Stelarc: The Contestable and the Contingent – Aliveness, Agency and Indifference

Since the 1980s, Stelarc has been regarded as one of the most influential figures in contemporary art engaging with the technological extension and modification of the human body. In his lecture, the Australia-based artist explores how digital technologies enable new forms of corporeality, in which the body increasingly becomes an interface between biological, mechanical, and virtual realities.

Stelarc (b. 1946, Limassol, Cyprus) gained international recognition through performances involving robotic limbs, remote-controlled muscle stimulation, his spectacular suspension performances, and, most notably, the Third Ear project, in which a laboratory-grown ear was surgically implanted into his arm. The lecture offers insights into his current research as well as into his fundamental reflections on the technological augmentation of the body. Stelarc articulates his position as follows:

"Alternative embodiments are proliferating. Bodies are increasingly augmented, machines become increasingly autonomous. Alternative intelligence is generated. Artificial cognition contaminates human comprehension. The digital is not only the realm of the virtual. It also facilitates alternative anatomical architectures. To be in excess is to oscillate between the biological, the machinic and the virtual, both in proximal and remote spaces. To be in excess is to be an extended operational system. Of distributed senses and of multiple agency. Being digital means inhabiting a flattened ontology of interacting algorithms, machines, instruments, networks, microorganisms, and other bodies, objects and images. There is no privileging of the human. What becomes apparent with the digital is not merely the body’s identity and agency but rather its connectivity. Not its location or mobility, but rather its interface. As a performance artist, what becomes meaningful is that ideas are generated and authenticated by actions. Artists generate contestable futures. Possibilities that can be performed, interrogated, evaluated, possibly appropriated, but most likely discarded. A future is not a future without contingency. A future is not a future if it is 
not of the unexpected."
 

Lecture as part of the Gulaschprogrammiernacht

Gulaschprogrammiernacht 2025 (GPN25) will take place from 19 to 22 June 2025. This four-day conference for hackers, technology enthusiasts, and interested laypersons is the second-largest annual event organized by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), following the Chaos Communication Congress. GPN25 is hosted by Entropia e. V., the Karlsruhe chapter of the CCC.

It is recommended to arrive early, as a large number of visitors are expected due to the Gulaschprogrammiernacht.