Ping Body is a performance which allows the human body to be controlled remotely by electronic muscle stimulators connected to the internet. The artist and its performance Stelarc is interested in robotics and cybernetics. ”His works focuses heavily on extending the capabilities of the human body. As such, most of his pieces are centered on his concept that the human body is obsolete.” Wikipedia
The Ping Body provides me a new vision looking upon the issue linked by technologies and thoughts.
It indicated at the official website that ”During the Ping Body performances, what is being considered is a body moving not to the promptings of another body in another place, but rather to Internet activity itself – the body’s proprioception and musculature stimulated not by its internal nervous system but by the external ebb and flow of data.” This performance seems produced a strong inversion of the human body to the internet. ”Instead of collective bodies determining the operation of the Internet, collective Internet activity moves the body.”
As an artist who creates pieces that integrated robotic or modern technology elements into the human body, it seems that Stelarc was trying to discuss the relationship between human body and instrument and to question which is the main body/part rather than guest body/part: human body or machine/internet?
Other performances by Stelarc
Ear on Arm, 2006
Sitting/Swaying: Event For Rock Suspension, Tamura Gallery, Tokyo, 11 May 1980
