S.T.E.L.A.R.C

I finally got a chance to explore Stelarc's site, his work is really interesting and beyond amazing. Next to Bob Violla, I found another contemporary artist I really enjoy. The idea of making the human body a canvas is always interesting to me. I mean while the whole class was squirming over people being cut open, I find it beautiful. Truly sublime, death can be transpired into a beautiful object of beauty. Like a butterfly, I mean only 3 or so days to live, yet when they’re on the side of the road as a whole or crushed, there is this unique beauty about them that is amazing… I saw this one piece he had done called “blender”, that is incredibly similar to Orlan’s procedures, he along with Nina Sellers had a liposuction procedure and placed in this strange looking sculpture. I can figure why people do get so grossed out, I mean yes I do get easily sick, but when you pull yourself out of the materialistic senses you see this ideal in a different way. No one talks about the physical torture one must go through in order to achieve; I guess that is why to me a lot of people get sick. It’s hard to pull one’s self out of what is natural, when reality is this is what happens. His work is amazing, even the stuff about the exoskeleton… it’s, to me it’s something I expect to come a phenomenon that will be permanent in our society years from now (This is coming fro ma girl who grew up watching sci-fi movies, yes I love everything big Michael Crichton fan). His suspensions were soooo amazing. To me that was his best work, his newer stuff is more shock factor and just as amazing how he utilizes technology, to me though the piece in which he suspended himself using Rocks in Japan was really beautiful and serene. You couldn’t help but admire his physical posture and the whole imagery. To take images of him must have been really amazing, it’s just… breathtaking. I really enjoyed going through his works, and seeing some of the more shock-factor imagery, they were really great. The body transcends from this physical being to nothing more than a body base, or a manikin in which other forms attach its’ self to create a work of art. Personally, all this stuff he has done along with Orlan, I couldn’t… still it brings you to a point of amazement of how performance artists transcend the more traditional forms and surpass art and how important it was to contemporary art now. I can’t tell you how seeing all these performance artists has really influenced me as an artist and a lover of art.