The dilution of locality in a globalised world

Figure 1. Eva and Franco Mattes No fun 2006, performance art. Source: 0100101110101101.org 2017. Accessed 15 September. https://0100101110101101.org/no-fun/

Figure 2. Eva and Franco Mattes Reenactments: Impoderabilia, 2007. Video still of documentation of performance in Second Life. Accessed 15 September .http://0100101110101101.org/reenactment-of-marina-abramovic-and-ulays-imponderabilia/

Figure 3. Stelarc Ear on arm 2006, Engineering Internet Organ. Source: Stelarc 2017. Accessed 20 September. http://stelarc.org/?catID=20242

Figure 4. Stelarc Fractal flesh 1995, performance art.

Source: Medienkunstnetz 2015. Accessed 15 September. http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/fractal-flesh/

The dilution of locality in a globalised world

This essay discusses the dilution of locality in a globalised world regarding social interaction, personal identity and physicality in the digital age and how artist have engaged with the global network of communication as a medium.

Eva and Franco Mattes explore the interplay between the global and the local, identity and ethical issues that arise through their works No fun (figure 1) and their second life performance Reenactments:Impoderabilia (figure 2).

While Stelarc explores this interplay with issues of bodily boundaries, the obsolence of the body and the resulting identity issues through Ear on arm (figure 3) and his performance Fractal Flesh (figure 4)

Zygmunt Bauman defines 'globalised' as the contraction of the dimensions of time and space and 'globalisation' as the term for information and the social global network of communication and for the problems arising from the economical and political. Over the past decades our fascination of a future exploring the frontiers of space has shifted to the frontiers of the Internet. Where we can imagine leading whole lives disconnected from the physical world (Cornish 2010 ). According to Eric Schmidt the human race now generates as much information as we did from the dawn of civilisation, never before have we documented so little, so well. The rise of social media has been the primary contributor and as a result of this technology at our fingertips, we are more connected globally and disconnected locally than ever before (Tardanico 2012). For Bauman 'local' is defined as isolated and excluded from the globalized mainstream community which is expressed in the dichotomous notions of here and there, close or far (Wojtowicz 2010).

Over the last few years Eva and Franco Mattes (also known as 0100101110101101.ORG ) have created some of the most provocative Internet art, placing them among the pioneers of the Net Art movement. The investigation of the avatar, social projection, the dislocation of artist and beholder and the fabrication of situations has been a primary concern in their practice.

The Mattes began an ongoing series called Synthetic Performances in 2006 ( to present), where they re-enacted seminal performance artworks using their avatars in Second Life in front of a 'live' audience (Shindler 2010). The personal avatars used in the re-enactments have been designed to mirror the phyiscal bodies of Eva and Franco Mattes. They have re-enacted historical performances such as Vito Acconci's "Seedbed" (1972), Gileber&George's "The Singing Sculptures" (1968 – ongoing), Joseph Beuys's "7000 oaks" (1982-1987), Chris Burden's "Shoot" (1971), Valie Export's "Tapp und Tastkino" (1968-1971) and Marina Abramovich's "Imponderabilia" (1977).

In 2007 artists Eva and Franco Mattes performed Reenactments:Impoderabilia in Second Life (as part of the Performa 07 Biennial) using avatars that resembled their real bodies. The only modification made in this re-enactment is that the door frame in which they stood did not lead into a museum. It did not lead anywhere. The (approximately thirty) cyborgs who took part in the performance by walking through the door frame were not doing so to some other end; the virtual performance “event” was confined to their encounter with the Mattes avatars’ naked bodies and the conscious, and rather awkward, choice of how to engage with the bodies in this virtual environment.

The avatars or simulated bodies are controlled in first-life( real world) time and manually manipulated by users in the first-life with in the Seconds Life's multi-user virtual environment.

The users and their avatars are thus situated in a liminal space between the simulated and the living where time functions in a virtual space that they exist within. The cyborg character is created in this context, blending machine and man and comprised of the human user and virtual avatar (Tyber 2014). In this digital environment of Second Life the question is raised for the spectator to reflect upon, what is left of the body ? (Ruffino 2009) .

In No Fun, the Mattes staged a false suicide for people on the social networking and video chat website Chatroulette. As the websites name suggests, users are randomly paired with strangers and can video chat with one another until either of the participants decides to leave the chat and move on to another random pairing. While broadcast on the Internet, the suicide featured Franco's actual body, rather than that of an avatar, a key to the element of realism and real time was that a portion of the chat screen was visible, so that participants could see themselves in realtime. The event was witnessed by scores of Chatrouletters, their reactions were varied ranging from shock to disinterest, some in disbelief, others laughed and insulted the corpse, while some took photos with their mobile phones. It is important to not that some were completely unmoved by what was before them, and only one, out of several thousand, contacted the police.

As it is unclear to the audience on Chatroulette as to the authenticity of the event what they witnesses is closer in resemblance to subtle ad-disruption. Exaggerating the lack of real engagement and distance in online encounters, No Fun creates a situation of the most dire loneliness, to slow down the endless social media flux with a moment of absolute reality (Mattes 2010).

The work No Fun has a dual existance as a live performance and to show the audiences reaction to a secondary audience, a video document that original performance . The video documentation is a selected compilation of the Chatroulette users reaction to the false suicide that had been presented to them (Tyber 2014).

In No Fun the Mattes draw on the long history of public performance art which plays on interactions and permission, in this case the lack of permissions resulted in it being quickly banned from YouTube. Tho the key to the success of No Fun was its un-mediated interaction between an unsuspecting public and the Mattes through the internet, with complete disregard for locality during the entire interaction process.

Audience interactivity is an integral part of the Mattes practice their definition of interactivity being associated with the freedom that the user has to not only govern their own movements but to duplicate, manipulate and simulate the subject matter. The Mattes state "by their mouse clicks they choose one of the routes fixed by the author(s), they only decide what to see before and what after"

"the beholder becomes an artist and the artist becomes a beholder: a powerless witness of what happens to his work" (Baumgartel 1999). These concepts of interactivity suggesting that the virtual space is comparable to the localised gallery space and visa versa as one decided what space to view and when.

For Stelarc his conceptual exploration focuses on posthumanist ideals of disembodiment and transhumanism through remote conciousness. The Platonic significance of a body being a prison for the soul, talks about the Foucaultian means of controlling the body. There is someone who is me and there is something that is my body, as soon as you say 'my body'. The body then becomes its own means of expression, experimentation and experience . The virtual body, the machine body, the biological body. 'The body' has become a fluid signifier, being defined by whatever meaning we give it (Kalinowski 2013).

For Stelarc the body can now perform beyond the boundaries of the local space that it occupies. It can project its physical presence elsewhere making the notion of a single agency problematic.

The obsolesence and inadeqecies of the human body, motivated Stelarc to construct the additional technological augmentations turning him vessel for the conciousness of a remote entity. (TEDxVienna 2014).

Ear on Arm is a ten year ongoing conceptual work in progress which has become an example of a new technological body pushing Stelarc to explore transhumanism in new ways.

Ear on Arm has involved the cultivation of a prosthetic ear out of cartilage and cells, several surgeries, and the insertion of a microphone and blue-tooth transmitter that would wirelessly broadcast to the Internet the sounds of Stelarc and his environment (Schwartzman 2015).It is located on his inner forearm, which is anatomically an optimal site due to thin, smooth skin, and ergonomically as there is a reduced risk of inadvertent damage. This extention of the body sees the body extruding its awareness and experience and acting as an extended operational system. Making the ear a remote listening device for people in other places. For example, someone in Venice could listen to what Stelarc's third ear is hearing in Melbourne. This project has been about replicating a bodily structure, relocating it and re-wiring it for alternate functions. Stelarc is now extending this project to include a blue tooth reciever and speaker which is positioned within his mouth. The intention is so that he can receive a call 'inside' his head if his mouth is closed or if someone is close to him and his mouth is open, that person will hear the voice coming from the body. An acoustical presence of another body from the body. Effectively transforming the Ear on Arm into an Internet Organ (Stelarc. 2017).

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For the “Telepolis” event in 1995, participants in Paris (the Pompidou Centre), Amsterdam (for the Doors of Perception Conference) and Helsinki (The Media Lab) were invited to manipulate Stelarc's body for the performance Fractal Flesh in Luxembourg. Fractal Flesh was achieved though combining previous prosthetic art pieces Third Hand and Involuntary body, a muscle-stimulation system and a heads-up display which allowed Stelarc to view the person who was manipulating him. Via a website these were electronically linked to a remote access and view control panel interface which would enable remote agents to manipulate Stelac's body (Stelarc 2015). Participants remotely activated the muscle-stimulation points on Stelarc's body via a remote access producing involuntary movements and were able to view the results on a view control panel.

There was a one second delay due to the technology available at the time between the participant input and Stelarc's physical response. Images were live streamed via two computers and viewed in South east Asia, North America and Europe (Curtin University 2014).

Fractal Flesh is the concept that spactially separated bodies and body parts are electronically connected. Therefore issues are raised with the authenticity of unique individuality, the individual is rather the multiplicity of the remote participants that it hosts are raised through the remote muscle-stimulation of the body. The body can now project its physical presence through other bodies and machines, becoming a chimera of metal, code and meat . The body, currently know as Stelarc,due to the nature of prosthetic and muscle-stimulation has been converted into an avatar for the multitude of manipulators (Stelarc 2012). As described by Donna Haraway, the body (Stelarc) becomes a hybrid creature, particularly when controlled remotely by a female agent. Pushing closer to the posthumanism ideals, the body simply becomes hardware.

Eva and Franco Mattes and Stelarc explore the dilution of locality in a globalised world through their artistic exploration . In the Mattes's works No Fun and Reenactments:Impoderabilia, the primary medium is sociality, but are not typical bodies, conversation, or even proximity, but rather a mutual feeling of local spatial confusion as participants connect and disconnect to view the performances. The in Reenactments:Impoderabilia a cyborg character is created blending machine and man and comprised of the human user and virtual avatar propting the spectator to reflect upon, what is left of the body ?

For Stelarc in fractal flesh and Ear on arm the body is no longer bound and limited by its skin and is not limited to the local space that it occupies. The body is made up of multiple agents performing beyond its skin and beyond the local space that it inhabits. The body is now fractal flesh, bits of bodies which are electronically connected, generating reoccuring patterns of connectivity at varying scales. The remote participant is now transhuman as they interact with the body...

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