Friday, 3 October, 2014, at 6 pm, Delavski dom Trbovlje, lecture/performance

Saturday, 4 October, 2014, at 6 pm, Cirkulacija space, former wholesale hall of the
Tobacco factory, Ljubljana
Microbot is a new chapter in Stelarcs conceptualisation of obsolete body which addresses our fears, prejudices
and visions regarding the extending and upgrading of the human body with the help of contemporary
technology. Microbot is a robotic and performative intervention into Stelarcs body that thematises the
growing intimacy of machines and the human body, and enacts a possible future in which the body will be
colonised by micro- and nano-sensors, devices and robots augmenting our bacterial and viral populations.
Due to the projects complexity, Microbot will be carried out in two stages: in the first stage (2014), a small
insect-like six-legged robot will be designed and constructed so that it can climb up Stelarcs tongue and into
his mouth. In the second stage of the project, the robot will be upgraded to perform a particular operation
in Stelarcs mouth. This will be determined on the basis of experiences with the robot in the first stage of the
projects development.
Prehistory
Microbot belongs to a series of six-legged bionic robotic platforms conceived by Stelarc and designed,
constructed and realized by Stefan Doepner together with f18institut from Hamburg. In 1998, they realized
Exoskeleton, a three metre diameter insect-like six-legged robot that supported the artists body, and in
2006, they made Walking Head, a two metre diameter six-legged autonomous and interactive platform
with an avatar head displayed. If Exoskeleton enabled Stelarc to inhabit it and control its movement, in
Walking Head, the artists body is absent and replaced by an avatar. In the case of Microbot, the robot will
enter the artists body.
The initial attempt to simulate and engineer the Microbot was funded by a Special Projects Grant from the
Australia Council. Video animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEiUY1Wo8uY
Context
Stelarc uses his body as a medium and an exhibition space at the same time, while employing robotics,
prostheses, medical instruments, virtual reality, the internet and biotechnology. In exploring the capability of
extending and upgrading the (obsolete) human body with the help of contemporary technology, Stelarc rejects
hypothetical speculations about possible futures and believes in the meaning of bodily, real experience. In
other words he actualises his ideas. Starting with his suspension performances and the robotic Third Hand,
and continuing through to the Stomach Sculpture, which was inserted down his oesophagus into his stomach
(a machine choreography inside the body) or the Extra Ear that is surgically constructed and cell grown in
his arm eventually to be internet enabled, he perceives the body as an extendible evolutionary structure
amplified with the most diverse technologies.
Working in the filed of technologically based art and robotics, Stefan Doepner investigates todays prevalent
reception, use and impact of technology in our everyday lives. He reinvents various technological devices
and creates autonomous systems (robots) to interrupt our automated relation to technology. The poetic and
absurd items and situations that he creates show that the contemporary technology which is so atuomatically
imbedded into our daily lives is something in itself obsolete. Similar like Stelarc explores the relation
between human body and technology through his own experience with it, Stefan Doepner reinvents obsolete
technology through the entire creative process from making own technological tools till creating his artistic
embodiments of technological visions.
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Produced by the: Obrat Association; Cultural Institution Delavski dom Trbovlje
Partners: Cirkulacija 2; f18institut
The project is supported by the: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia
Sponsored by the: Zasavje Regional Technology Centre
Assistance in the realisation of the project: Lars Vaupel, Dominik Mahni
More: http://speculumartium.si/
www.obrat.org