Sure, ask him that since he's got the cyborg zombie thing down if he plans on delving deeper into the cultural Zeitgeist by including lovelorn teenaged vampires and English public school wizards into his act.
I'd ask him why he thinks his notion of body modification - and extension - is any different, artistically speaking, than the kinds of body mod people have been doing for centuries: tattoos, pierced appendages, prosthetic limbs, transplanted faces. Is the art he does any different from that of a surgeon or a tattoo artist? Or, even, for that matter, transgendered people who make radical changes to their bodies?
Honestly, his work seems like it would have been more radical 25 years ago when there weren't implantable cell-sized nanocomputers or the ability to implant a new hand onto another person's body. The stuff that medical science does is far more weird - and creepy - than this guy's 3rd ear, if only because it is so earnest and without irony.
Posted by arts&letters on October 7, 2009 at 10:10 AM
So many of his pieces (exoskeleton, ear pieces, etc) occur in this weird space between enhancement and sideshow. What's the deal with his stomach sculpture? Rather than stand to expand the concept of body and use, it's just a dongle fluctuating inside of him for us to trust him on.
Also, what's his view of video in his works? Again, so connected to body processes, but for the vast majority of his audience, it only exists as a two-dimensional, non-experiential medium.
Does/is he tempted to use his art to advertise for anything in particular (a particular future, for example), or does he see himself or his art as descriptive, reflexive, educational, a warning, or what?
Posted by tychotesla on October 8, 2009 at 2:21 AM
Comments (7) RSS