Artist Statement

A touch-screen interface has been developed for the multiple muscle stimulator. This allows the body’s movements to be programmed by touching the muscle sites on the computer model. Although we already have remote-control robots, it might be advantageous in certains situations (in non-hazardous locations) to complete a remote task by borrowing the arm of another person’s body – especially since that remote stimulated arm is connected to an intelligent, mobile body. As well as completing a task, it would also be possible to condition a skill by sequential stimulation. And instead of seeing this as remote control, it is better conceptualized as the displacement of motion from one body to another body – in another place.

• Stelarc (Australia) is a performance artist interested in alternate aesthetic strategies. He has exhibited, made installations and performed at the Videotheque (Paris), Charleroi Dance Biennale (Belgium), ISEA90 (Groningen) ISEA94 (Helsinki), Unstable Media (Rotterdam), The Body and Computer (Berlin) and ACREQ (Montreal) and this year, at the Greenmill Dance Project (Melbourne), the Brain / Computer Congress (Munich), CeBIT ’95 (Hanover), Dance ’96 (Munich) as well as Virtual Futures and the Biennale of Ideas (Sydney). He has interactively performed with his Third Hand, a Virtual arm, a Virtual Body and a Stomach sculpture. At present, he is developing a touch-screen interface for multiple muscle-simulation.