O RL AN & STELARC-

TECHNOLOGY IN ART
15th century- the CAMERA OBSCURA aided artists in drawing objects
realistically.
1970s- Portable video cameras provided a cheap and effective way of
documenting performances.
1980s/90s- the development of home computers rejuvenated the art of
photo manipulation.
20th century- developments in medical technology allow Orlan’s theatrical
surgery.

“Her incarnation as Saint Orlan focused on the hypocrisy of

the way society has traditionally split the female image into
madonna and whore. She played off this long- entrenched
dichotomy by exposing only one breast (as the nursing Virgin
Mary is depicted), to differentiate Saint Orlan from a topless
pinup.”

“the man-made (or "ready-made) construct of beauty.”

Orlan works towards female aesthetic liberation, condemning longheld

ideals of beauty as pandering towards men. Orlan embraces vanity,
and may be considered post-feminist.

“Carnal Art is a self-portrait in the classical sense, yet realized

through the technology of its time. Lying between
disfiguration and figuration, it is an inscription in flesh, as
our age now makes possible. No longer seen as the ideal it
once represented, the body has become an 'modified ready-
made'. Carnal Art loves the baroque and parody; the
grotesque, and other such styles that have been left behind,
because Carnal Art opposes the social pressures that are
exerted upon both the human body and the corpus of art.
Carnal Art is anti-formalist and anti-conformist.”

She strives to create a meaningful critique of traditional beauty, by

manipulating her body towards the standard of beauty expressed in
renaissance art.

“Of the operations performed so far, one altered her mouth to

imitate that of François
Boucher'shttp://www.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/ecook/courses/eng114em/carnal.htm -
#Europa; another "appropriated" the forehead of da Vinci's
Mona Lisa; yet another imitates the chin of Botticelli's
Venus.”

The figures are chosen not only for their physical beauty but for their
symbolic or mythological connotations.

S T E L A R C- TRANS-HUMANISM IN ART
“Most of his pieces are centred around his concept
that the human body is obsolete”

“Stelarc's idiosyncratic performances often

involve robotics or other relatively modern
technology integrated with his body somehow.”

Extra Ear, 2006- “Cyprus-born Stelios

Arcadiou, known as Stelarc, says his extra ear,
made of human cartilage, is an augmentation of
the body's form.”

“He has allowed for the worldwide audience to

log into the exhibition and thus access or control
the electrodes his own body was hooked up to
(via electronic muscle stimulators”

Stelarc forces artistic evolution- he sees the human body as

obsolete, constricting, and so uses advancements in medical
and social technology to “improve” it. Stelarc presnts
technology as a catalyst that will define the development of
humanity. He demonstrates the natural conclusion of man-
machine synthesis, the hybridization of technology with not
only our society but our body, our self.