inevitably bounded with consequences of incessant technological
progress. As nature has to incorporate more and more technologically enhanced creatures and
artifacts, its development resembles an act of constant adaptation, rather than natural evolution.
The whole process of natural environment's adaptation to new technologically fostered actants is
highly ambivalent: although it seems to be necessary to re‐design a habitat according to needs of its
inhabitants, there is a lack of some universally valid indicator, which would leverage the pace of this
process. Technology transforms culture, culture transforms nature, and the concept of "naturality" as
such ceases to be valid: It was already in 1988, when "Endangered Earth" was selected as Time
20
magazine's Person of the Year – only six years after the Computer stood at the pedestal.
The unstable fragility of nature – culture interface seems to be resulting from the fragility of man –
machine balance as such. Accelerating development of increasingly smarter technologies and their
growing influence on everyday life bears number of drawbacks: The smarter the technology is, the
more deeper it usually interferes in life of a user. The hierarchy of their relationship thus becomes to
be blurred.
Many authors have stressed the dark side of technologically enhanced society already in the times of
Industrial revolution. However, the so far loudest dystopian visions concerned with technological
progress have come to discussion along with mass democratization of the Internet. In the early '90s
new media scholars Arthur Kroker and Michael Weinstein came up with their theory of virtual class,
a new techno‐elite who possess control over the whole society connected to the Internet, or the so‐
called digital superhighway.21 The role of human as an Internet user was thereby reduced to a mere
set of information, a manipulable object of constant top‐down control or even an involuntary cyborg,
who is constantly controlled by a small group of elitist virtual class. In this context, Kroker and
Weinstein proposed a concept of hypertext body referring to the loss of value of the real human
body in favor of its data representation. The notion of Otherness is not represented by animal,
19
GANE, 2006: 148.
20
This year's competition was renamed as "Planet of the year", to omit the possible interpretation difficulties.
21
KROKER, WEINSTEIN, 1994.
18
nature, or human being with different race or gender any more, but rather by the Self as such.
Technologically manipulated individuality becomes to be melted in a global concrete superhighway
of de‐personalized zeroes and ones, and human being becomes his/r own Other in a universal sense.
Similarly techno‐pessimistic view offers Scott Bukatman, who proposed the concept of terminal
identity. With this term, he refers to the termination of the conventional conceptualization of human
identity, as well as to the gradual proliferation of ubiquitous computer terminals. Human – computer
interaction performed through variety of publicly accessible terminals that serve as entrance into the
information circuit has developed greatly since Bukatman first published his concept in 1993. The
notion of pervasiveness of ATMs and digitalized payment terminals has entered entirely new level
with the advent of smartphone apps and the whole Web 2.0 phenomenon, which brought about the
necessity of being connected always and everywhere. Bukatman himself has thus recently stated that
Facebook might actually be considered as a thorough fulfillment of his terminal identity concept,
utilized on everyday basis by millions of people all around the world.22 The rise of new social
networking services based on incessant connection and sharing of even most intimate personal
information has cornered the global market with technologies. All those "smart" mobile apps with
their location based interfaces revive the Orwellian vision of Big Brother, as well as Foucault's (resp.
Bentham's) panopticist model of surveillance – this time, however, adopted solely on a voluntary
basis.
Regarding the recent development in the field of biotechnologies one more Foucauldian concept
comes to the mind – namely the concept of biopower based on a control of individuals directly
through their biological bodies, be it by means of medical industry and legal or educational system.
Recent proliferation of biotechno industry brings about a revival of this biopolitical tradition, this
time, however, in a far more sophisticated manner. Dona Haraway suggests that Foucault's
formulation of biopower remains relevant, but it needs to be reworked according to the recent
biotechnological reconfiguration of society. She therefore offers an updated term technobiopower,
which better corresponds with the globally rising value of human genome and the so‐called
technobiocapital.23 If the concept of posthuman articulated in the '80s and '90s draw primarily on the
findings of information science, the posthuman of the 21st century is associated mainly with
technological interferences into the human genetic information. New possibilities (whether real or
22
SHIN; VIDERGAR, 2012.
23
In: GANE, 2006.
19
potential) of genetic manipulation blur the man – machine distinction in even greater manner,
evoking many bioethical issues.
Continual development of the wet sciences has given rise to a new transdisciplinary field of NBIC
(nano‐, bio‐, info‐ and cogno‐) sciences whose common point of interest is DNA code. This
convergence revives the Darwinian philosophy, which sees DNA as an essential matter, powerful
enough to explain the nature of life. Reduction of life into the genes, together with the possibility to
decode the genetic information into a computer code, brings about the above mentioned question of
reprogrammable biological nature – this time, however, within a context of serious scientific
research. One of the most prospective fields in this regards is regenerative medicine which deals with
replacement or regeneration of damaged human cells, tissues or whole organs with an aim to restore
their normal function, while combining the knowledge and procedures taken from tissue
engineering, therapeutic cloning, gene therapy and advanced surgical techniques. The process of
organ substitution involves artificial cultivation of organic genetic material, which should
hypothetically lead to an establishment of storehouses with so‐called off‐the‐shelf organs – living
organs of all shapes and sizes immediately ready for transplantation. This medical intervention may
be understood as a therapy aiming to cure a disease, bringing patients into "normal" condition, as
well as a non‐therapeutic enhancement driven by a desire for self‐perfection, leading to some state
above normality. The latter strategy is already widely adopted by cosmetic surgery industry;
however, human genetic enhancements and "on demand" manipulation with DNA seem to render
much more ethical questions and difficulties.
Urban Wiesing (2008) distinguishes those two different motivations of medical interventions as
restitutio ad integrum and transformatio ad optimum. As it is rather difficult to define some universal
"optimum", Wiesing broadens the second motivation into the transformatio ad optima version, in
which multiple optimal states are encompassed. A real (or even fleshy) example of this patchy notion
of human perfection is to be found within a bodyhacking practice of biopunk communities. Those
communities focus on a rather radical DIY body modifications, performed in an amateur or
"basement" manner, independently on official medical institutions. British biopunk group
Grindhouse Wetwares has been recently popular for their experimentation with neodymium sub‐
dermal implants, which are supposed to create a unique kind of sixth sense in a form of ability to
"feel" the electromagnetic field.24 A few members of the group have implanted their fingertip with
a magnet, while aiming to extend their level of sensibility and exceed the category of human
24
For details see POPPER, 2012.
20
cognitive "normality": a desirable condition for some, nonsense for others. Nevertheless, although
the notion of multiple optima seems to correspond with the posthumanist requirement of
heterogeneity, there is a fragile border dividing it from the transhumanist idea of unified super‐
humanness, and those anthropocentric or even "anthropoexcentric" experiments performed by
Grindhouse Wetwares should be categorized rather as transhumanistic.
5. Grindhouse Wetwares,
Magnet implant
Philosophy of grinders draws on cyberpunk
subculture of technophiles that hack their bodies
out of dissatisfaction with the promises of futurism.
NBIC progress itself, be it performed within official research institutions or underground garages, or
in form of therapeutic or non‐therapeutic interventions, represents a highly ambivalent field. No
matter how prospective this research area might be, there is great number of its opponents
(sometimes called techno‐conservatives), who hold a techno‐pessimistic or even dystopian attitude.
Biologist Lee M. Silver, one of the loudest adversaries of NBIC, offers one such skeptical vision. He
mentions the possible drawbacks of gene therapy, which would lead to the new societal division that
draws on the neo‐eugenic approach. According to him, the top floor of social structure will be
occupied by the so‐called Gen‐Rich class, made out of individuals with sufficient financial resources
to "design" their offspring by means of prenatal gene therapy and advanced IVF techniques. On the
other side of the societal continuum, there will be a class of less wealthy individuals who doesn't
have sufficient finances to pay a gene therapy, and their unenhanced children will then be
automatically disadvantaged – right from the beginning of their life. The existing social inequalities
will thereby deepen even further.25Similar attitude is held by one of the leading bio‐conservatives
Francis Fukuyama, who envisions future struggles over the ownership of DNA. In his book Our
Posthuman Future (2002) he uses the term Factor X as a symbolical denomination for the natural
human essence. He defines this essence as a set of ethical rules, which should be followed virtually
25
SILVER, 1998.
21
by everyone – those being for example a respect for traditions, spirituality, ability to find a major
unifying value in own life, or a willingness to keep some part of nature unexplored and unspoiled.
Disruptions of Factor X by means of artificial interferences into natural world order will, according to
Fukuyama, lead to the gradual loss of the humankinds' control over itself.
From the early cybercultural rejection of body represented largely by hackers' philosophy of physical
asceticism, through techno‐extended bodies of fictious cyberpunk heroes, up to current vision of
biotech or postgenomic bodies, the posthumanist notion of disembodiment still evolves. What seems
to be important and of interest of both techno‐optimists and pessimists is that it apparently
approaches a level of real practice. Cultural theorist Joanna Zylinska (2005) speaks about current
culture of "soft cyborgs" made out of biotechnologically fostered individuals, whose bodies are
extended by means of organ transplantation, hormonal treatment or even by "mere" use of smart
drugs. In this context it really seems that human is increasingly becoming a technological creature
and that – in the words new media scholar Denisa Kera (2008) – "Everything original, divine and
given has been relativized, while the age of experiments, monsters and cyborgs has been gradually
arriving".
Whether it's a shift in right direction remains a matter of opinion, and the ongoing cyborg story is an
open ended one. The once proposed Shannon's notion of information as an essential communication
entity based on average amount of surprise seems to be a fitting designation even in the current
(bio)technocultural context.
1.7 UNCERTAINTY IS THE MESSAGE
This notion of uncertainty and randomness has always been incorporated in the posthuman
discourse: Posthumanism as a philosophical school of thought has no board of members, official seat
or clearly defined program. Neither is there any clear definition of posthumanism or posthuman
studies as such – it is actually a rather vague field, based on anti‐essentialist and non‐hierarchical
approach to societal and human conceptualization. It prefers uncertainty rather than centralism,
chaotic network‐like structures rather than linear order, and emergent rather than predictable
relations. This approach is embodied in the metaphorical model of posthuman, a member of techno‐
enhanced posthuman society. The question of where and when would this society arises, or if it
already exists, remains unanswered. Donna Haraway summarizes this ambiguity as follows:
"Maybe you could date it from the late 19th century, or maybe it's better to track it through the 1930s,
22
or through the Second World War, or after. Depending on what you want to foreground, you could
track it in different ways, but it's pretty recent."26
Katherine Hayles (2004) adds that there might actually be an infinite number of various
"posthumanisms", and the definition of posthuman thus depends on specific interpretation of each
author. Uncertainty thus seems to be the only sure concept in the complex area of posthuman
discourse.
Immanuel Kant considered uncertainty as integral part of human nature. He claimed that the more
people know about themselves, their biological processes, psychological conditions, history or social
structure in which they are organized, the less they know who or what they actually are.27 However,
rather than as cause for panic, this uncertainty should serve as motivation for improvement of our
knowledge about us, an incentive for exploration of new societal structures as well as individual
personalities, or an impulse for searching new alternative contexts of our existence. Continuous de‐
contextualization and re‐contextualization of established social rules keep the order of things in
motion, setting the stage for constant cumulation of new knowledge. In his Posthuman manifesto,
Robert Pepperell (2003: 184) reminds us that the notion of certainty is only an illusion arising from
the lack of information. The more information we have about ourselves, the more uncertain we
become. However, only thereby the illusion should eventually blur.
To achieve the desirable information diversity, one has to adopt a wide transdisciplinary approach,
comprising of many different perspectives and interpretations. As already proposed in the
introduction, I will therefore expand the above outlined theory with knowledge derived from
relevant artistic practice. Through the incorporation of critical artistic language of selected
performance artists, I hope to offer a more complex interpretation of the whole posthuman
phenomenon.
26
Quoted in GANE, 2006, p. 146.
27
In: PELCOVÁ, 2000, p. 11.
23
2. PERFORMING THE POSTHUMAN
As an art genre, performance art began to gain wider attention around the turn of the '60s and '70s,
as part of a broader field known as action art. Early inspirational sources of performance art can be
seen in 19th century public street shows such as pantomime, busking or cabaret, or even earlier in the
Renaissance tradition of wandering minstrels and poets, who observed surrounding world and sang
stories of nature, plants, animals and life itself. More recent roots of performance art are linked to
art genres emerging through the second half of the 20th century, such as abstract expressionism,
action painting, art of happening, tradition of new dance, Yves Klein's anthropometry, and actions of
Vienna actionists or Fluxus movement.
Performance art bears number of different definitions that are continually being revised, especially
(but not exclusively) with regard to gradual integration of new technologies. Rose Lee Goldberg,
author of Performance: Live Art, 1909 to the Present (1979), a book that is considered one of the first
extensive summaries of performance art history, has suggested that performance art is a living art
realized by artists. The difficulty to develop a more accurate explanation, according to her, stems
from the liberal nature of this genre, which incorporates number of techniques and styles and thus
represents a rather diversified field. Performance art theorist Laura Bissell (2007) sees performance
art as an amalgam of different disciplines, forms and styles; Singaporean performer Jason Lim speaks
about a process in which the artist engages his/r body to actualize his/r idea in real time and space
and Argentinean performer Santiago Cao suggests that the answer to the question of what is
performance art and what are its limits may be just the impossibility to find such an answer.28 It
might be said that the louse fragmentary character of performance art discourse thus resembles the
one of posthumanist philosophy.
However, there are some general characteristics that should help us to outline this field at least a bit
more comprehensively. Performance art is a conceptual art, usually presented in front of the
audience in a "here and now" manner. The core element of the artwork is generally intangible and
embodied in the very act of its presentation, which is realized through artist's body. The relationship
between artist, audience and a venue where the whole act occurs gives rise to a unique situation,
which makes every performance an original and irreproducible artwork. Czech performer and
theorist Tomáš Ruller (2010) sees four main pillars of performance art in time, space, medium and
the mutual relationship among those three. Goldberg (2011) extends this definition with other
28
Venice International Performance Art Week <http://www.veniceperformanceart.org/index.php?page=67&lang=en>
24
features such as experimental nature, opposition to the establishment, unconventionality and
provocativeness.
6. "What is performance art?"
Answers of two performers, who attended Venice International Performance Art Week 2012.
However, the incorporation of new technologies alters the original notion of performance art, in
particular those core distinctions defined by Ruller. In technologically mediated performance, the
"medium" does not necessarily have to be the artist him/herself, but also his/r disembodied
technological representation – for example in a form of video capture or virtual avatar. In the latter
case also the criterion of time and space is contradicted, with cyberspace, accessible simultaneously
in several time zones, being the stage. Technologically mediated presence of both artist and audience
evokes the question of authenticity. Performance studies theorist Philip Auslander discusses the
gradual fading of performance art's essence in his book Liveness (1999): According to him, those
performances which are mediated by technology become nothing more than inauthentic imitations
of themselves.29 On the other hand, there are also voices which consider those techno‐
enhancements as very beneficial. One such voice is for example artist and choreographer Johannis
29
In: CARLSON, 2003, p. 132.
25
Birringer, who sees the intermingling of human body and technology as a significant milestone of art
history, or even as a sign of new paradigm shift.30
Utilization of new technologies has been a key part of performance art since its early times. One
should recall for example the performance cycle Son et Lumiére by the American collective Boyle
Family, whose Bodily Fluids and Functions piece (1966) was one of the first artistic attempts to
perform and record the body from within: a couple of performers hidden behind a scene was
enjoying an intercourse, and while being wired up to EDB and EEG their heartbeats and brain waves
were projected on to a large screen in front of the audience. Their performance was conceived as an
art piece, although the presence of sophisticated technology solution was almost overshadowing.
However, as one of the first large‐scale collaborations between artists and engineers within
performance art history is considered a set of monumental performative events known as
9 Evenings: Theater and Engineering (1966) conceived by art‐tech initiative Experiments in Art and
Technology (E.A.T.). Within the course of several months 10 artists and some 30 engineers
cooperated to create a set of artworks blending an avant‐garde theatre, dance and new
technologies. As a result, they gave rise to many novel utilizations of high‐tech equipment, such as
closed‐circuit televisions, fiber‐optics camera, Doppler sonar device or wireless FM transmitters,
within the stage practice.31
Another significant milestone in the history of mediated performance art is the advent of video tapes
that brought about an incorporation of video camera not only as a documentary medium, but rather
as an artistic means of expression. A pioneer of this field has been American artist Bruce Nauman,
who started his videotape performances already in the late '60s. In his pieces such as Bouncing in the
Corner #1 (1968) or Slow Angle Walk (1968) Nauman stayed alone in his studio and captured his
rather banal movements with a camera, emphasizing the anonymity and intimacy of the whole act,
as well as the distance between him and the audience. The resulting recordings were then installed
in a gallery and presented viewers with a remote experience of the formerly live events. Original
performances were transmitted from one place to another, breaking the limits of time and space, as
well as, in a sense proposed by Auslander, the artworks' authenticity. Jochen Gerz brought this
notion of detachment onto another level in his closed‐circuit performance Purple Cross for absent
now (1980), where he let the audience to manipulate both his physical and mediated body image. In
the piece, audience stood in front of a monitor showing the head of artist, with a rope tied around
30
Ibid., p. 134.
31
9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering <http://www.9evenings.org/>
26
his neck. The audience couldn't touch or see the artist physically, as he remained in a closed room,
standing alone in front of a camera. However, what the audience could touch was the other end of
the rope, which served as a verifying tool here: When the audience moved the rope, it physically
tightened the noose around Gerz' neck, but this effect could be seen only on the monitor image.
Showing that the spatial remoteness heightens the spectators' readiness to inflict harm, Gerz
managed to highlight the inauthenticity of the whole mediated act.
7. Jochen Gerz,
Purple Cross for Absent Now (1980).
Remote inflicting of pain was supposed to stress the inauthentic
nature of technologically mediated relationships.
This feeling of remoteness has been further amplified along with the introduction of technology of
virtual reality, and the advent of cyberspace as a new digital stage. Artist's and/or spectator's virtual
presence brought about not only a complete disruption of their physical closeness, but also an
impression of "real" physical disembodiment. The proliferation of virtual worlds like Second Life (SL)
that gained mass popularity in the first decade of 21st century pushed this trend even further, giving a
rise to so‐called code performances. Those artworks are performed completely without artists'
physical presence, only by means of their virtual avatars. One of the most known in this context are
Italian artists 0100101110101101.ORG with their piece called Synthetic Performances –
Reenactments (2007) that was staged completely within the Second Life environment. Here they
recreated seven seminal performance art pieces considered as cornerstones of genre's history,
however, this time leaving out the element of corporeality and flesh in favor of artificial bodies made
out of bits. Re‐performing for example the notorious Shoot (1969), a live piece where Chris Burden
let himself shot in the hand, they gave the notion of authenticity a deathblow. The once stringent
27
performance based on real physical pain was transformed into a harmless act which could have been
performed and watched from within the comfort of living room, lacking any signs of fear and tension.
8. Chris Burden,
Shoot (1971).
Original performance, where the artist let himself
shot in the hand.
9. 0100101110101101.ORG,
Synthetic Performances – Reenactments (2007).
A "safe" remake of Chris Burden's performance,
created within the virtual world of Second Life.
However, virtual bodies were just one stream of technologically fostered performance art of the late
'90s and early 2000, and there were also quite opposite tendencies that intended to highlight the
bodily presence and connect the technology directly into the human flesh. This branch has usually
been labeled as cyber‐bodyart performance, referring to the body art tradition performed by means
of various techno‐prostheses, either mechanically attached or surgically implanted. Pioneers of this
field are undoubtedly Australian performer Stelarc or French artist Orlan, whose work will be
discussed at length in following chapters. The fleshy cyber‐bodyart technique then went even more
visceral along with the advent of bioart genre, whose practice has been adopted by some performers
as well. Bioart performances represent probably the most liminal and uncanny branch of bodyart
interventions so far, as they deal directly with genetic enhancements realized not on, but directy
28
within the body, through tissue and cell modification. Work of bioart performers such as Critical Art
Ensemble or Art Orienté Object will be also reviewed later on.
New technologies obviously play a crucial role in performances that should be labeled as
"posthuman", however, the use of some advanced technological tool is not the only criterion here.
As suggested in the first part of this text, posthuman performances should explore liminal boundaries
of technologically fostered human identity in a broad social context, while focusing on all possible
forms of Otherness. In this context, it seems appropriate not to focus primarily on the technological
elaboration of each discussed performance piece, and concentrate rather on the specific posthuman
issues that the artwork communicate – be it gender, ethnicity or nature – culture interface.
Moreover, I am going to operate with the term technology in its broadest sense, adopting its
definition as every creation beyond the basic apparatus of the body.32 This is just to say that some of
the following performance art pieces may be considered technologically obsolete from current
perspective, however, that's not the point of this text, as it doesn't aspire to be a review of the latest
technological features. Having this clarified, I would like to start with first area of performance art
that will be analyzed within the posthuman discourse, namely the techno‐feminist performance art.
2.1 TECHNOLOGY AND FEMALE BODY: PERFORMING A FEMINIST PRAXIS
First manifestations of monstrosity and Otherness inherited in female body are to be found already in
the early performances of feminist artist like Yoko Ono, Carolee Schneemann or Valie Export. These
female artists used their bodies to actively confront the stereotypic tradition of male gaze and the
notion of women as mere passive objects to be look at. In her Cut Piece (1964) Yoko Ono complicated
this comfortable voyeuristic position (actually of both men and women audience), while letting them
to cut off pieces of the clothes she was wearing. Sitting motionless on the floor, Ono resembled the
passive object patiently waiting to be confronted with a knife, thus creating a disturbing and eerie
situation. In the same year, Schneemann created her performance Meat Joy, where she conducted
a group of blood‐stained men and women writhing on the ground along with dead chickens and fish.
Schneemann, as a naked female conductor, took control over this weird group of humans and
animals, thus symbolizing a rise of active woman element. Valie Export in her Aktionshose:
Genitalpanik (1969) entered into a porn cinema dressed in pants with cut‐out crotch and while
running around the cinema with her exposed genitals, she started to shout at the audience that if
they came to watch naked female bodies, they should start with it right now. Export thereby offered
32
As well as for example MCLUHAN (2000) or WILSON (2002).
29
a depiction of hyperactive feminity, which resembled the former medical stereotype of hysterical
woman. While using a self‐ridiculing language, Export's piece corresponded with the feminist
strategy of grotesque once defined by Janet Wolff (2010). Wolf outlined three main approaches of
subversive feminist performance practice: Apart from grotesque it was also a symbolical depiction of
a monster, and L´écriture féminine, a strategy referring to inscription of feminine vocabulary into the
phallogocentric discursive system, as utilized for example by VNS Matrix (see chapter 1.4).
An involvement of technology in the late '80s pushed this feminist practice onto much more radical
level. This shift was evident for example in the work of French artist Orlan, who once introduced her
own art genre called carnal art. This self‐portrait realized on her own body followed on her early
performance pieces from 1970s, where she used to depict a thin line between the role of woman as
goddess and woman as monster. In her Documentary Study: The Head of Medusa (1978) she wore
a traditional French Trousseau dress, and invited audience to look underneath – there they could saw
her menstruating genitals under a magnifying glass. Thereby, Orlan subverted a motto she had
borrowed from Sigmund Freud: "At the sight of the vulva, even the devil runs away." However, her
techno‐enhanced carnal art has gone even further. In her long‐term project La réincarnation de
Sainte‐Orlan (1990–1993) she took advantage of plastic surgery to resculpt her face according to the
depictions of seven female characters historically considered as ideals of women beauty.33 Orlan has
thus transformed herself into a meta‐beauty mashup, hence, not surprisingly, into a monster. She
has become a living symbol of crooked beauty ideals, bearing a stigma of social pressure that is put
on women in context of their physical appearance.
Through the course of several surgical operations, in which she let herself be mutilated into a strange
Frankenstein‐like creature, Orlan has embodied exactly that, what she has criticized. Her artwork
thus contained the symbolical depiction of monster, as well as the strategy of grotesque. However,
medical tools and procedures were not the only technology utilized, as her operations were also
staged as medial events for the video camera. The last one from the total of seven operations, which
she underwent in 1993, was live‐streamed to 13 galleries all over the world, where the audience was
invited to watch it in real time. According to most of the spectators, it was a tough one to watch:
ubiquitous blood, cuts into a flesh and louse shreds of skin were a rather unpleasant image.
However, no matter how eerie her piece was, the main message it was supposed to communicate
was nothing else than to recall that woman figure has to be seen in her complexity, not as a mere
physical object.
33
Those historical characters being Venus, Psyché, Diana, Európa and Mona Lisa.
30
10.Orlan,
La réincarnation de Sainte‐Orlan (1990–
1993).
Live‐stream of Orlan's transformation
depicts female monstrosity in an
entirely new way.
Quite different feminist‐oriented message was inscribed in Anita Ponton's Unspool (2003), whose
main plot was a melodramatic fight for women equality. Ponton worked with her digital double here,
thus creating a notion of Otherness in form of her own mediated image. At the beginning of the
performance, Ponton was hidden in a pile of celluloid. As she was slowly getting out, an image of her
face was simultaneously appearing on a large screen behind her back. Ponton, staring into the
audience in consternation, tried to speak loudly – but as she did so, her mediated double started to
speak as well, its techno‐enhanced voice being much stronger than the natural one that performer
possess. What's more, the digital double was saying quite surprising and unpleasant things: Instead
of repeating Ponton's words, it quoted old movies, which were reworked into the soundtrack. The
lip‐synced voice spoke of discomfort, suicide and madness. Ponton, still sitting in the bunch of
celluloid, was gradually becoming helpless: The more she tried to talk the strange digital voices
down, the more words they said. Finally the malevolent image on the screen faded and she retreated
to her original position, pulling the celluloid pile back over her body, until she was completely hidden
again.34 She remained defeated, being silenced by her own technologically mutated doubles.
Technology didn't help her to gain her female voice – quite contrary; it further deepened the old
stereotype, while preventing a woman from saying what she really thinks.
34
Available at: <http://vimeo.com/18815004>
31
11. Anita Ponton,
Unspool (2003).
Technology as a powerful tool drowning out the
female voice.
Another utilization of digital doubles, this time in a form of virtual avatars,35 was performed by
female art collective Avatar Body Collision (ABC) in their piece Screen Save Her (2002). ABC consists
of four artists, who create their artworks collaboratively but without real physical encounter, using
the cyberspace as their main studio. Colliders, as the group members call themselves, create their
performances both by means of their virtual avatars, as well as their own physical bodies captured by
webcam. Their performances, for which one of the ABC members Helen Varley Jamieson created
a specific denomination cyberformances, therefore take place on the liminal border between real
and virtual world. In the Screen Save Her piece, the main heroin (one of the members of ABC, Karla
Ptacek) performed live in the gallery space, in front of the audience – the rest three ABC members
were performing online, communicating through the Palace room chat36 and webcam. The plot was
based on a detective story of gene‐stealing operation and was structured as a game: the heroin,
a software/wetware cyborg called "BP", had 30 minutes to complete a series of tasks in order to win
a great prize – a DNA cosmetic makeover. The audience was present both in the gallery and in the
virtual chat room, where they also had a chance to partake actively and help BP to win her game (or,
if they preferred, to corrupt her effort). Anyway, BP eventually won the game and underwent the
DNA makeover – to her surprise however, she didn't transform in a beauty, but rather in a comic
monster that eventually got a mocking nickname "Surgical Face".
35
Which is actually the original form of digital double, as conceptualized by DIXON (2007).
36
The Palace.com <http://www.thepalace.com/>
32
Screen Save Her piece thus dealt with the already discussed topic of absurd social pressures that
stem from stereotypical ideals of female beauty. Like Orlan, ABC offered an original formal
elaboration of this topic: While using various technologies to construct several narrative layers of
a complex story, they created a very special kind of a complex adaptive system consisting of various
animate and inanimate actants. Thereby, the project actually embodied the Latourian ANT model,
where various entities collaborate in rather unpredictable manner. Moreover, ABC thereby fulfilled
also the Cyberfeminist idea of active female cyber‐citizenship.
12. Avatar Body Collision,
Screen Save Her (2002).
Artwork created both in real world and
cyberspace intended to point out the absurdity of
current ideals of female beauty.
As already mentioned, cyberfeminist actions usually fall into the category of net art rather than
performance art, with typical artworks taking form of fake websites, e‐shops, modified online games
or hacked discussion boards. Apart from the VNS Matrix group, many other art collectives have
contributed to the global cyberfeminist "grrrrlz riot". There is for example SubRosa collective who
presented a typically bitter cyberfeminist humor in their SmartMom (1997) project. In their ironical
appropriation of Clyne and Klines' cyborg project, originally designed for the space research
purposes, SubRosa utilized the advantages of military tools in favor of pregnancy enhancement.
SmartMom refers to a fictional medical institutions dealing with adaptation of pregnant women into
the new technocultural age. To ensure a full control over their pregnancy, the company offers them
a wide variety of smart surveillance gadgets: There is for example SmartMom Sensate Pregnancy
Dress, which monitors the wearer's heartbeat, blood pressure, fluid levels, nervous functioning,
fantasy life or sexual and eating urges. Smart Dress works as a remote doctor, keeping the expectant
mother in a constant "proper" condition. In extreme cases the system can even work as a disciplinary
tool, while sending electric shocks activated by wearer's irresponsible behavior, such as smoking or
33
alcohol and junk foods consumption.37 With this satirical dystopian vision of techno‐controlled
motherhood, SubRosa criticizes the current policy of pharmaceutical companies that are massively
promoting methods of assisted reproduction. Although there certainly are some distinct advantages,
SubRosa points out that those practices may bear some serious drawbacks as well. SmartMom is
a great example of cyberfeminist net art, however, SubRosa collective has been active also in the
field of performance art that is more of our interest here.
13. SubRosa,
SmartMom (1997).
Artistic illustration of Haraway's technobiopower concept: A futuristic
vision, or reality?
The loss of woman's control over her own body in favor of pharmaceutical companies is further
elaborated in their performance Expo EmmaGenics (2001). The piece was realized in Mainz, Germany
and took a form of fake sales presentation, where a fictitious pharmaceutical company Expo
Emmagenics presented the latest American innovations in the field of reproductive medicine, such as
Human Caviar or Embryo Action Monitor. The proclaimed goal of Expo Emmagenics published on
their website is "supporting a Woman's full participation in the fertility industry".38 This "support of
participation" idea is borrowed from the early feminist campaigns calling for women freedom of
choice regarding the abortion process, in order to highlight the absurd dimensions that this right can
take in context of genetic industry: Although women in developed countries possess the right to
decide about their pregnancy, they are at the same time becoming dependent on the pharmaceutical
companies and their fertilization enhancers. An alternative interpretation of Expo EmmaGenics’
proclamation would thus state: “Each woman should partake, however, only under our surveillance”.
37
Available at: <http://smartmom.cyberfeminism.net/>
38
Available at: <http://www.cmu.edu/emmagenics/home/>
34
Another critical level of the Expo EmmaGenics project was pointed to the U.S. pharmaceutical
market, which is a leader in global reproductive business. The mockery of this, which according to
Expo Emmagenics possesses a "potential for breeding new ingenious human race,"39 was amplified
by the fact that the performance took place in the German environment. Did SubRosa suggest that
the strategy of current American pharmaceutical companies resembles the Nazi eugenics policy?
Whether yes or not, a clearly legible aspect of their criticism was the financial motivation
surrounding the entire pharmaceutical industry: One of the Expo Emmagenics representatives
summarized the whole presentation by claiming that: "Methods of advanced reproductive medicine
allow anyone with enough money to conceive a perfect child." Using typical cyberfeminist rhetoric,
SubRosa embodied the dystopian vision of future bio‐capital division of society, once predicted by
Lee M. Silver in his concept of GenRich class.
Another project where SubRosa discussed the topic of genetic engineering was their U‐Gen‐A‐Chix:
Why Women are like Chicken? (2008). This time assisted reproduction was compared to the
phenomenon of genetically modified food – in this case, the food referred to dead chickens. SubRosa
performers provided audience with comprehensive information on human egg donation and assisted
reproduction technologies, at the same time offering them a tasting of homemade chicken‐flavored
GMO biscuits made out of modified chicken genes. Eventually, SubRosa raised the crucial question:
"Aren't both these procedures dangerously similar? Why are women treated like chickens?"
All artworks that were mentioned in this chapter leave an ambivalent impression. The artists are
performing various possible ways, how to overcome the gender connotations inscribed in female
body, quite paradoxically, to criticize this overcoming itself. Orlan uses technology to reshape her
body into an ironic meta‐ideal of female beauty, thus embodying exactly that, what she criticizes.
Ponton expects her digital doppelgangers to help her strengthen her own female voice, however, she
finds that they say what they want, and eventually force her natural body to drown under the weight
of their power. ABC collective creates a complex narrative, which comprises of their physical bodies
and digital doubles, as well as digital avatars of the viewers. However, this complicated formal
elaboration results in a simple conclusion: The poor woman haunted by socially prefigured ideals of
female beauty desperately tries to fulfill those expectations by taking an advantage of sophisticated
(bio)techno treatment that, as well as in Orlan's case, ends with a creation of scary monster. SubRosa
uses the strategy of grotesque to show an infinite number of benefits, which technology brings into
39
Ibid.
35
the women's life. However, the deeper the SubRosa artists go in their description, the more
oppressive feeling the spectator gets.
However, performances focused on gender stereotyping don't involve only the male – female
dualism, and extends into a broad field of various social minorities that claim affiliation to alternative
gender identities and sexual orientations. This area of performance art, which I refer to as queer
performance art, encompasses mainly autobiographical artworks, based on a real life experience of
each artist.
2.2 TECHNO‐ENHANCED QUEER BODIES: GENDERFUCKING IN (CYBER)SPACE
The English word queer, which stems from German quer (across), came into a broader recognition in
16th century, referring to something strange, unusual, or out of alignment. Over the time, the term
began to be used as a designation for person whose sexual orientation doesn't comply with
prevailing social expectations associated with gender identity. Throughout the history, most of those
individuals labeled as queer were condemned to life in isolation or in deep subculture. A sad example
of homophobic sanctions carried out by the majority society was the story of the leading 20th century
mathematician Alan Turing. Because of his admitted homosexuality, Turing was forced to undergo
a hormonal treatment that probably led to his eventual suicide. At the end of his life he began to gain
female secondary sex characteristics, thus transforming himself into a woman – from a former
homosexual man, he thus involuntarily changed into a transgender being. Jana Horáková (2012)
equates Turing to a posthuman creature in this context, pointing out that one of the foremost
influencers of computer revolution deceased for the sake of technological interventions (in this case
the hormonal medicaments) that broke him away from his natural self.
Through the manifestation of their difference and very often a mockery of their own social status,
queer performers refer to the absurdity of socially accepted norms rooted in the stereotype of "man
with woman / woman with man." In the late '70s this topic started to be manifested especially in the
field of gay performance art. Following the feminist‐oriented artists, gay performers embodied
another level of monstrosity and Otherness that was even more striking, or, in the words of Erving
Goffman "entirely outside the full social acceptance".40 This situation could be illustrated for example
by the famous NEA Four affair that became one of the most visible symbols of prevailing social
conservatism. In 1990 the National Endowment for the Arts touched off a major controversy by
40
Quoted in: CARLSON, 2003, p. 165.
36
taking back funding already awarded to four performance artists, three of them homosexual (Tim
Miller, John Fleck and Holly Hughes), the other one a confrontational feminist (Karen Finley).
Although official reason for withdrawal of the grant support was an “inappropriate and outrageous
character of the artworks”, the real cause was quite obvious. All four artists claimed censorship in
a response to the withdrawal; however, the United States Supreme Court rejected their arguments.
The case raised a huge public controversy and became a symbol of homophobic tendencies adopted
by major (American) society of 1970s.
In the context of current art world, Italian gay artist Franko B. could be regarded as one of the most
prominent performers accentuating his sexual nonconformity. Through his tender narrative language
combined with his visual difference from Western beauty standards, Franko B. has already managed
to create a number of strong and touching situations within the course of his performance art carrier.
For example in his famous I Miss You (2003) performed in Tate Modern Turbine Hall, he presented
a poetic endurance piece based on the presence of his personal Otherness.
14. Franko B.,
I Miss You (2003).
White, male, yet still uncanny body, performed by
Franko B.
Naked, dressed just in his traditional white "prosthetic skin", he cut his wrists and started walking on
the snow‐white catwalk, while perpetually leaving visible blood trails. Through the course of this
several hours lasting ritual, where he was bleeding and walking slowly from one side of the catwalk
to another, he seemed still weaker and more exhausted, stripping his naked body down to its very
37
essence. Franko B. is white middle‐aged educated man, yet still he evokes the notion of Otherness.
Through the martyrish approach to his own monstrous body and its voluntary public self‐torture, he
brought to light the painful context of being different. With his I Miss You piece, he highlighted the
fact that we are actually all the same – we all bleed with the same red blood, no matter the race,
gender, sexual orientation or physical condition.
This self‐harming strategy of artists coming from minority social groups has already got a specific
(and rather infamous) label Victim Art. The authorship here belongs to Arlene Croce, a dance critic
for New Yorker, who refused to review the autobiographical dance performance Still/Here (1995) by
choreographer Bill T. Jones. Croce claimed that Jones, as a black gay man harmed with the AIDS
disease, bears an inevitable stigma of being a victim and his work thus cannot be assessed
objectively. Croce went even further and labeled Jones (as well as the other similarly "deviant"
artists) as a case of pathology in art. Art critic Dale Harris sprinkled the affair with no less severe
condemnation, recalling that: "Mr. Jones' alienated persona is impossible to separate from his
choreography."41 Following the NEA four scandal, another wave of controversy spread out, again
giving a rise to fierce public discussions on the inappropriateness of established social stereotypes.
Opposite view than Croce and Harris within the discussion was held for example by American art
critic and historian Hal Foster (1996), who saw the victim stylization of an artist as important and
useful element supporting the individual construction of each viewer's identity.
Another kind of sex and/or gender difference is represented by transgender performers. One of the
first traces of transgender performance art could be found in the genre of persona performance,
which is based on a loose construction of fake and imaginary identities that the artist takes on
him/herself, usually in a long‐term context. Among the early persona performers one should recall
for example the American artist Eleanor Antin, who spent almost two years under the identity of
middle‐aged men within her piece King of the Solana Beach (1974‐1975), exploring the boundaries
between male and female reality. Among more recent persona performers, a noticeable identity
swapping has been presented for example by Korean American artist Nikki S. Lee in her series
Projects (1997‐2011).
However, the roots of transgender performance art are more often associated with the tradition of
cross‐dressing and drag shows. In her "Notes on 'Camp" (1964) Susan Sontag suggested to label this
kind of art with a general term camp, referring to a certain amount of frivolity and extravagance
41
Quoted in: CARLSON, 2003, p. 172‐173.
38
included in those live art pieces. Sontag described the burlesque and kitschy aesthetics of camp as
closely related to 19th century dandyism, which celebrated the cult of nonchalance Self – however,
when shifted into the transgender context, this gentle stylization has evoked rather the uncanny
notion of monstrosity. Following the female and homosexual Otherness, performers with vague and
blurred male – female appearance has thus amplified this notion even further. An iconic figure of the
'80s and '90s camp performance was Australian artist and fashion designer Leigh Bowery, whose
bizarre stylization served as a symbol of trans culture in its times. Through dissatisfaction with his
natural body and utter denial of all its visible distinctions, Bowery represented almost a universal
embodiment of the Other.
15. Leigh Bowery,
Session IV, Look 17 (1991).
Bowery's surreal figures leave the true nature of their gender
or ethnic identity entirely on the spectator's imagination.
The construction of transgender identity gets a whole new dimension in cyberspace that represents
an ideal environment for implementation of a "virtual cross‐dressing", also known as gender
swapping or gender fucking. As well as other attempts to overcome one's real identity in the virtual
world, those strategies obviously bear some significant drawbacks. Performing under a virtual
transgender identity without artist's actual physical involvement seems to be much less authentic
than a real life experience, as suggested already by 0100101110101101.ORG and their Synthetic
Performances – Reenactments. Media theorist Theresa M. Senft criticizes the idea that Internet user
can virtually change a gender as easily as if changing clothes, and recalls that it is the person who
wears a gender, not gender wearing a person.42 However, there are always two sides of the coin. One
42
In: DIXON, 2007, p. 479.
39
of the positive approaches to experimentations with virtual gender is held for example by
transgender performer Micha Cárdenas, who has examined her own trans‐identity in a series of
events taking place on the border of virtual and real world. In her Becoming Dragon (2008), Cárdenas
performed simultaneously in a gallery space and in the online world Second Life (SL) for whole 365
hours. The hours' count refers to the requirement of Real Life Experience (RLE) procedure, a one year
long period in which those interested in gender reassignment treatment undergo some kind of "test
phase". While living full‐time in their preferred gender role, they should be able to demonstrate that
they can socialize successfully. RLE is a requirement of some physicians before prescribing cross‐sex
hormone treatment, and requirement of most surgeons before agreeing to do a sex reassignment
surgery to the patient. Cárdenas, who underwent the RLE by herself, put this procedure in a context
of virtual SL environment, where she performed a 365 hours lasting interspecies transformation of
her human‐like avatar into an avatar of dragon (a process that she called a Species Reassignment
Surgery). During several days of immersion physically performed in
a publicly accessible gallery space, Cárdenas watched the surrounding world only through HMD
display and captured her movements using a motion capture system, which subsequently controlled
her avatar in SL.
16. Micha Cárdenas,
Becoming Dragon (2008).
Through her immersion in SL, Cárdenas creates a
discussion platform focused on possibilities of
technologically fostered gender bending.
The whole event was watched both by live spectators in the gallery and online audience made up of
other SL avatars. The gallery room was equipped with a large projection screen on which real time
capture of Cardénas' avatar movements was displayed. The viewers were invited to use stereoscopic
40
glasses and watch both the live and virtual performance at once. Virtual spectators couldn't see the
physical figure of Cárdenas, but they were able to talk with artist's avatar and share their opinions on
the broad transgender issue. In the course of the event, many prominent artists joined the SL
environment and came to share their opinion – among others for example the Australian performer
Stelarc, who started a discussion on the possible use of virtual body as a future substitute of
biological flesh.
17. Micha Cárdenas,
Becoming Dragon (2008).
Public discussion entitled „The Body in
Transmission/Transition, Learning to
Live in Mixed Realms“, led with
Australian performer Stelarc.
Cárdenas herself compared the advances of virtual cross‐dressing with possibilities of
biotechno/genetic modifications that enable a real physical transformation. She recognized that
virtual sex change cannot offer a sufficient alternative to surgical or hormonal treatment, but at the
same time suggested the advances of virtual tools that can be utilized in some kind of personal rapid
prototyping, while allowing an unlimited testing of new identities. Moreover, a virtual testing
liberated from established social limits, allows users to probe even the most extreme situations and
adopt various identities located far beyond the LGBTI discourse. According to Cárdenas (2010), the
strategy of virtual identity swapping thus offers a groundbreaking inspirational source for those
unsatisfied with their given identity. There was a very nice illustration of this opinion occurring
directly within the Becoming Dragon piece: One of the spectators who joined the online discussions
held in SL was Alynna Vixen, a person acting under the avatar of silver fox with butterfly wings. Vixen
shared her life story within the discussion forum, and told the other participants that since her
childhood she has experienced a strong feeling that she is actually a fox, rather than a human being.
According to her, SL represents the only place where she feels truly free, and doesn't have to be
ashamed for her extreme furry fandom fondness.
41
However, similarly extravagant or maybe even eerie ideas about own body have already become
a matter of reality, abandoning the area of mere virtual prototyping. A fitting example here is a
project Breaking Sex (1999‐2007), longitudinally performed by British artist Genesis P‐Orridge and his
now unfortunately deceased wife Lady Jay Breyer. In the course of eight years, the couple was
continually working on a creation of their mutual polysexual identity called Genesis Breyer P‐Orridge.
This pandrogyne, as their labeled themselves, was supposed to be a result of their mutual love,
which, according to their words, was so strong that they decided not to conceive a third being as
other couples usually do, but rather melt themselves in one single entity.43 Pandrogyne was created
through a gradual set of plastic surgeries, which were designed to make both artists visually resemble
each other. This project thus became a unique form of life‐as‐art, a matter of their everyday
experience that was terminated with nothing less than the death of one padrogyne's half.
18. Genesis Breyer P‐Orridge,
Breaking Sex (1999–2007).
A permanent conjunction of male and
female body into one "above‐gender"
whole.
Radical surgeries that P‐Orridge and Breyer underwent were inspired by Brion Gysin's technique of
literary cut‐ups, which is based on cutting of the already finished text into small pieces, subsequently
rearranging them into a completely new structure. The non‐linear cut‐up method was taken from its
literary context and applied onto the formation of new physical identity, thus symbolizing an
abolition of all binary differences originally inscribed in those two constituent parts of padrogyne.
Just like Orlan a decade ago, Genesis Breyer P‐Orridge had gradually been transforming itself into
a voluntary monster. This time, however, without an obvious signs of feminist social critique, but
rather with the vision of fulfilling their own intimate desire to become someone else. P‐Orridge and
43
Talk with Genesis Breyer P‐Orridge, 18th May 2012, Los Angeles.
42
Breyer melted the male and female body not to a transgender whole, but rather to some kind of
beyond‐gender being. Thereby, they created a hybrid entity that perfectly embodied the terrifying
Other for most of their audience and evoked also the Deleuzean notion of free and unlimited
possibility of becoming.
The motive of permanent merging of male and female body into one complex unit has its origins in
the mythical tale of a hermaphrodite, which is also a leitmotiv of performance piece tranSfera 1.2
(2011) by Polish art collective Suka Off. Within the piece, the mythological story of intersexuality was
transferred into the current technocultural context: Artists Piotr Wegrzynski and Sylvia Lajbig
performed a metaphoric gender swapping ritual, which occurred both through bloodletting body
modifications, as well as through their technologically mediated bodies displayed on a video screen.
Their physical bodies did transform visibly during the performance, getting many cuts, undergoing
a mutual skinning from fake synthetic skins (which were subsequently being consumed by each
other, thereby metaphorically meshing both bodies into one), however, the main gender swap
transformation was noticeable rather on their mediated bodies shown on real‐time video projection.
19. Suka Off,
tranSfera 1.2 (2011).
Real merging of two bodies by means
of mutual skin swapping.
After the initial physical mutilation Wegrzynski sat on a chair having a TV screen placed between his
legs, while Lajbig sat back to the audience and placed a video camera between her legs. After a while,
she began to masturbate, capturing her genitals that were simultaneously projected on Wegrzynski's
screen and her vagina thus became his digital prosthesis, his temporary sexual organ. After the pair
exchanged their places, the whole ritual was repeated: Genitals were swapped again and two
43
techno‐enhanced or even cyborg‐like transgender beings were created.44 Suka Off thereby referred
to the technological manipulation of reality that blurs and complicates the liminal boundaries
between masculine and feminine, as well as between real and mediated. Throughout the
performance, both of the present physical bodies actually retained their natural sex: Although their
flesh was hurt, cut with razors and put under extreme conditions, they kept their original sexual
nature. With the help of techno‐prostheses, though, their bodies were transformed pretty easily.
Without any pain, yet still leaving a strong effect by the audience.
20. Suka Off,
tranSfera 1.2 (2011).
Digital swap of sex organs
and creation of techno‐
enhanced hermaphrodites.
A bit less dramatic, yet still impressive conjoining of more human beings into one, was performed by
Czech artist Darina Alster. Alster together with another Czech performer Helena Račková created
a performative figure of living two‐headed woman, a mashup of two single female bodies stuck in
one hybrid being called Bianca Braselli. In 2009 Bianca went to see the Holy Mass of Pope Benedict
XVI., with an aim to get the Holy Father's blessing. However, the monstrous woman with two heads
growing out of one huge body, all covered with a large costume, did not succeed: Even before she
managed to get into the Pope's proximity, she was officially let out of the mass premises.45 With this
provocative act, Alster pointed out to the rigid attitude of Catholic Church, while confronting its
highest representatives with uncomfortable topic of sexual and gender difference. However, the
partial failure to meet the Pope didn't deterred Bianca from her further public appearances. In her
later performance called Bianca Braselli at the end of the world (2009), she stood in front of the
audience on the stage of Prague exhibition space Hall C, and after a few minutes of clueless sneering
she suddenly started to undress from her monstrous costume. Her unexpected striptease revealed
44
Available at: <http://vimeo.com/27729690>
45
Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oujYC97REuk>
44
a surprising secret: From the inside of Bianca's two‐headed body, a little man suddenly jumped out.
The man was looking around the gallery for a few seconds, and then he jumped off the stage and
disappeared in the crowd of spectators. Bianca thus fell apart into three discrete units and her
original multi‐gendered identity was broken. With her blatant monstrosity, she transgressed the
borders that were always seen as enforceable not only by the conservative institution of Catholic
Church, but also by the major societies of many cultures worldwide. Bianca was a creature of many
sexes and genders, who didn't fit into any of socially acceptable categories – and it was also Bianca
herself, who eventually became so helpless that she rather stripped away her large prosthetic skin
and destroyed her original identity. Alster's strategy utilized within this performance could be
interpreted as a manifestation of semiotic seesaw, a conceptual tool conceived by performance art
theorist Barbara Kirshenblatt‐Gimblett in order to indicate the space between polar categories of
normality and monstrosity, such as human/animal, self/other, living/dead white/black or
man/woman.46
21. Darina Alster,
Bianca Braselli (2009).
Two‐headed woman: lost in a multi‐gender maze.
The artists mentioned in this chapter utilize similar strategies as feminist‐oriented performers:
Apparent is the ironical strategy of grotesque (Bowery, Alster), as well as the symbolical depiction of
a monster (Bowery, Alster, Franko B., Suka Off). Apart from the criticism and irony, however, there is
also a certain hint of optimism: Cárdenas is aware of the limitations of virtual space, but at the same
46
In: GOMOLL, 2011.
45
time sees it as an ideal place for testing and prototyping of new identities. Breyer and P‐Orridge then
take an advantage of surgical and genetic technology in order to sculpt entirely new and presumably
happier life for themselves – however uncanny might that life seem from without.
As already outlined, the element of Otherness doesn't remain only in the category of gender and sex.
Recalling the affair of Victim Art, where a black homosexual man was labeled as victim, another layer
of posthuman existence comes to the discussion – namely the ethnical Otherness. Technology and
ethnicity is not a popular topic among posthuman theorists, nor is it within the field of performance
art. However, there have been a few noticeable artists whose work is so extensive that it should, at
least in my opinion, cover this field of posthuman discourse quite sufficiently.
2.3 ETHNO‐TECHNO PERFORMANCE: ETHNO‐CYBORGS AND CYBER‐IMMIGRANTS
Racial and ethnic controversies have started to permeate performance art around the mid '80s.
Performance artists of the '70s and early '80s were usually educated white people from middle class,
however, through the course of time many performers of other ethnic origins have started to gain
attention as well. One such artist is for example African‐American performer Robbie McCauley, who
uses her own black female body to depict racial and gender misbalances. In her Sally's Rape (1989)
she performed at public auction, and while playing the role of naked black slave she put current
racism into the historical context of colonization practices. However, there have also been
performers without own personal affiliation to some ethnic minority who focus on racial issues
within their work. Californian artist Suzanne Lacy has been famous for her persona performance
series such as Prostituition Notes or The Life or Times of Donaldina Cameron (both 1977), where she
used to overtook fictional identities of people of multiple ethnic origins. While trying to live under an
identity of her ethnic Others, she attempted to expand her own identity and break all the possible
personal preconceptions.
Within the contemporary art world this topic has been extensively elaborated by Spanish artist
Santiago Sierra, whose purposely immoral works often raise outrageous public reactions. Sierra hires
people from socially disadvantaged groups for his artworks, and offers them a financial reward for
performing various humiliating activities. In his 160 cm line tattooed on 4 People (2000) he hired four
drug‐addicted prostitutes for a financial reward equivalent to one dose of heroin, and let them
having their backs tattooed with straight black line. For his 130 Persons Paid to Have Their Hair Dyed
presented at the Venice Art Biennale in 2001, he hired two hundred unemployed dark‐haired
immigrants, who were paid for having their hair dyed blond. Probably the most straightforward
46
elaboration of racial issues was then offered in Sierra's Economical Study of the Skin of Caracans
(2006), for which he rented a dozen of Venezuelans from different income groups and compared the
shades of their skin pigmentation, eventually disclosing that people from lower social groups have
darker skin than people with high incomes. Based on the obtained range of shades he created a set
of correlation values for the lightest and darkest skin color types, which equaled the financial amount
of 11,548,415$ for the first and 2106$ for the latter category.47 With his approach Sierra has
managed to create disturbing situations that put the spectator into uneasy position of high‐class
member being entertained by less fortunate ones. However, Sierra points out that there is a certain
moral benefit in this contradiction, while stating that: “Self‐criticism makes you feel morally superior,
and I give high society and high culture the mechanisms to unload their morality and their guilt.“ 48
Similar strategy could be found also in the work of Chinese artist Zhang Huan. For his artwork called
To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond (1997) Huan hired about forty bottom‐class Chinese migrants
who had come to the capital city Beijing in order to find a job, and told them to stand still in the
middle of the pond to raise its water level. By the eventual one‐meter uplift, which was obviously
a result of no avail, Huan symbolized the ridiculous way in which those low‐class workers are treated
by Chinese government, pointing out that their social status often resembles that of objectified
working tools.49
Technological interventions into ethnic and racial issues are a focal point of Mexican artist Guillermo
Gómez‐Peña, who gained a wider recognition through his ethno‐techno personas such as Ethno‐
cyborg or Genetically engineered Mexican. In the mid '90s, Gómez‐Peña mentioned a huge wave of
techno‐optimism that is flooding the performance art genre, but is completely eliminating the
involvement of artists of color at the same time. Together with his compadre performer Robert
Sifuentes he therefore decided to create performance personas of cyber‐immigrants, who have been
trying to infiltrate into the "white" cyberspace, and pollute it with "dark" subversive ideas formulated
in a hybrid Spanglish language. In his Manifesto for a remapping of the hegemonic cartography of
cyberspace, Gómez‐Peña (2000) states that cyber‐immigrants' desire is to politicize the conception of
cyberspace and develop a multi‐centric, theoretical understanding of the cultural, political and
aesthetic potential of new technologies. All that while using a rather humorous rhetoric,
comprehensible literally for anyone.
47
In: O’REILLY, 2009, p. 107.
48
Quoted in: MARGOLLES, 2004.
49
Although Sierra's and Huan's works are usually labeled as living sculptures or living environments rather than
performance art, the hired individuals might be perceived as some "semi‐involuntary" performers, acting under artists'
custody. This is just to explain, why I decided to include those artworks here.
47
In their Ethno‐Cyberpunk Trading Post & Curio Shop On The Electronic Frontier (1995), Gómez‐Peña
along with Sifuentes and other Latin American performer James Luna created a vast ethno‐techno
environment, where everyone had a chance to express his/her deepest cultural prejudices. The
project featured a website with a special ethnographic questionnaire, where the partaking Internet
users were asked to share their projections and preconceptions about Latinos and indigenous
people. Each day then, all three artists gave live performances in a gallery space, while embodying
those notions envisioned by the online audience. All the resulting characters had a significantly
hyperrealist nature, their common leitmotiv being a featuring of high‐tech tools and elements from
traditional Mexican culture. The figures of Postmodern Zorro, El Aztec High‐Tech, Cyber Vato, El
Natural Born Asesino or El Cultural Transvestite were equipped with guns, cyberpunk goggles,
computer keyboards and other techno‐gadgetry, as well as with Indian headdresses and colorful
indigenous clothes.
22. Guillermo Gómez‐Peña & Robert Sifuentes,
Ethno‐techno art.
Ethno‐cyborgs as an embodiment of stereotypical
notions about Mexican Americans.
The whole performance site was filled with various folk artifacts, pre‐Columbian figurines,
taxidermied animals and pseudo‐primitive archeological tools, which were displayed as aestheticized
museum pieces. Accompanying computer screens, video monitors and neon signs added a sci‐fi
flavor to this diorama, creating a hybrid techno‐tribal atmosphere. According to the artists, the
48
project has revealed a "Mexiphobia" inherited in Western culture.50 Gómez‐Peña has also confirmed
that the spatial distance and anonymity offered by the online questionnaires provided people with
the necessary courage to reveal their most explicit interracial preconceptions, in ways they would
never be willing to do in a real face‐to‐face encounter.51 This notion was further elaborated for
example in Mexterminator performances (1997‐99), where Gómez‐Peña and Sifuentes regularly
created various mutable ethno‐robotic personas, whose character and appearance were completely
dependent on the will of audience. Again, it usually resulted in depiction of Mexicans and Chicanos as
threatening Others, uncanny invaders and enemies of the American idea of coherent national
identity.
23. Guillermo Gómez‐Peña,
Mexterminator (1997‐1999).
One of the many variants of Gómez‐Peña's fetishistic alter
egos, which symbolize the cultural Other in a way the
audience imagines it.
With his La Pocha Nostra ensemble, Gómez‐Peña has also created large‐format performances to
which he refers to as cyborg‐theaters. These several hours lasting events inspired by the tradition of
fetish, freak shows and 19th century carnivals include a variety of technological extensions of both
performers' and spectators' bodies. Their Corpo / Ilicito the Posthuman Society 6.9 (2009) for
example consisted of a large carnival environment full of erotic as well as racist scenes: La Pocha
performers were dressed as ethnic monsters who, on the background screenings of old racist films,
50
In: La Pocha Nostra, Ethno‐cyborgs and Genetically engineered Mexicans
<http://www.pochanostra.com/antes/jazz_pocha2/mainpages/ethno.htm>
51
Ibid.
49
humiliated each other. Whipping themselves, tying themselves to the stakes, feeding each other with
bananas, they referred to the historical heritage of postcolonial racism.52 This time, viewers were
encouraged to manipulate the bodies of performers directly, having a chance to physically express
their latent racist desires.
Moreover, La Pocha Nostra usually allows the audience to join on both sides and lets them to assume
the role of humiliated ethno‐cyborgs as well. Right on the performance site, spectators can borrow
various requisites: There are extravagant costumes, colorful makeup and techno‐gadgets such as
mechanical limbs or cyborg‐like masks which they can use to "dress" themselves into a temporal
identity liberated from their natural ethnic or sex origin. Thereby, they become a part of a diverse
collective of interacting humans and machines, creating a real posthuman‐like community. The aim
of these performances is to offer the audience a possibility of direct encounters with
anthropomorphic materializations of their cultural Others. Through the strategy of grotesque and
symbolical depiction of a monster, La Pocha Nostra thus fulfills the posthuman visions of
heterogeneous society liberated from rigid stereotypes. In this context, Gómez‐Peña compares La
Pocha Nostra events to a pulsating organism, a living cluster of organic and artificial entities, and
even to some kind of communal transethnic meta‐cyborg.53
Cultural tensions, particularly those between "civilized" western culture and "primitive" population
of native origin, have been a focal point of German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys, who followed up
those issues even much earlier, in early '70s. In his famous performance I like America and America
likes me (1974) Beuys spent a week locked in a room in New York‐based Rene Block Gallery, only in
a company of wild coyote. The coyote, which is generally considered as a modern pan‐Indian symbol,
developed almost a magical relationship with Beuys, who was trying to communicate with the animal
through primitive nonverbal gestures as well as through poetry reading. With his coyote act, Beuys
referred to the un/permeable boundaries between modern and traditional cultures, as well as to the
fragile relationship between human and animal. This interpretation opens up another field of above
outlined posthuman discourse for us, namely the somewhat idealistically projected cohabitation of
the large family of companion species.
52
Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luLE1dNJm6Q>
53
In: Cross‐contamination: the performance activism and oppositional art of La Pocha Nostra,
<http://www.pochanostra.com/what/>
50
2.4 PERFORMING WITH COMPANION SPECIES: POSTHUMAN FAMILY OF (MICRO)ORGANISMS
Relationship of human and other living species has been an integral part of performance art since its
very beginnings. An iconic figure in this respect is the French artist and animal rights activist Rachel
Rosenthal, who has worked with living animals since the late '70s. Her famous piece with a fitting
title The Others (1984) included 35 different animal species: from dogs, cats and pigs to monkeys and
parrots. Rosenthal performed with them without any pre‐arranged script – she let them move freely
across the stage, while uttering a declamatory speech about human relation to the nature. Thereby
she managed to create utopic environment that embodied the idealized human – animal
cohabitation.
An artistic equivalent to Donna Haraway's dogs‐enthusiasm may be considered Ukrainian artist Oleg
Kulik. A central element of Kulik's performances is a dog, both as his companion and as a unique form
of identity that Kulik takes on himself. His performances have usually bore a seemingly grotesque
character: For example in 1996, Kulik performed under a dog identity, while walking naked on his
four across the gallery space. He was tied to the collar, having a sign "dangerous" hanged round his
neck, and bit all gallery visitors who ignored this warning and dared to come too close. Despite their
comical character, Kulik's performances have always bore a deep ecological context and a strong
critique of human anthropocentric approach to nature. In an alternative reenactment of Beuys'
coyote piece entitled I Bite America and America Bites Me (1997), Kulik attempted to update the
once outlined dualisms of civilized – wild, modern – native, human – animal in the up‐to‐date
context.
Kulik created a situation that turned the original Beuys' concept upside down and put himself in the
role of a wild animal, overtaking the notion of Other by himself. Similarly as Beuys, Kulik flew from
Europe to New York for this occasion, this time, however, stylized as a dog. He let himself being
walked naked on a leash all the way from airport to the gallery, where he spent a few days in a
kennel‐like room. Within his stay he simply behaved like a dog, being fed by his wife and watched by
the spectators as if in a Zoo. Some visitors were also allowed to enter the room physically, but to
prevent possible injuries (and not being bitten) they always have to worn a special protective suit.
Kulik's identity game evokes many connotations: It refers to the vanishing proximity of modern
human and nature, to the fading human ability of mutual interpersonal communication, as well as to
the reputation that "wild" East European artist used to have in the context of Western art world.
51
24. Oleg Kulik,
I Bite America and America Bites Me (1997).
The authenticity of Kulik's dog persona used to arouse amazement. He was therefore jokingly accused that his
main motivations aren't the ethical constraints of human – animal symbiosis, but rather his personal desire to
really be a dog.
Similar approach to human – animal relation is adopted by French art duo Art Orienté Objet (Marion
Laval‐Jeantet and Benoît Mangin), who usually use direct bodyhacking interventions as their means
of expression. In their bioart performance May the horse live in Me (2011) Laval‐Jeantet and Mangin
blurred the boundaries between human and animal directly on a biological level, namely by blending
human and horse DNA. Within this long‐term intervention, which was located on the border of
scientific experiment, biohacking and performance art, Laval‐Jeantet used to regularly inject her body
with doses of horse immunoglobulin, thus gradually enhancing her bodily tolerance to the
substances contained in horse DNA. After several months of treatment she then underwent a public
ritual of "blood brotherhood", letting her body being implanted with a horse blood plasma. After this
publicly performed ritual she put on a special designed prosthetic horse legs, approached a living
horse that was also present on the gallery site, and in front of the audience started to speak to the
animal. May the horse live in Me thus refers to the historical myth of centaur and may be interpreted
as an antithesis to the traditional man (rider) – horse (vehicle) hierarchy. Laval‐Jeantet modified her
body to be able to "listen" to the animal; she misused her human Self only to reach a level of
understanding with a living species that is lower in the food chain than she is. Her biohacking
approach has raised a number of negative reactions, causing a wave of fierce discussions on possible
defects of biotechnological treatment.
52
25. Art Orienté Objet,
May the horse live in me (2011)
A development of human – animal relationship by means of
biotechnological intervention.
However, the bioethics issue has been artistically elaborated even earlier – one of the pioneers of the
field is Brazilian artist and first human wearer of RFID implant Eduardo Kac, whose GFP Bunny (2000)
managed to stir up a great wave of interest and controversy. The transgenic rabbit, which has been
implanted with a fluorescent protein derived from the body of aquarium fish in order to glow under
the artificial light, has caused a great disarray both within the art world and among eco‐activists.
Throughout his artistic carrier, Kac has experimented with genetic modifications also in a more
interactive manner, though. For example in his Genesis project (1999), he created a synthetic gene by
translating a sentence from the biblical book of Genesis into Morse code, and converted it into DNA
base pairs. The biblical sentence originally stated: "Let man have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth", the Morse code
was chosen as a symbolical language of early techno‐mediated communication.
26. Eduardo Kac,
Genesis (1999).
Interactive installation that allows viewers to
control the evolution in "Darwinian style".
53
The resulting hybrid Genesis gene was then incorporated into bacteria, which was displayed in the
gallery. This bioart piece was accessible not only by the gallery visitors, but also by the online
spectators through a webcam. When the webcam was activated, the bacteria began to be
illuminated with an UV light that caused its real biological mutations and the meaning of the original
biblical message incorporated in Genesis gene was thereby scrambled. The spectators were thus
faced with a decision: If they disagreed with the original anthropocentric statement inscribed in the
Genesis sentence, they should be willing to destroy it through repeated mutation caused by the
webcam UV light. However, while doing that, they were simultaneously exerting the anthropocentric
practice with their own hands, as if playing the role of lord creators.
An instant feeling of this "virtual divinity" was also the case of Interactive Plant Growing (1992‐1997),
a biofeedback environment created by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau. Through a tactile
interaction with living plants arranged in the gallery room, visitors were able to grow virtual
equivalents of those plants in a hyper‐real speed. If a spectator touched for example a live fern, this
fern immediately pop up on the surrounding screens. The active visitors thus became creators of
a unique ecological microsystem, and in hyper‐real pace affected the process of natural evolution. If
the spectator didn't interfere in the system at all, the environment didn't evolve and eventually
collapsed. The overly agile spectators then caused a system's imbalance that eventually resulted in
the same outcome. Sommerer and Mignonneau thereby created a playful virtual simulator of
rational eco‐conscious behavior.
27. Christa Sommerer & Laurent
Mignonneau,
Interactive Plant Growing (1992–97).
Nature – culture interface working in
a reverse manner: Real nature influences
the world of technologies.
However, the role of gamblers with environmental balance is more often attributed to big
pharmaceutical corporations, rather than to single individuals. One of the most agile critics in this
54
regard are members of art collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), whose works usually aim to raise
public awareness about the financial incentives of biotechno industry. In their GenTerra project
(2001), they performed a public presentation of a fictive biotechno company and asked the
onlookers to provide a sample of their DNA. The samples were utilized to create transgenic
organisms, which were then stored in a special centrifuge‐like release machine. The machine
comprised of twelve Petri dishes and resembled a Russian roulette: Eleven dishes were filled with
uncontaminated and harmless bacteria; one of them bore a potentially dangerous transgenic
structure. The spectators were told that nobody actually knows which one is that, even the company
representatives. Later on, the audience was involved in a crucial decision‐making process and asked
to give their opinion regarding the release of the Petri dishes. They thus faced a bioethical dilemma:
Either they will have a good luck and won't endanger anyone, or they accidentally drain out an
infected bacterium that will probably cause an epidemic. Suddenly they had a same competence as
the professionals from the biotech corporation – they were allowed to make a decision concerning
whole society and not only them personally. CAE thereby intended to make the general public more
aware of possible dangers that genetic industry conceals.
This approach was further developed in another CAE's piece called Cult of the New Eve (2000). This
time, a fictitious organization bearing signs of religious cult as well as those of a science corporation
spread around the faith in new biotechno religion. Within the initial performance realized in the
Museum of Contemporary Art in Toulouse, the CAE artists, acting as Cult representatives, introduced
a vision of new modern goddess – the New Eve. This goddess was said to assure better genetically
modified existence for everyone who will join in and express dedication. During the performance,
spectators were presented with special altar bread, baked from yeast enriched with a sample of New
Eve's genetic material. The Cult also proclaimed coming of a second Genesis that will start a new era,
within which the life wouldn't be created and maintained by the hand of God, but rather by the hand
of human, respectively by the one of biotechno industry. With this project CAE collective wanted to
encourage a skeptical public attitude to commonly accepted practices of big pharmaceutical
corporations and their projects realized under a bulletproof shield of state patronage, such as the
Human Genome Project. CAE's critical stance thus resembles the strategy of SubRosa group, while
trying to point out the possible drawbacks of biotechno industry and its alleged benefits for human
evolution.
55
28. Critical Art Ensemble,
Cult of the New Eve (2000)
Religious cut based on a trust in biotechnology.
Artists mentioned in this chapter draw attention to the nature – culture interface and point out its
increasingly unstable condition. Art Orienté Objet utilizes the advantages of biotechnology to create
a seemingly obscure situation, in which a human being suffers for the sake of an animal. Eduardo Kac
and CAE seek to stimulate public awareness of scientific procedures that usually remain hidden
behind the laboratory walls. Kac provokes the audience with his glowing rabbit, which is a disquieting
biotechno mutant, as well as a cute "upgraded" pet. In his Genesis project, viewers are empowered
to influence the evolutionary process, however, they find themselves in a situation where they
actually don't know what to do with this suddenly gained power. CAE brings this irony even further
and through an appropriation of Christian rhetoric creates a phony cult, persuading people to
unreservedly trust in powerful biotech. It's worth noting, though, that however mocking the
language of those artists is, their work is primarily informational in nature. As such, their works bear
an educational character and may contribute to a demystification of seemingly inaccessible world of
biotech science and genetic engineering.
CAE's focus on commercial aspects of human genome translation is closely linked to gene patenting
issues and related legal constraints. Human body converted into a bunch of readable genetic codes
may be seen as losing its uniqueness: The more legible human body becomes for scientists, the less
controllable it is for the original "owner", say some dystopian reflections. Such pessimistic visions
have always been there, accompanying advent of almost all novel technological inventions that
56
began to affect the society – be it biotechnology, mass expansion of Internet, phenomenon of virtual
reality or the proliferation of ICT as such. Those dark sides of technocultural progress translated into
the artistic language deserve our attention, and as such will be a focal point of next chapter.
2.5 MANIPULATED BODIES: PERFORMING THE (BIO)TECHNOPOWER
The rhetoric man – machine question of "Who controls whom?" gets quite palpable outline within
the performance art practice. A search for an answer is legible for example in the bodyart
intervention Planting Grass (2000), performed by Chinese artist Yang Zhichao within the famous
"Fuck Off" exhibition in Eastlink Gallery. Within this piece, Zhichao let a commissioned surgeon to
implant his back with shoots of grass from the Suzhou River region, while rejecting any anesthesia or
painkillers. He thereby referred to the contrast between the balanced natural environment and the
anonymous city saturated with inhuman technologies, as well as to the weakening control of one's
body in favor of top‐down social regulations.
Even more direct answer to the above‐mentioned question is offered in a piece called Arthur and The
Solenoids (1997), created by Institute of Artificial Art Amsterdam (IAAA). The institute, which defines
itself as “an independent organization consisting of machines, computers, algorithms and human
persons, who work together toward the complete automatization of art production“54, is known for
its experimentation with electronic muscle stimulations. Arthur and The Solenoids has been produced
within the IAAA's Department of ArtiFacial Expression, which is led by Dutch artist Arthur Elsenaar.
Within this Algorithmic Facial Choreography, the face of a performer was covered with number of
electrodes that transmitted electrical impulses, which influenced performer's facial expression. The
important thing, however, was the fact that these impulses weren't generated by human, but by
a fully automated robotic guitar band called – probably not surprisingly – Arthur & the Solenoids. The
performance thus resembled a live concert, with Solenoids playing their instrumental music and a
human performer dancing with his face accordingly. As the concert approached its end, the
Solenoids were already playing fast enough to make the performer's face, which was simultaneously
projected on a large screen, curl into completely unnatural and painful grimaces.55 The formerly
entertaining and witty character of the whole event thus slowly began to evoke a rather eerie and
disturbing notion. The human face equipped with technological devices was gradually becoming
a prosthetic extension of artificially controlled robotic musicians. The originally human‐created
54
Institute of Artificial Art Amsterdam, <http://www.iaaa.nl/>
55
Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogalIrd33Js>
57
Solenoids thus resembled Karel Čapek's famous novel RUR, where autonomous robots gradually
overtook a control of their inventor.
29. Institute of Artificial Art,
Arthur and the Solenoids (1997).
Artificially created "face choreography" that
makes human a mere manipulable puppet.
This motive is then a central theme of American art collective The Centre for Metahuman Exploration
(CME), who gained a wider recognition with their cutting‐edge cyborg performances in the late '90s.
In their Interactive TV show (1996) one of the CME performers was present in a live TV show,
wearing
a robotic exoskeleton made of electrodes remotely controllable by TV viewers. By means of the
electrodes, each viewer was able to send electric shocks into the performer's body, which was thus
turned into a dependent and manipulable puppet. Due to the anonymous nature of those remote
interventions, the performer lost the potential benefit of moral barriers that would restrict the
puppeteers from being violent and experienced a rather painful moments.
In their Absentee Ballot (1996), CME intervened into the TV broadcast again, this time during the
course of presidential votes. Absentee Ballot was conceived as a game show, which allowed TV
audience to vote for their preferred presidential candidate by means of voting cyborg‐like agent. In
front of a huge voting ballot in the studio stood a robotically augmented American voter, who could
be remotely controlled via touch‐tone telephone. The universal cyborg‐like voter thus became
a prosthetic device, inscribable with any political preferences expressed by the audience.56 In both of
those artworks, CME presented a scenario, where technology unmercifully overtook the human
autonomy in both physical and psychical manner.
56
Available at: <http://vimeo.com/38307101#>
58
30. The Centre for Metahuman Exploration,
Absentee Ballot (1996).
Performer in a TV studio serves as a prosthetic remotely controllable voter.
In their telepresence installation Project Paradise (1998) CME enabled two isolated spectators to
remotely interact with each other via cyborg‐like characters Adam and Eve, which were hidden in
a remote techno‐paradise. Each couple of participating spectators was able to remotely control the
bodies of Adam and Eve, thereby also simultaneously "touching" each other, although they didn't
even see themselves – an intimate experience was feasible without the need of real physical contact.
The installation consisted of two separated booths (one for each spectator) and a cylindrical chamber
(a paradise, where Adam and Eve resided), which were all connected by video and telephone cabling.
Each booth contained two interfaces to the chamber: a small TV screen and a telephone. The phone
worked as a joystick and allowed its users to remotely move the robotically extended limbs of Adam
and Eve, who were sitting naked in the chamber – each booth occupant could move a hand of one
cyborg‐like puppet and touch the naked flesh of the other one. However, while doing that, s/he
touched also the other spectator, who was located in the second booth, doing the exactly same
action.57
As it was always unclear, which booth controls which performer and whether the spectators present
in the booths are males or females, many transgender and multi‐sexual connotations arose: It should
have been for example a male spectator controlling the hand of female performer Eva to touch the
naked body of Adam and hence the (for him invisible) body of the other – let's say female spectator –
standing in the second booth. The male became a female, delicately touching another male,
eventually finding out that he just actually had an intimate communication with a woman from the
57
Available at: <https://vimeo.com/35047536>
59
audience. Technology brought a great confusion into human relationships, while making them
surprising and exciting, as well as unpredictable and messy.
31. The Centre for Metahuman
Exploration,
Project Paradise (1998).
Adam and Eve as cyborg‐like
puppets; spectator in a role of
God.
Wiring of human flesh with technology is a hallmark of Australian performer Stelarc, who is famous
for his statement that "Body is obsolete."58 Stelarc uses his own body and extends it with high‐tech
prostheses to create a notion of techno‐enhanced superhuman, but simultaneously reveals the
possible side effects. He usually lets his body, which he considers as an empty container or
a Deleuzean Body Without Organs, being manipulated by audience as well as by randomly generated
computer algorithms. In his Ping Body (1996) he connected his neuromuscular system to the Internet
and while using specially designed STIMBOD software, he let his body to be controlled by the
anonymous data stream. The Internet network thus worked as Stelarc's external nervous system that
overtook a control over his own neural synapses. During the performance, his body was moving
according to the Internet pings and he thus managed to reverse the classic model of "user is
controlling Internet" into "Internet is controlling user". The received Internet data was
simultaneously used to generate a soundtrack that accompanied the whole performance, and
Stelarc's twitching body thus seemed as if dancing. He thereby transformed himself into a strange
human – machine dancer, resembling a dark version of ballerinas from Schlemmer's Triadic ballet.
58
However, Stelarc thus refers primarily to his own body, not to the body in a general sense. Quoted from: CARR, Liz. Is the
Human Body Obsolete? ‐ Stelarc In Conversation With Liz Carr <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pb_u6vlB7s>
60
Similar character had his Parasite performance (1997), where he let his body to be controlled by
randomly operating search engine. Based on a criterion of their size, the engine downloaded random
images that were subsequently sent to Stelarc's helmet, and similarly as in previous performance
affected the moves of his body. The strength of the impulses sent to his body depended on the size
of the images, which became a sort of parasite contaminating Stelarc's flesh. Again, a random
computer code influenced the human being, while leaving his own will behind.
32. Stelarc,
Ping Body (1996).
Stelarc transfroms his body into an
object updatable according to the
anonymous data stream.
Even more disturbing cyber‐bodyart intervention was presented by Catalan artist Marcel‐lí Antúnez
Roca within his performance Epizoo (1994). As well as Stelarc or CME, he plugged his body into
electrical circuit, which allowed the audience to manipulate his body remotely. This time, however,
he offered this manipulation in a very personal face‐to‐face manner, letting spectators to watch their
interventions in a real‐time, directly in the gallery room. The electric impulses they were sending to
Roca’s body writhed his face into eerie horror grimaces, leaving him helplessly squirming in epileptic‐
like twitches.59 The visitors thus faced a choice: Should they play the artist's game and torture him in
an inhumane manner, publicly, in front of the other gallery visitors? Do they actually cause him pain
or rather some kind of masochistic pleasure? Are his reactions authentic, or is he just pretending?
Roca thus managed to create a model of impersonal technosocietal relationships characterized by
vagueness, ambivalence and uncertainty; a model of society where nothing is clear and fixed, and
where the boundaries between pain and pleasure, power and courtesy, horror and grotesque or
reality and fiction already became blurred.
59
Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wabsr8Eouts>
61
33. Marcel‐lí Antúnez Roca,
Epizoo (1994).
Grotesque and monstrosity,
pleasure and pain. Roca shows
the thin line between bright and
dark side of technology.
Similarly direct character had a project Domestic Tension (2007) where his author, Iraqi artist Wafaa
Bilal, let the viewers to manipulate his physical body as well, yet this time removing any possible
doubts about the painfulness of their intervention. Bilal combined Roca's directness and Stelarc's
technological sophistication, and put it into the political context, by using a virtual technology to
provide audience with an opportunity of real, remotely controlled shooting on an Iraqi man. For one
month, Bilal lived alone in a prison‐cell‐sized gallery room with transparent walls and let the gallery
audience as well as Internet users to shoot on him with a remote‐controlled paintball gun.
34. Wafaa Bilal,
Domestic Tension (2007).
Bilal's Domestic Tension
was conceived as an
attempt to cope with
death of his brother, who
was killed while trying to
escape from Iraq to USA.
Virtual audience that grew by thousands during first few days of the performance could shoot at him
24 hours a day; the physically present visitors had the same opportunity in the course of the gallery
62
opening hours. Overall interest in the shooting was enormous especially in the first case – the
anonymity of cyberspace provided the audience with courage not only for shooting, but also for
starting a sharp online discussion on the project's website. Domestic Tension opened a poignant issue
of Iraqi‐American relations in a very direct manner, and again planted a seed of dystopian doubts
regarding the potential power of virtual technologies.
Bilal's incessant exposure refers also to another category of techno‐related fears that I would like to
discuss more in detail here, namely to the problem of technologically mediated surveillance. In the
context of performance art, this topic has been associated mainly with the expansion of CCTVs and
later also with the proliferation of online social networking. Recently, this problematic has been
further extended to the biotechno surveillance, as already discussed within the cyberfeminist
practice of SubRosa group.
2.6 BODIES UNDER SURVEILLANCE: PERFORMING THE PANOPTICON
The notion of video camera as a supervising tool appeared already in the late 1960s, for example in
the aforementioned performances given by Bruce Nauman. In his Live‐Taped Video Corridor (1968),
viewers were supposed to walk through a narrow gallery corridor, to find out eventually that they are
being captured on the camera. When they approached the corridor's end, they found a TV screen
displaying their live capture, which was a kind of surprise for them, as the screen wasn't visible until
they achieve its closest proximity. This situation may look quite banal from our current perspective,
yet at the end of the '60s Nauman's techno‐voyeurism caused quite a fuss.
However, the topic of techno‐surveillance got a more significant attention later in the '80s, along
with the advent of CCTV cameras. One of the pioneers in this context is Canadian artist and a "father
of wearable computing" Steve Mann, who has become famous for his obsession with capturing
moments from everyday life in public places. For example, he used to walk through shopping centers
with a hidden camera, asking the employees why there are so many CCTVs everywhere. The startled
shop assistants usually responded that it is for his safety, and if he doesn't have anything to hide, he
needn't be worry. However, just in that moment, Mann usually pulled out his own camera and
started to capture the employees themselves. The typical reaction was an immediate security call
and Mann's eventual expulsion out of the shopping center premises. Mann thereby highlighted the
paradoxical legitimacy of official CCTV surveillance – the employees found it inappropriate to being
filmed by a stranger, but they felt comfortable when being incessantly captured by anonymous
authorities.
63
In the mid '80s Mann finished a construction of his WearComp equipment, a huge wearable
surveillance prosthesis, with which he used to crawl through the streets, capturing and
simultaneously broadcasting everything what was going on around. Later in 1994, Mann started to
transmit his 24 /7 nonstop live captures on a publicly accessible website, which immediately gained
a huge popularity. Using a wearable camera and display, he invited others to see what he was looking
at, as well as to send him live feeds or messages which he could viewed in real time. Later in the '90s
Mann also developed the EyeTap device – a camera that works as an eye prosthesis and records
everything that naturally captures the wearer's eye.
35./36. Steve Mann,
WearComp a EyeTap.
Mann's portable camera WearComp seems quite bulky with its 36 kg, whereas his much more ergonomic
EyeTap equipment should already be considered a high‐tech fashion accessory.
Mann has always used his inventions in a theatrical manner, making regular public appearances and
interventions. He thereby intended to probe the boundaries of private and public sphere, and
highlighted the paradoxical notion of techno‐enhanced intimacy. His work could be seen as
a predecessor of some fancy gadgets currently occupying the market: his EyeTap is known as a direct
inspiration for the recent feature of Google Project Glasses; his attempts to vigorously document
public space could be seen as an original idea of mapping tools such as Google Earth. In 1998 Mann
has started a community of the so‐called lifeloggers (later known also as lifebloggers or lifecasters),
who are used to capture their entire lives, simultaneously sharing them online. This self‐spying
strategy represents some kind of inversed surveillance, or in Mann' words a strategy of sousveillance.
64
One of the first and most famous sousveillance projects was Jennifer Ringley's JenniCam (1996 ‐
2003), where a teenage schoolgirl used to capture her everyday activities continuously for seven
years, almost without turning the camera off. Ringley captured everything what was happening in
her room with a webcam, which was incessantly filming even her most intimate moments. JenniCam
stream presented the audience with "nothing more" than records of teenager's daily activities,
including sleeping, studying, watching TV, meeting friends, dressing up or having an occasional sex.
Ringley thereby turned the negative connotation of camera surveillance upside down – she managed
to embody the overall fears of privacy loss, while at the same time turning them into a desirable
content that attracted millions of viewers (in 1997 the ratings reached over 20 million views in
a single day). It is disputable whether her sousveillance exposé actually is a work of art, although it
should be admitted that Jennicam became a sort of an avant‐garde in its time, while using the
medium of Internet in a completely new way. Through the course of time, Ringley's online
performance has become a focal point of many sociological, psychological or art studies: It has been
labeled as site‐specific art, time‐based art, virtual performance, telematic theatre, theatre of real life
or even as a feminist intervention.60
37. Jennifer Ringley,
Jennicam (1996‐2003).
A nonstop capture of teenager's private
life.
Since the Jennicam hype, many other artist‐ish camgirls and camboys appeared, such as the
collegeboyslive.tv (1998), Lisa Batey and her HereAndNow.net (1999‐2001) or Josh Harris with his We
Live In Public (1999). Over the time, the sousveillance strategy became a mainstream entertainment
that was increasingly sponsored by renowned commercial labels, which eventually created the now
60
See e.g. SMITH, 2005.
65
so popular TV genre of reality shows. One should recall for example the (in)famous DotComGuy
show, within which a former IT manager Mitch Maddox lived locked in his house for a whole year,
24/7 eagerly capturing and streaming all his activities, or the recently popular Big Brother TV series
that translates the Orwellian dystopia into mass entertainment. The rising popularity of sniffing into
someone else's privacy was further amplified by the advent of smart mobile devices. Wearable
commercial gadgets such as Microsoft's SenseCam or Memoto have made the lifelogging a common
form of entertainment, available to almost anyone. Along with the 2.0 bubble and expansion of social
networking services, possibilities of constant sharing of own privacy or spying on someone else
increased even more. Major part here play the video‐sharing sites such as YouTube – James Westcott
even suggested that the original YouTube's slogan "Broadcast Yourself" should be changed to
"a constant need to Perform Yourself".61 However, recalling the disputes surrounding the relevancy
of Jennicam as an artwork, the artistic nature of current lifelogging pieces streamed on YouTube and
the likes is highly vague as well.
However, even in this context some outstanding and rather disturbing art projects created by means
of wearable technologies are to be found. One example is Wafaa Bilal's bodyhacking intervention
3rdi (2010‐2011), for which he transformed his body into a cyborg‐like monitoring tool. For one year,
Bilal lived with a small camera implanted in the back of his head. Once a minute, the camera
automatically took a picture of everything what was happening behind his back. The fractured
photos were simultaneously uploaded on the project's website, which also showed the current GPS
position of the camera.62 Bilal thereby became a real cyborg that continuously documented
everything what was going on around him and at the same time exposed himself to a possible risk,
while revealing his geographical position for 24 hours a day. He thus created a hybrid intervention on
the border of surveillance and sousveillance practice. Bilal's camera was an extreme form of
prosthetic wearable technology that shifted the category of wearables into more visceral level of
implantables. The set of techno‐biological images he managed to capture was purportedly meant to
symbolize artist's personal settlement with his past;63 however, it should be interpreted also as
a symbol of current strive to be informed – precisely, comprehensively and constantly.
61
Quoted in: New York Observer, In Defense of Performance Art in the Digital Age <http://observer.com/2011/08/in‐
defense‐of‐performance‐art‐in‐the‐digital‐age/>
62
Available at: < http://www.3rdi.me/>
63
Ibid.
66
38. Wafaa Bilal,
3rdi(2010–2011).
Bilal monitors his surroundings
and simultaneously puts himself
under surveillance.
Speaking about direct body‐cam interventions, one can't forget the famous and rather extreme
bodyhacking performance Stomach Sculpture (1993) given by Stelarc already in the early '90s. For
this occasion, Stelarc swallowed a miniature "sculpture", a metallic capsule equipped with audio and
video sensors that recorded the visceral journey through his body, at the same time projecting it on
a screen in gallery. Stelarc thereby put the cam surveillance into a completely absurd context, and
allowed the audience to enter his innermost privacy. Stelarc decided to let the world look even
deeper underneath his underwear than Ringley and other lifeloggers, and created a unique site‐
specific bodyart piece. First time in his career, Stelarc's body became not only his main working tool
and centerpiece of his artwork, but also his very own corporeal gallery, exhibiting a very unique
sculpture.
39. Stelarc
Stomach Sculpture (1993).
Stelarc transforms his body into an
exhibition space, while swallowing
a miniature sculpture that circulates
through his viscera.
67
Similar piece was later performed also by Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum, who inserted her body
with an endoscopic camera within her Corps étranger project (1994). This time, the journey through
her internal cavities was projected on the walls, floor and ceiling of a cylindrical booth, along with
a sound of her heartbeat and breathing. Visitors were thus allowed to literally enter her body and
look around its interior, to be swallowed, or put in another way, to feel like a parasites. Hatoum's
project should also be interpreted as a critical comment on the colonization of the body's interior by
medical image technologies and pharmaceutical industry as such. This perspective brings us to the
topic of bio‐surveillance and related practices of advanced biometrics, which shows, how far beyond
the optics of camera glass can the monitoring aspect of technology reach.
An important figure in the context of artistic appropriation of bio‐surveillance issue is the
aforementioned Brazilian artist Eduardo Kac, who had a RFID microchip permanently implanted into
his left ankle within his Time Capsule project (1997). Equipped with this trackable device, he
registered himself to the online database serving for identification and recovery of lost animals, both
as a pet and owner. The possibility of scanning the implant remotely via Web revealed how the
connective tissue of the global digital network diminishes the skin as a protective boundary
demarcating the limits of the body. With the permanent Time Capsule implant Kac became probably
the first living high‐tech cyborg ever (British scientist Kevin Warwick is usually considered to be the
first in this regard, although he had his first RFID implant done a year later, in 1998). Since then many
other hobbyists have undergone a similar procedure, the commercial implants utilized for medical
purposes such as VeriChip are now available as well. RFID microchips can be implanted voluntarily on
one's demand in many countries all around the world; however, suggestions to legalize mandatory
implantations (for example for HIV positive or employees working in secure facilities) have been
banned so far.
Linking the human body with technology moves on quickly, gradually breaking the last thinkable
limits: Technology is connected to the body, controls human muscles and monitors its movements,
gets under the skin to create an external nervous system or even directly into the human viscera to
strip the body from within. Nor the most personal biological traits are immune to technology's
omnipresence – even the most sacred biological information, the DNA code, has become to be used
as scalable metrics. The ambivalent nature of – purportedly precise – biometrical techniques,
specifically the retrieval of "DNA fingerprints", is conceptualized within Suspect Inversion Center
(2011), a bioart project performed by American bioartist Paul Vanouse. The focal point of his project
was to distort the apparent reliability of genetic evidence as a trustworthy forensic material. Vanouse
in collaboration with another artist Kerry Sheehan aimed to show the audience that even the use of
68
seemingly infallible biological identifiers such as DNA fingertips may be misleading, as those are
always being developed with the help of additional chemical substances, which may skew the
information originally inscribed in the natural genetic structure. Taking the famous court case of O.J.
Simpson as a standpoint, the artists created master copies of historical DNA courtroom images taken
from the 1995 murder trial, while using the Vanouse own DNA sample. Comparing the original
courtroom material and the resulting copies, which haven't resemble each other with 100% accuracy,
they pointed out that even the most precise biological data inscribed in human DNA doesn't have to
be completely reliable. The Suspect Inversion Center served as an open public laboratory, where the
sophisticated scientific procedures usually unapproachable for non‐experts were performed, while
using affordable alternatives of expensive laboratory equipment. Vanouse thereby provided
audience with conceptual tools to understand current issues surrounding the use of DNA imaging
and databasing – in other words one possible clue to understanding of what is going on with their
bodies, when being examined by expert systems.
40. Paul Vanouse & Kerry Sheehan,
Suspect Inversion Center (2011).
Vanouse a Sheehan demonstrate the
process of DNA fingerprints
development, to show that even the
genomic evidence doesn't have to be
completely reliable.
Last two chapters presented the social utilization of technology in rather dystopian manner,
discussing primarily critical artworks that parody social strive for newness and highlight the
vagueness of genetic industry. IAAA and CME illustrate how ridiculously a human being may look
under the influence of techno‐power. In their Interactive TV show, CME also depicts the thin line
between technologically fostered mass entertainment and top‐down domination. Rocca confronts
his audience with corporeal aspects of technological manipulation in a direct and cruel way, letting
the audience to watch its possible painfulness from close. Within his Domestic Tension project,
Wafaa Bilal highlights the aggressive potential of anonymous nature of cyberspace, and downsides of
69
its once proclaimed "democratic potential". Steve Mann confronts his involuntary audience with his
obtrusive camera and commences an era of voluntary disclosure of privacy, that is about to gain
a massive popularity some years later. Great contribution to this popularization came from a teenage
girl who showed the Internet audience everything what she has through her Jennicam. Her delicate
sousveillance cinema has revealed what the audience really wants and how the anonymity of web
technologies influences public taste. Stelarc and Hatoum went even further and in a rather ironic
manner let the onlookers to literally get under their skin. However, this was done so thoroughly that
the mass audience was rather disgusted. Their viscera were far less attractive than the room of an
American college student. Kac exposed himself via trackable device permanently implanted into his
body, and in a way embodied the early cybernetic visions of computable and readable information
body. Vanouse then offered his own genetic material to demonstrate that however sophisticated the
technology would be, it still shouldn't be allowed to surpass the natural human instinct and common
sense.
There are obviously not just the critical reflections of new technologies within the performance art
context. Although most of the artworks mentioned so far actually do take a critical stance, they also
show that the technology is here, ready to use, and that it depends primarily on the way how it is
utilized by human user. If we take a look at works of ABC, Cárdenas, Breyer P‐Orridge, Sommerer and
Mignonneau, Kac, Mann or Stelarc again, we should find a clear hint of enthusiastic approach as well:
Although principally in a critical manner, those artists use technology as a crucial element of their
artworks without which their realization wouldn't be possible. The eventual negative notion is usually
caused by artists' intentional overuse of technology, with an aim to show all the possible forms of
human – machine symbiosis. However, this symbiosis should be interpreted also from a rather
optimistic perspective, while enabling the artists to gain new abilities and discover new sensory
dimensions. To meet the complex approach to posthumanist discourse, declared in the introduction
to this text, I would like to describe those optimistic attitudes more in details in my final chapter.
2.7 SENTIENT SUPERBODIES: ENJOYING THE TECHNO‐EMOTIONAL SENSATIONS
This ambivalence is probably most visible at Stelarc's work, which can be interpreted as a rather
dystopian reflection of future technologically fostered development of society, but also as a result of
his unceasing techno‐enthusiasm and strive for discovering the new possibilities of techno‐enhanced
existence. Stelarc himself claims to be techno‐optimist who believes in technological progress, which
would result in a technological supremacy over humankind though. Both in his Ping body and
Parasite, he presented his body as an empty container dependent on the machine‐controlled
70
algorithm. At the same, he substitutes this part of his work that he calls involuntary body
performances also with the series of techno‐optimistic physical augmentations that fall within his
concept of amplified body. The latter category encompasses various prosthetic augmentations
undergone in the restituo ad optimum manner, namely as a symptom of excess, rather than a sign of
lack. One should recall for example his Third Hand and Virtual Arm performances, or his Exoskeleton
(1997), a pneumatic six‐legged walking machine constructed as artist's mechanical suit that extends
his natural moving abilities.
41. Stelarc,
Third Hand (1980).
Functional cyborg‐like hand attached as
a transformatio ad optima prosthesis.
Stelarc's longest‐lasting body‐amplification project is his Ear on Arm (1996 ‐ 2012), within which he
wishes to expand a hearing ability – although, in fact, not his own. In 2007 after many years of
continuous effort, he finally managed to acquire all legal permissions to have his left forearm
implanted with organic ear‐like prosthesis. This prosthesis was cultivated from Stelarc's own tissue
and subsequently formed into the shape of a full‐sized human ear, which was then surgically
attached to his hand. According to Stelarc's website,64 the third ear is soon going to be implanted
with a miniature microphone to enable a wireless connection to the Internet, which will make it
a remote listening device for people in distant places. Thereby, the prosthesis shouldn't only
resemble the function of real human organ, but refine it in a very unique ad optimum manner as
well. The ear would serve as an individual extension, but also as some kind of collective hearing
organ that would be used by several people at once: "For example, someone in Venice could listen to
what my ear is hearing in Melbourne", says Stelarc.65 As a permanent prosthesis Ear on Arm became
64
Available at: <http://stelarc.org/?catID=20242>
65
Ibid.
71
fix part of his body, transforming it into a life‐as‐art kind of project, yet Stelarc already gave some
public performances focused primarily on the ear project, as was for example his Ear on Arm
performance in Lorne.66
42. Stelarc,
Ear on Arm (1996 ‐ 2012).
Stelarc's bodyhacking project focuses on extension of human
hearing ability. His third ear should be used by a number of
individuals at once.
Another artistic attempt to extend one of the human senses, this time a sight, is Neil Harbisson's
eyeborg project. Again, the project is based on an attachment of permanent techno‐prostesis, yet
this time led rather on initial ad integrum motivation. Harbisson was born with achromatopsia,
a condition that caused him color blindness. As he was 21, though, he underwent a surgery in which
he had his back head implanted with a special prosthetic device enabling the transformation of colors
into the sound waves. This so‐called eyeborg device has allowed Harbisson to perceive up to 360
different hues and saturations through different microtones volume level. The original
achromatopsic handicap has thus been turned into the ad optimum state of sonochromatism (as
Harbisson calls it), and he has gained a synesthetic‐like ability to actually "hear colors".
The eventual inclusion of the eyeborg device on his passport photo in 2004 has been claimed by
some to be official recognition of Harbisson becoming a real cyborg. Since his own extension
66
Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pjozZDZL8M>
72
Harbisson has gradually been contributing to the legalization of bodily techno‐extensions: Not only
within his Cyborg Foundation, an international organization to help humans become cyborgs that he
founded in 2010, but also through his public talks and performances. Amongst his most renowned
artworks counts his sound portrait series, consisting of facial portraits that Harbisson creates by
"listening to the colors of human faces", or his Color Concerts in which he paints a piano with
different colors and uses his eyeborg to play it according to the color frequencies. In his Human
Colour Wheel project he also paid a very original contribution to the post‐ethnic discourse: During
2004 and 2009 Harbisson was travelling around the world and with the help of his eyeborg he
detected hue and light of various human skins. Eventually, he created a relating color scale, while
stating that there are no white skins or black skins as they rather are of different shades of orange.67
In his Ted Talk, Harbisson once came up with an idea that: “Life will be much more exciting when we
stop creating applications for mobile phones and we start creating applications for our own body." 68
Thereby, he clearly defined his attitude towards human techno‐augmentations.
43. Neil Harbisson,
Eyeborg (2004).
Technological prosthesis intended to correct eye defects
eventually gave its owner entirely new sensory capabilities:
Not only can Harbisson finally see color, but he can now
hear them as well.
Taking into an account the immaterial and live character of performance art, experimentation with
sensorial extensions can be seen as its natural part. Those here&now presented artworks have
67
In. VÀZQUEZ, 2012.
68
Available at: <http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_harbisson_i_listen_to_color.html>
73
a potential to encompass more senses than just the distance ones, letting spectators not only to
watch and listen, but also to smell the surrounding scents and odors, and sometimes even touch and
taste. Stephen Wilson (2007) points out that those close senses of smell touch and taste has recently
gained more attention of both scientists and artists, as they are less influenced by media and
technology, and haven't attained the simulacral nature yet.
Performative experimentations with smell are included for example in James Brown's Aisthesis
project (2009)69. Brown's aim here was to evoke synesthetic responses and built new neurological
links through a simultaneous combination of expelled fragrances, sounds, haze and psychedelic
animation projected on walls and ceiling of a huge theater hall. Participant's sensual abilities were
thereby linked together by means of technology, and both in the individual and collective manner
reached a new level, exceeding the natural human sensibility.
Regarding the haptic interventions, one should recall for example the works of Norwegian artist Stahl
Stenslie. In his Cyber SM (1993) he allowed participants to enjoy a remote controlled sexual arousal
through special light‐weight sensory suits with haptic sensors placed on the erogenous zones.
Mutually distant participants could touch each other by means of virtual avatars, which worked as
mediators transmitting the impulses between the single suits, hence between the sensitive zones of
wearers' bodies. Stenslie even mentioned that this remote techno‐erotic stimulation actually ended
with a real orgasm by few participants. Similar approach was utilized in his Sense:less project (1996),
where the attending spectator entered a semi‐transparent multi‐sensory environment shaped as
a giant, five meter high egg made of plastic and steel. Equipped with sensory bodysuit and
stereoscopic glasses, the spectator was enabled to immerse in a virtual 3D world here. Video images
of this world were simultaneously projected onto the egg's semi‐transparent walls, therefore being
visible both for the immersant and the surrounding viewers. The immersant walked through the
virtual world where he could touch various 3D creatures, whose movements were controlled by
remote Internet users. Thereby, a hybrid and slightly erotic human – machine interaction arose
again: distant users crawling through the 3D environment as variously shaped creatures could
approach the immersant and interact with him according to their phantasy. Contrary to the Cyber SM
project, Sense:less enabled only a one‐way interaction, but among more than two remote
participants who weren't aware of each other's gender. More recently, Stenslie conceived a multi‐
sensorial experience wihin his Psychoplastic project (2010), where he transferred immaterial
experiences into the physical form, through the use of electronic computer‐controlled bodysuits. The
69
Availabe at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8p3gH7VzfY#t=256
74
bodysuit became wearer's prosthetic skin, slipping him/her into the corpus of a story told through
touch and binaural, 3dimensional sound. The suit imprinted stories about corporal ecstasy and
simultaneously rendered them physical, thereby transferring wearer's surrounding space (either in
the gallery or wherever in the public) into the sensual structures. Human body extended with the suit
thus became a unique sensorial theater.70
44. Stahl Stenslie,
Sense:less (1996).
A techno‐enhanced erotic
experience aroused on the border of
real and fictional, as well as intimate
and public.
Speaking about taste, we inevitably enter the category of food preparation. Kitchen has actually
always been a truly multi‐sensorial place: Entire process of food preparation can be seen as a study in
those close senses of smell, taste and touch, although the hearing and sight are obviously involved as
well. Food and performance converge in many junctures, as in both cases one deals with live,
fugitive, and sensory procedures. Performance artists working with food express themselves not only
through cooking and serving; food is a multiuse instrument, it is an indicator of ones mood as well as
personal attitudes and philosophy. Food can be tasted, smelled, touched, watched as well as listened
to – it's a material medium that can be hacked into numerous forms.
For more than three years I have been collaborating on a development of multi‐sensorial kitchen lab
called HotKarot & OpenSauce, a long‐term food hacking project created around the idea of food as
a familiar and culturally conditioned communication tool. The key element of this project is a carrot
hotdog served with a collaboratively created digital sauce, the so‐called OpenSauce.71 The sauce is
always technologically mediated, taking an advantage of open source code and/or collective power
of online crowd. All the ingredients of HotKarot & OpenSauce snack are approached as raw data, the
70
Available at: <http://www.stenslie.net/>
71
Available at: <http://opensauce.cz/>
75
recipe making and cooking then resemble a process of data interpretation or even data mining. The
ingredients are derived from online data streams flowing through various social media platforms,
such as Twitter or Facebook, as well as from the biodata circulating in the body of carrot itself.
Through the range of public interventions performed in the city streets, galleries or public
workshops, HotKarot & OpenSauce lab has already presented a number of multisensory extensions
and "tasty hacks". Using for example the OpenSauce Zen feature, it's possible to program the sauce
according to its color and sonic imprint and prepare the eventual recipe not on the basis of its
expectable taste, but rather according to the actual mood of each user. The idea of abstracting from
food as a matter of "mere" taste is further developed within Eat Your Tweet project (2013), where
the sauce is cooked from single tweets. Here, a simple word analysis of tweets published under
a particular hashtag is performed, and the single words are mapped onto the color spectrum to
generate the final sauce ingredients. Everyone who tweets under some twitter hashtag becomes –
more or less unintentionally – part of the OpenSauce cooking process.
44. Cancel,
Hotkarot &
OpenSauce – Eat
Your Tweet (2013).
A sauce recipe based
on tweets as single
ingredients: Techno‐
enhanced
multisensory
cooking.
A very similar procedure is applied within HotKarot Riot project (2013), where carrot biosignals play
a crucial role: During the process of carrots peeling, their bioelectric resistance is measured and then
translated into sound frequencies, which together creates rather strange bio‐techno music. The
resulting sound is then converted into color values and hence, again, into the final sauce. HotKarot
76
Riot is a food‐noise performance motivated by the posthumanist anti‐anthropocentric idea. Letting
the carrots to control the whole process and create the sauce recipe on their own, the partaking
humans (performers) are involved only as mere workers: Peeling, listening to the computer
generated sound, watching the algorithm converting it into the single sauce ingredients, then
cooking the real HotKarot & OpenSauce snack and finally letting the audience to swallow the carrot's
"resistant speech". HotKarot & OpenSauce project thus aims to expand the discursive limits that are
inscribed in phenomenon of food consumption, while trying to define the possible position of
gastronomy within current technoculture.
45. Cancel,
Hotkarot & OpenSauce – HotKarot Riot (2013).
Playing on the carrots: Carrot bioelectric resistance is translated into sounds and colors.
Those interventions represent a complex transformation of human senses: Translating the taste into
colors, letters or sounds generated by means of touching, HotKarot & OpenSauce gives rise to
a number of stimuli which evoke various synesthetical perceptions. The nomadic HotKarot &
OpenSauce kitchen works as a pop‐up laboratory where an exchange of empirical knowledge occurs,
a plce where technologically trained geeks and experts, as well as unskilled public learn, probe, test
and taste both tangible and theoretical goodness. All our gadgets are built on OSHW (Open Software
and Hardware) components, whether on custom built Arduino interface or VVVV and Pure Data
programming environments. Those open access tools enable low‐cost production of non‐trivial
technological interfaces, as well as simple way to share and collaborate.
The philosophy of openness, which has recently flooded the world of new media art, brought about
new transdisciplinary models of human – machine interaction. Open source culture and open access
movements have changed the technologically oriented sci‐art field rather profoundly and while
77
blurring the boundaries between high and low, public and private or expert and amateur, they have
been contributing to the bottom‐up enhancement of public knowledge. Those initiatives are led by
the DIY (Do‐It‐Yourself) / DIWO (Do‐It‐With‐Others) ethos, which stems from the hackers' philosophy.
Members of those modern hacking initiatives usually gather in places known as hackerspaces, which
aspire to be new knowledge epicenters where engineers, scientists, artists, philosophers and other
enthusiasts from various fields meet to share their experiences and create a collaborative
transdisciplinary projects. Those communities represent heterogeneous micro‐societies of
cooperating humans and machines and as such they give a rise to a unique model of a real
posthuman society.
Along with the technological progress, people become still more curious. Internet users all around
the globe use Google to search for various recommendations on supplements and improvements to
their bodies, homes or even Planet. However, theoretical findings of Google search doesn't seem to
be enough anymore, and there is a growing public hunger for empirical knowledge and real hands‐on
encounters – all senses need to be fed. Curious publics want to absorb information not only through
reading, watching and listening; they want to probe, touch, smell and taste with their own bodies as
well. The phenomenon of open sci‐art collaboration based on open access to information and sharing
of wisdom, skills and tools seems to be a proper means to satisfy this hunger and reduce the fears
arising from the fast technocultural proliferation. Collaborations of artists, who give the science
outcomes into new contexts, and scientists, who draw from those alternative interpretations, may
contribute to a complex epistemological model that should be beneficial also for the wider engaged
publics, which strive for the knowledge about technologically extended world we currently live in.
Those hybrid collaborative practices based on communal hacking and making have an inherent
performative character, while being conducted procesually, improvisationally and spontaneously; its
outcomes being presented live, in form of open labs, workshops and public presentations. However,
sci‐art prototyping is not art, neither science; it is rather both of them. Although it undoubtedly
exceeds the category of performance art, many performance artists are involved: One should recall
for example the project Suspect Inversion Center by Paul Vanouse, who allowed his audience to look
underneath the official white lab coats in his art project, or the aforementioned performances by
SubRosa and CAE. Many other examples should be found, but this is not the point of this chapter –
the main goal here is to complete the review of performance artists who somehow contribute to the
demystification of posthuman concept, while translating its theoretical concepts into an everyday
real life practice. Their cooperation with engineers and scientist as with well as with lay public seems
to fulfill the vision of heterogeneous non‐hierarchical posthuman society made out of equal actants
78
very well. Those hybrid collaborations help to create projects that deny a reductionist one‐sided
interpretations, while maintaining the necessary critical stance.
CONCLUSION
Within this paper I focused on various posthuman aspects of proliferating technoculture, and
conceptualized them in the context of performance art genre. Taking art practice as an important
field that offers crucial up‐to‐date reflections of society, I suggested that we need to develop more
complex epistemological models when exploring current techno‐enhanced society. Within the first
part of the text, I offered a brief description of posthumanism, which was conceptualized as a broad
and socio‐cultural field focused on various forms of technologically mediated embodiment. This
cornerstone of posthuman discourse implies the crucial question of what does it mean to be human
in the technologically extended world, or, more precisely, what does it means to be human at all. The
answer obviously remains a matter of hypothetical disputes and resists all attempts to develop exact
definition. In fact, this impossibility to find such an answer seems to be the only assertion that one
can state with certainty about the essence of human. It seems that the idea of who we are as
individuals is a matter of constant redefinition: Every new wave of certainty coming to this dispute
automatically implies a new need to re‐evaluate the conditions of human existence. Therefore, it
doesn't seem useful to try to find some definition of who or what is posthuman. The essence of
posthuman lay in his/r plurality, heterogeneity and liminality. Posthuman as a liminal creature lacks
a clear ontological status and remains subject to continuous transgressions, while exceeding the
dichotomies of organic – artificial, autonomous – dependent, human – non‐human, living –
inanimate or coherent – hybrid. As a more or less metaphorical creature posthuman therefore seems
to represent a suitable starting point for a debate about current techno‐enhanced humanity.
Within the second part of this text, I attempted to show how the posthuman figure is conceptualized
in the context of performance art. On a particular set of artworks selected to cover the whole
continuum of posthuman discourse defined in the first part, I aimed to illustrate the legitimacy of
artistic perspective for explanation of current social phenomena. More than forty artworks were
analyzed to show how significant role art plays within the public debate on the challenges arising
from existence of liminal forms of life. Performance artists possess expressional skills, which allow
them to translate theoretical concepts onto a practical level: They can use their own bodies,
inscribed with their significant personal features, to illustrate, demonstrate and even to explain. Live
interactive performances can provide the audience with an opportunity to see, hear, touch, smell or
taste directly with their own senses. However, that doesn't mean that the metaphorical language of
79
performance artists should reduce the technocultural uncertainty. Quite contrary, actually: While
embracing alternative and unconventional perspectives and touching the fields beyond the limits of
common experience, the aforementioned artists usually depicted extreme scenarios, which
complicated the situation even further. And that seems to be exactly the contribution that art should
bring to the above outlined dispute. To borrow a Robert Pepperell's (2003) words once again:
“Good art always contains an element of disorder (discontinuity), bad art simply reinforces a pre‐
existing order. Posthuman art uses technology to promote discontinuity.“
This discontinuity should provoke public interest and start many fruitful discussions. It should help to
generate fresh points of view and reveal new, often surprising forms that the figure of (post)human
as an inhabitant of current technologically fostered world can take. Artistic appropriation of social
reality therefore seems to represent a promising contribution to the above proposed need of
transdisciplinarity.
Constant accumulation of new knowledge fostered by the still greater presence of technological
element makes reality so complex and inextricable that it often seems irrational. Dealing with
complex phenomena requires an abandonment of fixedly defined categories and methodologies, and
calls for broadening of the horizons, with which we perceive the world around us. The celebration of
reason witnessed within the era of Enlightenment is now over, as the utilization of logical reasoning
ceases to be sufficient. Current research has now to deal with many immeasurable elements that
can't be explained by means of mathematical accuracy, and the relationship between science and art
thus undergoes another profound change, resurrecting the Renaissance ideal of polymath. Bringing
art and science in a homogenous research system back together, means shifting from a modern
emphasis on logic and reasoning to an advanced complex system, where also the uncertain and even
illogical mechanisms have their place. More than ever before, we now need to look beyond the
obvious and ask the not‐yet‐asked‐questions, while being open to as much alternative answers as
possible. In this context, it seems legitimate to consider the intersection of art, science, technology
and related design as a driving motor of current social research. Through a wide adoption of this
transdisciplinary approach, the uncertainty stemming from a complex universe of available
knowledge would further be enlarged, yet at the same time made more legible and comprehensible.
80
REFERENCES:
ALSTER, Darina. Bianca Braselli a Benedictus XVI. In: YouTube [online]. 02.10.2009 [cit. 20.05.2013].
Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oujYC97REuk>
AMTOWER, Laurel. Freud, The Uncanny [online]. [Cit. 23.11.2012]. Available at: <z: http://www‐
rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/uncanny.html>
BADMINGTON, Neil. Posthumanism. New York: Palgrave, 2000. ISBN: 978‐0415310239.
BILAL, Wafaa. 3rdi [online]. [Cit. 18.12.2012]. Available at: <http://www.3rdi.me/>
BIOCURIOUS [online]. [Cit. 25.11.2012]. Available at: <http://biocurious.org>
BISSELL, Laura. The posthuman body in performance [online]. MPhil(R) thesis, University of Glasgow,
2007. Available at: <http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3412/1/2007bissellmphil.pdf>
BRAIDOTTI, Rosi. Posthuman, All Too Human: Towards a New Process Ontology. In: Theory Culture
Society [online]. SAGE, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi, 2006. Vol. 23, p. 197‐208 [cit. 12. 07.
2012]. Available at: <http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/23/7‐8/197.full.pdf+html>
BROCKMAN, John. The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution. Simon & Schuster, 1995. ISBN
0‐684‐82344‐6
BROWN, James. Aisthesis. In: YouTube [online]. 26.06.2009 [cit. 20.08.2013]. Available at:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8p3gH7VzfY#t=256>
BUKATMAN, Scott. Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern
Science Fiction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. ISBN: 978‐0822313403.
BUTLER, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 2006. ISBN:
978‐0415389556.
CANCEL. OpenSauce [online]. [Cit. 18.03.2013]. Available at: <http://opensauce.cz/>
CÁRDENAS, Micha. Becoming Dragon. A Transversal Technology Study. In: Code Drift: Essays in
Critical Digital Studies [online]. 28.11.2012 [cit. 29.04.2010].
Available at: <http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=639#_edn10>
CARLSON, Marvin. Performance: A Critical Introduction. Routledge; 2 edition, 2003. ISBN: 978‐
0415299275.
CARR, Liz. Is the Human Body Obsolete? ‐ Stelarc In Conversation With Liz Carr. In: YouTube [online].
11.01.2011 [cit. 06. 12. 2012]. Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pb_u6vlB7s>
CME. Abstentee Ballot. In: Vimeo [online]. 11.03.2012 [cit. 19.12.2012]. Available at:
<http://vimeo.com/38307101#>
CME. Project Paradise. In: Vimeo [online]. 14.01.2012 [cit. 20.12.2012]. Available at:
<http://vimeo.com/35047536>
DIXON, Steve. Digital performance. MIT Press, 2007. ISBN: 978‐0262042352.
81
E.A.T. 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering [online]. ©2006‐2008 [cit. 20.08.2013]. Available at:
<http://www.9evenings.org/>
EXTROPY INSTITUTE. Transhumanist FAQ [online]. Extropy Institute ©2003 [cit. 09.08.2012].
Available at: <http://www.extropy.org/faq.htm>
FOSTER, Hall. Obscene, Abject, Traumatic [online]. In: October, vol. 78, p. 153.MIT Press,1996.
Available at:
<http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/778908?uid=3737856&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101459580783>
FOSTER, Thomas. The Souls of Cyberfolk: Posthumanism as Vernacular Theory. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2005. ISBN 978‐0‐8166‐3406‐4.
FUKUYAMA, Francis. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. Profile
Books, London, 2002. ISBN: 978‐0312421717.
GANE, Nicholas. When We Have Never Been Human, What Is to Be Done? Interview with Donna
Haraway. In: Theory, Culture & Society [online]. SAGE, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi, 2006.
Vol. 23(7–8), p. 148 [cit. 12.9.2012]. Available at: <http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/23/7‐
8/135.full.pdf+html>
GOLDBERG, RoseLee. Performance: Live Art, 1909 to the Present. Harry N Abrams Inc, 1979. ISBN:
9780810921818.
GOLDBERG, RoseLee. Performance Art From Futurism to the Present. Thames & Hudson, 2011. ISBN:
9780500204047.
GOMEZ‐PENA, Guillermo; CHAGOYA, Enrique. Friendly Cannibals. Artspace Books; 1St Edition,
January 2, 1997. ISBN: 978‐0963109576.
GOMOLL, Lucian. Posthuman Performance. A Feminist Intervention [online]. In: Total Art Journal.
2011. Vol.1, p. 8. Available at: <http://totalartjournal.com/archives/1764/posthuman‐performance/>
GREENPEACE [online]. Greenpeace ©2012 [cit. 14.12.2012]. Available at:
<http://www.greenpeace.org>
HALBERSTAM, Judith; LIVINGSTONE, Ira. Posthuman Bodies. Indiana University Press, 1995. ISBN 0‐
253‐32894‐2.
HARAWAY, Donna. A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist‐Feminism in the Late
Twentieth Century In: Sociální studia. 2002. Vol.7, pp. 51‐59. ISBN 80‐210‐2834‐3.
HARAWAY, Donna. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and Significant Otherness.
Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003. ISBN: 0‐9717575‐8‐5.
HARBISSON, Neil. I listen to color [online]. ©TED Conferences, LLC [cit. 16. 12. 2012].
Available from: <http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_harbisson_i_listen_to_color.html>
HASSAN, Ihab. Prometheus as Performer: Toward a Postmodern Culture? In: Performance in
Postmodern Culture .Ed. Michel Benamou, Charles Caramello. Madison, Wisconsin: Coda Press,
1977. ISBN 0‐930956‐00‐1.
82
HAYLES, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and
Informatics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999. ISBN: 0‐226‐32145‐2.
HAYLES, N. Katherine. Refiguring the Posthuman [online]. In: Comparative Literature Studies
Vol. 41, No. 3, Cybernetic Readings, 2004, pp. 311‐316. [Cit. 12.9.2012]. Penn State University Press.
Available at: <http://www.jstor.org/stable/40247415>
HEIM, Michael. The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality. NY: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN: 978‐
0195092585.
HORÁKOVÁ, Jana. Tur(n)ing Bachelor Machine: Towards Articulations of the Universal Machine
Unconscious. Mutamorphosis Conference Prague, 6. 12. 2012.
Human Genome Project Information [online]. [Cit. 23.11.2012]. Available at:
<http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/home.shtml>
INSTITUTE OF ARTIFICIAL ART AMSTERDAM [online]. [Cit. 19.12.2012]. Available at:
<http://www.iaaa.nl/>
INSTITUTE OF ARTIFICIAL ART AMSTERDAM. Arthur & The Solenoids. In: YouTube [online]. 30.10.2008
[cit. 20.12.2012]. Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogalIrd33Js>
KERA, Denisa. Kyberfeminismus mezi uměním a globální technokulturou. In: Časopis Ateliér, 2008,
vol. 21, nr. 1, p. 2.
KROKER, Arthur; WEINSTEIN, Michael. Data Trash: The Theory of the Virtual Class. New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1994. ISBN: 978‐0312122119.
LA POCHA NOSTRA. Corpo/Ilicito: The Post‐Human Society 6.9. In: YouTube [online]. 13.09.2009 [cit.
12.12.2012]. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luLE1dNJm6Q>
LA POCHA NOSTRA. Cross‐contamination: the performance activism and oppositional art of La Pocha
Nostra [online]. PochaNostra ©2002 [cit. 12.12.2012]. Available at:
<http://www.pochanostra.com/what/>
LA POCHA NOSTRA. Ethno‐cyborgs and Genetically engineered Mexicans [online]. PochaNostra
©2002 [cit. 17.12.2012]. Available at:
<http://www.pochanostra.com/antes/jazz_pocha2/mainpages/ethno.htm>
LANE, Jill; PHELAN, Peggy. The Ends of Performance. NYU Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780814766477.
LATOUR, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press, 1993.
ISBN: 0674948394.
MACEK, Jakub. Postčlověk aneb Tak pravili kybernetici [online]. Revue pro média, nr. 9, December
2004 [cit. 17.12.2012]. Available at: <http://rpm.fss.muni.cz/Revue/Revue09/recenze_hayles.htm>
MCLUHAN, Marshall. Člověk, média a elektronická kultura; výbor z díla. JOTA, Brno, 2000. ISBN: 80‐
7217‐128‐3.
83
MORAVEC, Hans. Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence. Harvard University
Press, 1990. ISBN‐10: 0674576187
New York Observer. In Defense of Performance Art in the Digital Age [online]. 19.08.2011 [cit.
12.04.2013]. Available at: <http://observer.com/2011/08/in‐defense‐of‐performance‐art‐in‐the‐
digital‐age/>
NORRIS, Pippa. Digital Divide. Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780521807517
O’REILLY, Sally. The Body in Contemporary Art. Thames & Hudson, 2009. ISBN: 978‐0500204009.
PELCOVÁ, Naděžda. Filosofická a pedagogická antropologie. Praha: Karolinum, 2000. ISBN:
9788024600765.
PEPPERELL, Robert. The Posthuman Condition: Consciousness Beyond the Brain. Intellect Ltd; 1995.
ISBN 1‐84150‐048‐8.
PLANT, Sadie. Zeroes and Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture. New York: Doubleday,
1997. ISBN: 978‐038548260.
Palace [online]. [Cit. 17.12.2012]. Available at: < http://www.thepalace.com/>
PONTON, Anita. Unspool. In: Vimeo [online]. 15.01.2011 [cit. 16.12.2012]. Available at:
<http://vimeo.com/18815004>
POPPER, Ben. Cyborg America: inside the strange new world of basement body hackers. In: The Verge
[online] 08.08.2012 [cit. 12.09.2012]. Available at:
<http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/8/3177438/cyborg‐america‐biohackers‐grinders‐body‐hackers>
POSTER, Mark. Information Please: Culture and Politics in the Age of Digital Machines. Durham and
London: Duke University Press. 2006. ISBN: 0‐8223‐3839‐4.
PTACEK, Karla. Avatar Body Collision: enactments in distributed performance practices. In: Digital
Creativity, Vol. 14, Issue 3, 2003, pp. 190‐192. Routledge.
ROCA, Marcel‐lí Antúnez. Epizoo. In: YouTube [online]. 28.12.2009 [cit. 14.12.2012].
Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wabsr8Eouts>
ROSENBLATT, Roger. A New World Dawns. In: Times Magazine [online]. 3.1.1983 [cit. 12.08.2012].
Available at: <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,953631‐1,00.html>
RULLER, Tomáš. Prezentace/Situace ‐ akce. In: Divadlo v netradičním prostoru, performance a site
specific. Praha: Nakladatelství Akademie múzických umění, 2010. pp. 184‐211. ISBN: 978‐80‐7331‐
1841.
SHANNON, Claude E.; WEAWER, Warren. A mathematical theory of communication [online]. Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1965 [cit. 14.07.2012].
Available at: <http://cm.bell‐labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/shannon1948.pdf>
SILVER, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books,
1998. ISBN 978‐0380974948.
84
SHIN, Haerin; VIDERGAR, Angela B. Scott Bukatman on "Terminal Identity" and our Contemporary
Lifestyle. In: The Three Wise Monkeys [online]. 11.8.2012 [cit. 25.11.2012]. Available at:
<http://thethreewisemonkeys.com/2012/08/11/scott‐bukatman‐on‐terminal‐identity‐and‐our‐
contemporary‐lifestyle/>
SMITH, Barry. Jennicam, or the telematic theatre of a real life. In: International Journal of
Performance Arts & Digital Media, vol. 1, nr. 2, pp. 91‐100(10). Intellect Ltd, 2005.
SNOW, C.P. The Two Cultures. 2001 [1959].London: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0‐521‐45730‐0.
STELARC. Ear on arm performance Lorne. In: YouTube [online]. 17.01.2013 [cit. 12.04.2013]. Available
at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pjozZDZL8M>
STENSLIE, Stahl. Psychoplastics [online]. [Cit. 18.03.2013]. Available at: <http://www.stenslie.net/>
STEPHENSON, Neal. Snowcrash. Spectra, 2000. ISBN: 978‐0553380958.
STERLING, Bruce. Schismatrix. Arbor House Publishing Company, 1985. ISBN 0‐87795‐645‐6.
SUBROSA. Expo EmmaGenics [online]. [Cit. 16.12.2012].
Available at: <http://www.cmu.edu/emmagenics/home/>
SUBROSA [online]. [Cit. 17. 12. 2012].Available at: <http://www.cyberfeminism.net/>
SUBROSA. SmartMom [online]. [C it. 17. 12. 2012].
Available at: <http://smartmom.cyberfeminism.net/>
SUKA OFF. tranSfera ver. 1.2. In: Vimeo [online]. 15.08.2011 [cit. 09.08.2012].
Available at: <http://vimeo.com/27729690>
VÀZQUEZ,Eva. La teva cara em sona. In: El Punt [online]. 28.01.2012 [cit. 12.04.2013]. Available at:
<http://www.elpuntavui.cat/noticia/article/5‐cultura/19‐cultura/500466‐la‐teva‐cara‐em‐sona.html>
VNS MATRIX. All New Gen [online]. In: Medien Kunst Net [cit. 17.12.2012]. Available at:
<http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/all‐new‐gen/>
VNS MATRIX. Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st century [online]. Adelaide, Sidney, 1991 [cit
13.11.2012]. Available at: <http://www.sysx.org/gashgirl/VNS/TEXT/PINKMANI.HTM>
WACHOWSKI, Andy; WACHOWSKI, Larry. The Matrix. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1999.
WIESING, Urban. The History of Medical Enhancement: From Restitutio ad Integrum to Transformatio
ad Optimum? In: Medical Enhancement and Posthumanity. Ed. B. Gordijn, R. Chadwick. Springer
Science + Business Media B.V, 2008. ISBN: 978‐1402088513.
WEBSTER, Richard.The cult of Lacan: Freud, Lacan and the mirror stage [online]. © Richard Webster,
2002 [cit. 12.04.2013]. Available at: <http://www.richardwebster.net/thecultoflacan.html>
WILSON, Stephen. Information Arts. Intersections of Art, Science and Technology. The MIT Press,
2002. ISBN: 9780262731584.
85
WOLFF, Janet. Reinstating Corporeality: Feminism and Body Politics. In: The Feminism and Visual
Culture Reader, pp. 419‐420. Ed. Amelia JONES, Routledge; 2 edition, 2010. ISBN: 978‐0415543705.
ZYLINSKA, Joanna. The Ethics of Cultural Studies. Continuum, London, 2005. ISBN: 978‐0826475244.
86