Interview with Stelarc
by Laura Day
"Why should your ears be on the side of your head? Wouldn't it be more interesting if you could speak into your own ear, or hand your ear over to someone else to listen with?" This is the rationale behind Australian conceptual artist Stelarc's most recent project, Extra Ear. Subjecting the underneath of his left forearm to scalpels and incisions for a permanent conceptual art installation is Stelarc's idea of a good piece of art - if it gets people questioning, reacting and feeling anxious - it's a hit.
Originally known as Stelios Arcadiou, Stelarc is currently exhibiting his piece at FACT - arguably one of the rarer installations with the ‘wow' factor. And if having a third ear on your arm wasn't enough, it will eventually contain a Bluetooth transmitter, so that when in any wi-fi hotspot, the ear will be internet enabled: "In other words you'll be able to hear what my ear is listening to wherever I am." To make the ear, a prosthesis was inserted under the skin of Stelarc's forearm, and injected with a saline solution. It was then removed and the scaffold for the shape of the ear was in place. Now the ear has developed its own blood supply and effectively is no longer separate from the arm. "Initially it was modelled as an ear on the side of my face, and there are several reasons why it never happened. One was that anatomically it's not the safest location because it would be near were the facial nerves surface, and also it would be near the jawbone, so it wasn't a very smart place to position the ear. Also, surgeons would not assist me because there was a possibility of partial face paralysis."
Completely passionate and a genuine believer in what he does, Stelarc wound up as a conceptual artist at art school after he realised he was a bad painter. Having always wanted to do visual arts, but unable to successfully put paintbrush to canvas in any artistic sense, he decided to compromise and become a body performance artist: "I guess I was always interested in how the body had evolved. I was always envious of dancers and gymnasts that use their body as a means of expression." Dubbing his career of 30 years as "a failure", Stelarc has imagined and realised a series of conceptual projects, mostly all bordering on the inconceivable: "It's the realisation that everything you've done has never turned out the way you expected it. This is really an artistic career that has been a failure."
Just days following the installation of a larger exhibition at FACT, Sk-interfaces, he can only exhibit his extra ear by means of a conceptual statement on the wall of Gallery One, and a short film depicting his surgery. He said: "It's frustrating really. What I find interesting in this exhibition are the actual installations - the works of art that are physical, that are moving. I've only got documentation, but hopefully they will really question the idea of what it means to be a body, the future of it and how it functions." Stomach sculptures, prosthetic heads and body suspension by 18 hooks are just three of Stelarc's back catalogue of otherworld experiences. Set on proving that the body is no longer one entity that regenerates itself throughout life, unguided until death, Stelarc disregards the body as "one individual agency" and embraces visionary possibilities that aren't really all that possible, yet: "The idea of an organ printer would involve providing the computer with all the physiological and 3-D data and the different cell types which will have to print layer by layer.
The end product, the whole idea of a body without organs, well here you might have an instance of organs awaiting a body." Even though the project was much to the dismay of friends, he lost his previous partner because of his aspirations, and he's yet to show the ear to his mother, Stelarc is certain that he's made the right decision: "I'll never regret it, I don't think so. It's been a tough one to go through and persist with, but people thought there's a difference between having a third hand (a previous project) because you can take it off after the performance, but if you construct an ear on your arm, that's a permanent addition and it becomes part of your body - people are going to feel squeamish." All that is left to do now is two operations to further construct the ear and add the Bluetooth microchip: "It will probably take a couple of years realistically. It's just something that I have to live with. This project has taken nine years so far, so I guess I can be a little bit more patient." Stay tuned.
