He has suspended himself by hooks, turned his stomach into a sculpture, given himself a third hand and created a thinking replica of his head – all in the name of art.

Australian-born artist Stelarc has been performing art since the early 1970s. He said he has always loved art, even as a child, but when he arrived at art school he realized that many of the other students were much better at drawing and painting than he was.

That was when he turned to performance art, which he uses to make a statement about the human form using the latest in computer and robotic technology.

“I’ve always wanted to explore the parameters of the body, the idea of the body being obsolete,” he said.

Stelarc’s works have included a series of suspensions of the body, a stomach sculpture, a third hand, an involuntary arm, a six-legged walking robot and a prosthetic head.

“He provokes and engages us directly in the important cultural dialogue about what it means to be human today,” said art professor Amy Youngs, who co-wrote the grant that brought Stelarc to Ohio State to conduct seminars during spring quarter.

His suspension performances and stomach sculptures have used the body as a tool for art. The suspensions involve the insertion of hooks into the skin, allowing the body to hang and spin in different positions for periods ranging from a few minutes to hours. For the stomach sculpture, Stelarc developed a small device that could open, close, extend and retract, which he inserted down his esophagus into his stomach. While inside, the device recorded images from inside the stomach.

“It became an aesthetic addition to the body. The body was a container for the sculpture,” Stelarc said.

The incorporation of technology into art is what has made Stelarc stand out from other artists.

“He engages the use of technology and the sciences, but also questions what the science is and what the technology means,” said associate professor of art Ken Rinaldo.

Through the development of a third hand and an extended arm, Stelarc used prosthesis to externally demonstrate the internal body with stunts such as writing one word simultaneously with three hands. Other performances involved one hand being extended by a mechanical arm while the other was involuntarily controlled by electrical impulses.

Some of Stelarc’s most recent works use robotics to experiment with the concept of the body. With his Exoskeleton and the not-yet-completed Hexapod, the body controls a robotic body extension.

“With the Exoskeleton, the movements (are) involuntary, but with the Hexapod, the artist will be controlling the movements of the robot,” Stelarc said.

Youngs said Stelarc has been very influential, as his artwork thoroughly investigates the effects of technology and the possible future effects on human bodies. One of his projects that explores the future is a prosthetic head. The computer-generated head has all the physical features of the artist’s head, and is able to engage in intelligent conversation with humans. It has an artificial intelligence that is able to answer most questions typed into a computer by observers.

“Eventually, we would like to create a head that can recognize shapes, colors and even sounds,” Stelarc said.

The grant which brought Stelarc to OSU, the Future Tech: Media Arts and Culture Colloquium, was written by Youngs and Rinaldo to attract artists who are exploring the relationship of technology and human culture. “He is a fantastic inspiration to the students,” Rinaldo said.

Stelarc will give a presentation to demonstrate his art on May 29 at the Mershon Auditorium. Because of the technological component of his work, Stelarc said he wants to reach out to engineering students and others outside the school of art.