Changing Mind Changing Body
The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed. William Gibson
My work is about the non-human, it’s about the communication and the social interaction between humans and non-humans. It’s also a beacon, a message in a bottle for the future, that evolution itself is evolving. Eduardo Kac
The more and more performances I’ve done the less and less I think I have a mind of my own, nor any mind at all in the traditional metaphysical sense. Stelarc
The issue explores ideas and works on mind/body relationships and its future implications, covering such themes as bioart, transgenic art, augmented bodies/perception/reality, and transhumanism.
Legendary Australian performance artist Stelarc is known for going to extremes. For more than four decades, he has used his body as a canvas for art on the very edge of human experience. In an exclusive interview for the Interalia Magazine, he talks about his life, his work, and his vision for the future.
Eduardo Kac’s work encompasses many genres. He is internationally recognized for his media poetry, telepresence, transgenic and bio artworks. A pioneer of telecommunications art in the pre-Web 1980s, he emerged in the early ’90s with radical works combining telerobotics and living organisms. At the dawn of the twenty-first century Kac opened a new direction for contemporary art with his “transgenic art”. His visionary integration of robotics, biology and networking explores the fluidity of subject positions in the post-digital world.
Andrew Carnie’s artistic practice often involves a meaningful interaction with scientists in different fields as he develops his work. In Interactions with Science he discusses his ideas and artwork.
In a ‘ visual article’, Elaine Whittaker shows work from her installation I Caught it at The Movies and Diemut Strebe regrows Vincent van Gogh’s ear in Sugababe.
Transhumanisman is an international cultural and intellectual movement with an eventual goal of fundamentally transforming the human condition, by developing and making widely available technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. In two articles, bestselling visionary author Zoltan Istvan, discusses this movement and its implications for the future. In ‘Imagining Possibilities’, author and speaker Richard Barrett, looks at evolution as a spiritual journey.
Further explorations of ‘visionary’ approaches to the future include ‘video talks’ by Natasha Vita-More, Catherine Kerr, Kevin Warwick, Aubrey de Grey, Max More and Miguel Nicolelis. There’s also a conversation between performance artist ORLAN and scientist and innovator Rachel Armstrong about the future of the human body.
Plus, blogs on David Cronenberg talking about the future of human bio implants and Seiki Mikami‘s installation ‘Desire of Codes’
And, in Generation Next, young adults respond to the question – “How do you think future explorations into the mind/body relationship should go, from both the arts and the sciences?”
Change is the process by which the future invades our lives. Alvin Toffler, Future Shock