Stelarc : the monograph

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2005. Quarto, cloth in dustjacket (verso foxed), pp. xiii, 256, endpapers lightly foxed, illustrated. Very scarce publication on the performance artist with numerous images of his unnerving pierced body suspensions.

‘Stelarc is the most celebrated artist in the world working within technology and the visual arts. He is both an artist and a phenomenon, using his body as medium and exhibition space. Working in the interface between the body and the machine, he employs virtual reality, robotics, medical instruments, prosthetics, the Internet, and biotechnology.” “The Monograph is the first comprehensive study of Stelarc’s work practice in over thirty years. Gathering a range of writers who approach the work from a variety of perspectives, it includes William Gibson’s account of his meetings with Stelarc, Arthur and Marilouise Kroker’s emphatic “We Are All Stelarcs Now,” and Stelarc himself in conversation with Marquard Smith. Taken together, these writers give us a multiplicity of ways to think about Stelarc.’ – dustjacket

Contents:

1. The will to evolve / Jane Goodall

2. An itinerary and five excursions / Timothy Druckrey

3. We are all Stelarcs now / Arthur and Marilouise Kroker

4. Stelarc’s technological “Transcendence” / Stelarc’s wet body: the insistent return of the flesh / Amelia Jones

5. The evolutionary alchemy of reason / Brian Massumi

6. A sensorial act of replication / Julie Clarke

7. Animating bodies, mobilizing technologies: Stelarc in conversation / Stelarc and Marquard Smith.