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Performance Research: A Journal of the

Performing Arts
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A Microchip inside the Body

Arlindo Machado
Published online: 05 Aug 2014.

To cite this article: Arlindo Machado (1999) A Microchip inside the Body, Performance Research: A Journal of the
Performing Arts, 4:2, 8-12, DOI: 10.1080/13528165.1999.10871659

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13528165.1999.10871659

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Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 18:37 14 November 2014
 A Microchip inside the
Body
Arlindo Machado

After generalizing happenings, performances and the microchip- a transponder tag- is used to
Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 18:37 14 November 2014

installations; after questioning the white cube of
the museum and jumping to the public space; after
borrowing from industry and employing all kinds
of machines and technological apparatuses to make
images, texts and sounds; after discussing the
tragedy of the human condition and laying bare the
embarrassment, the segregation, the unspoken
differences of race, sex, geographic origin and
socio-economic contingency; after all of this, art
seems to orient itself now toward a discussion of
the primary condition of the species - its biology.
For the past few years, artists like Orlan and
Stelarc have brought forward a cultural discussion
of the possibility of surpassing the human through
radical surgical intervention, through the interface
between flesh and electronics, or with robotic pros-
theses to complement and expand the potentiality
of the biological body. More than simply anticipat-
ing profound changes in perception, in our concep-
tion of the world, and in the reorganization of our
socio-political systems, these pioneers foresee
fundamental transformations in our species. These
transformations could conceivably alter our genetic
code and reorient the Darwinian evolutionary
process.
An important marker in this current took place
on 11 November 1997, at the cultural centre Casa
das Rosas, Sao Paulo, Brazil. On this day, the artist
Eduardo Kac implanted an identification microchip
with nine digits in his ankle and registered himself
with a databank in the United States via the
Internet. Replacing the traditional branding iron,
identify and recover lost or stolen animals. The
microchip is connected to a coil and a capacitor, all
hermetically sealed in biocompatible glass to
prevent the organism from rejecting it. The
number stored on the chip can be retrieved with a
tracker, a portable scanner that generates a radio
signal and energizes a microchip, making it
transmit back its unalterable number. Implanting
the microchip in the ankle has a precise symbolic
meaning: it is an area of the body that has tradition-
ally been chained or branded.
The description sketched above is oversimplified
and incomplete. Kac's work, entitled 'Time
Capsule', also included several other elements that
were directly or indirectly related to the implant.
The physical space at Casa das Rosas was converted
temporarily into something like a hospital room,
with surgical instruments, a doctor to assist with
possible complications, and an emergency
• The installation space. Credit: Eduardo Kac, 'Time Capsule' 0997). Photo: Carlos Fadon

9
Performance Research 412), pp.B-12 © Taylor & Francis Ltd 1999
 ambulance (parked inside the premises by the front
door and visible from the street). There were also
seven original photographs on the wall- the only
surviving mementoes of the artist's grandmother's
family, who were entirely annihilated in Poland
during World War II. In the space we also saw
computers that enabled access to the database in
the United States, allowed the artist's body to be
scanned via the Internet, and transmitted the event
worldwide as a webcast. The next day an X-ray
showing the position of the microchip inside the
artist's body was added to the site next to an
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enlargement of the database record. There was also
a live broadcast of the whole event by a commercial
television station (Canal21), two more taped
broadcasts by other commercial television stations
(TV Cultura and TV Manchete), and great
response in the local press before and after the
event. The Argentinean daily newspaper La Nacion
published a full-page story and the New York
magazine Intelligent Agent covered the event with
an extensive article. The artist himself may not
have been able to anticipate and contemplate all of
the implications and consequences of his inter-
vention. Due to the broadcasts and the press
coverage, for example, the implant and netscanning
of the artist's body went beyond the intellectual
ghetto and acquired a public dimension: the next
morning the strange story of the man who had
implanted a microchip in his own body was told
and retold in cafes, subways and in corporate
• Moment of the Implant. Credit: Eduardo Kac, 'Time Capsule' (1997).
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• Family Photograph Warsaw 1930s. Credit: Eduardo Kac, 'Time Capsule' (1997).
offices by people who do not even remotely follow
developments in the art world.
Kac's intervention touches on difficult and
uncomfortable points in the debate on the philo-
sophic, scientific and ethical future of mankind.
One month before the realization of 'Time
Capsule' at Casa das Rosas, the event was commis-
sioned for the exhibition 'Art and Technology' by
the Instituto Cultural Itau, also in Sao Paulo, and
then cancelled by the same institution under the
pretext that a microchip implant in a human being
could bring serious legal problems for the sponsor-
ing institution. In the United States, important
research centers requested copies of the videotape
of the broadcast to analyze the experience while the
Wearable Computing list discussed the event on the
Internet. The fact that the work became polemical
both inside and outside the country in which it was
realized is a clear indication that Kac's intervention
touched something important. As the placement of
a 'foreign' object (such as Duchamp's urinal
[Fountain 1917]) in the sacred space of the museum
had unpredictable consequences for subsequent art,
so the implantation of a microchip inside the body
of an artist will intensify the debate on the paths
that both art and the human species will travel in
the next millennium.
Because Eduardo Kac is an artist and not a
political activist, the event he realized at Casa das
Rosas remains open to multiple interpretations.
One can read the implant as a warning about forms
of human surveillance and control that might be
10
 adopted in the near future. The Brazilian press
approached the event mostly from this point of
view. The scenario evoked is that a microchip
implanted in our body from birth could become
our only form of identification. Whenever we
QJ needed to be identified we would be scanned, and
..c
...... immediately a databank would show records
QJ
revealing who we are, what we do, what kinds of
"t:J
products we consume, if we are in debt with the
Internal Revenue Service, if we are facing criminal
c:
charges, or if we are hiding from the judicial
system.
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..c However, one can also read Kac's work from

u
0
another perspective: as a sign of a biological
u
mutation that might eventually take place, when
·r digital memories will be implanted in our bodies to
complement or substitute for our own memories.
This reading is clearly authorized by the associ-
ations the artist makes between the implant of a
numerical memory in his own body and the public
exhibition of his familial memories, his external
memories materialized in the form of photographs
of his ancestors. These images, which strangely
contextualize the event, allude to deceased indi-
viduals whom the artist never had the chance to
meet, but who were responsible for the 'implanta-
tion' in his body of the genetic traces he has carried
from childhood and that he will carry until his
death. Will we in the future still carry these traces
with us irreversibly or will we be able to replace
them with artificial genetic traces or implanted

• Database Identity Record. Credit: Eduardo Kac. 'Time Capsule' (1997). • The Microchip (2mm x 15mm). Credit: Eduardo Kac, 'Time Capsule' {1997).

11
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• Frame from Live Broadcast of Implant. Credit: Eduardo Kac, 'Time Capsule' (1997).

memories? Will we still be black, white, mulatto, More dramatic yet, the development of wet and
Indian, Brazilian, Polish, Jewish, female, male, or biocompatible interfaces are enabling the insertion
will we buy some of these traces at a shopping mall? of electronic elements inside our own bodies. These
In this case, will it make any sense to speak of elements then become part of what we call
family, race, nationality? Will we have a past, a ourselves. Kac's emblematic event seems to suggest
history, an 'identity' to be preserved? that in the future the robot, so often presented in
Until recently humanity was understood, both science fiction as an invader usurping men's and
philosophically and at the level of common sense, as women's places, might be inside us; might become
essentially opposed to machines and to prostheses ourselves.
that simulate biological functions. Human essence
seemed to reside exactly there, where the robot
failed and revealed its limitations. However, with
the development of robotics, the automaton has
progressively acquired competencies, talents, and
even sensibilities we once considered unique to our
species, forcing us continually to redefine our
notions of what constitutes our own humanity.
12