“Handswriting,” by the Australian performance artist Stelarc (1982).
|
Meet
an aspiring cyborg who’s already started experimenting on his own body, in the wake
of the cyberpunk movement. He claims it’s allowed him to turn the page on drugs and
literally, rebuild himself
We’ll just call him
Z.L. He’s about 30 and has a body-piercing shop in southern France. His head is shaved
and his chest is bare. A tangle of pipes, body organs and pieces of metal is tattooed
on his right arm. His smile reveals a charming row of chrome cobalt teeth. The man
dreams of building his very own steel skeleton and has already started his transformation
by implanting five Teflon ball-bearings between his chest muscles.
Z.L. is a former punk, who went through a self-destructive phase of drug abuse but
turned “wise” by focusing on his “technological body.” Now he calls himself a cyberpunk.
“A few years ago, I almost died. I needed a reason to live and that led me to create
a new personality. As I rebuilt myself, I became a very positive person,” he says.
Hosting
parasites
The
cyberpunk movement has followers around the world. In Australia, an artist called
Stelarc has implanted himself with a third ear made of Teflon, the only metal the
human body does not reject. In the United States, the method of sub-cutaneous implanting
used by Steve Hayworth and Jon Cobb, extends beyond the world of art. Two hundred
Americans have permanently changed their bodies at around $900 an implant. In France,
such operations are strictly illegal except for medical reasons.
“When I used to get high in a stairwell, I was committing the crime of bodily harm.
I was violating the law protecting the integrity of my body. But the law doesn’t
distinguish between the harm of getting high and positive reconstruction. So officially
speaking, we get our implants abroad.”
Z.L. swears by the apocalyptic writings of cyberpunk authors such as Bruce Sterling
of the U.S. and Australian William Gibson, who regard human bodies as foreign objects.
For these sci-fi gurus, bodies are just hosts for parasites of various kinds—physical
for now, but before long, technological or even virtual.
Be it a laptop computer, mobile phones, smartcards or an electronic tag for a criminal—technology
is increasingly becoming an extension of the human body. Z.L. is an assiduous reader
of specialist publications like those of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It is only a matter of time, he says, before technology is integrated within the
body. Anticipating the revolution, he has already taught himself how to do surgical
implants and other operations.
“The state uses technology to strengthen its control over us,” he says. “By opposing
this control, I remain a punk. When the first electronic tags are implanted in the
bodies of criminals, maybe in the next five years, I’ll know how to remove them,
deactivate them and spread viruses to roll over Big Brother.” His work as France’s
first body artist to experiment with implants is confidential. He won’t just operate
on anyone. He carefully evaluates the philosophical, artistic or political motives
of those who seek his services. For Z.L., technology stands for liberation, not enslavement.
He follows in the steps of Kevin Warwick, a British professor who pioneered research
into implants and nanotechnology and is determined to cross the line and change himself
irrevocably into a “cyborg.”
“Right now I’m working on how to implant a chip in my arm to operate, for example,
my computer by remote control,” he says. “I want to make technology part of my body
so I’m not controlled by machines any more. It might seem a bit crazy, but at the
rate computer technology, virtual memory and the power of computer chips are increasing,
we’ll all be asking in 10 years’ time for implants to increase our knowledge, our
intelligence and our memories. I’m just a step ahead of you.” |
