electric body manipulation as performance art: a

Electric Body Manipulation as Performance Art: A Historical Perspective

Arthur Elsenaar and Remko Scha

Electric performance art can be de� ned as thetheatrical display of electrically manipulated human bodies.In this article, we trace the historical development of thisgenre, from its roots in the scienti�c/technological innova-tions of the 18th century to today’s most advanced computer-based muscle-control pieces.

The body manipulations employed in electric performanceart are of three different types, all of which are equally validand interesting. They each involve essentially different con-ceptualizations of the human body and its relationship to theelectromagnetic realm, and deserve separate discussions.

First, we discuss pieces that treat the human body as a merematerial object and demonstrate its electrical properties: itsability to carry an electrical charge and to conduct an electri-cal current.

Secondly, we review pieces that deal with the vulnerabilityof the human body, with the boundaries of its integrity. If anelectrical current is too strong, it will effectively destroy thebody’s functional structure. Observing this phenomenon hasa very powerful, disturbing effect on most people. At the sametime, there are important practical applications that we alsodiscuss.

Finally, we assume an information-theoretical, cyberneticstandpoint and view the human body as a kinematic systemwhose motions can be steered by means of electrical control sig-nals. This point of view was already implicit in Galvani’s 18th-century experiments with frogs’ legs—but it is particularlyrelevant today because it opens up the possibility of employ-ing the human body as a display device for algorithms that runon digital computers.

THE HUMAN BODY AS A PHYSICAL OBJECT

The Electri� ed Human BodyWhen the ancient Greeks discovered the power of amber toattract small particles, they called this phenomenon “electric-ity”; and for many centuries the word did not mean much morethan that. Many important electrical phenomena were � rst in-vestigated in the 18th century. The pioneering work in this pe-riod was done in London by Stephen Gray, who in 1729announced his discovery that the electric power to attract smallparticles can be transferred from one object to another by sim-ply placing these objects close together. This is what we nowknow as “electrical induction.” To investigate this phenome-non, Gray carried out an extensive series of experiments in-volving different materials. In March 1730, for instance, he

demonstrated that an electriccharge, created in a glass tube byrubbing it with velvet, could betransferred to a soap bubble, whichcould then attract silver leaf over avertical distance of 2 inches [1].This experiment was recently du-plicated by the Dutch performanceartist Dick Raaijmakers [2].

Almost immediately, Gray beganto investigate the electrical proper-ties of the human body in publicperformances. The � rst piece of this sort premiered in Lon-don, on 8 April 1730. Its protagonist was an 8-year-old boy, sus-pended in mid-air on silk threads. The boy was subjected to afairly complex electrical situation: A positively charged glasstube was held close to the boy’s feet, inducing a negativecharge in them; because the boy was electrically isolated fromhis environment, this created an opposite (positive) charge inhis other extremities. In the demonstration, only his face andhis hands were exposed; these were then seen to inducecharges on small particles of brass leaf and to attract these par-ticles through the air. This experiment was duplicated inFrance by Charles François de Cisternay du Fay and in Ger-many by Christian Augustus Hausen, who employed a girlrather than a boy in his demonstration [3] (Fig. 1).

Several variations on this piece were soon developed by Grayand others. The person to be electri�ed need not be sus-pended, of course, but may be positioned on a pedestal madeout of nonconductive material; usually a cake of resin was usedfor this purpose. And the body’s electri�cation may be demon-strated in various different ways—for instance, by the mutualrepulsion between similarly charged objects, which causes thehair of an electri�ed person to stand straight up [4] (Fig. 2).

These performances employ the human body as a prop—as a static, passive object. They demonstrate basic physicalproperties that human tissues share with many other organicand inorganic materials. It is of course a deeply meaningfulexperience for a person to watch the body of a fellow humandisplayed in such a fashion. The suspension pieces are the

© 2002 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 12, pp. 17–28, 2002 17

A B S T R A C T

The authors trace thehistory of electric performanceart. They begin with the roots ofthis art form in 18th-centuryexperiments with “animalelectricity” and “arti�cial electric-ity,” which were often performedas public demonstrations inroyal courts and anatomicaltheaters. Next, the authorssketch the development ofincreasingly powerful techniquesfor the generation of electriccurrent and their applications indestructive body manipulation,culminating in the electric chair.Finally, they discuss the develop-ment of electric muscle-controltechnology, from its 18th-century beginnings throughDuchenne de Boulogne’s photosessions to the current work ofStelarc and Arthur Elsenaar.

Arthur Elsenaar (artist), Institute of Arti� cial Art Amsterdam, Department of ArtiFacialExpression, and Frank Mohr Institute, Radesingel 6, 9711 EJ Groningen, the Netherlands.E-mail: , [email protected] . .

Remko Scha (artist), Institute of Arti� cial Art Amsterdam, Theory Department, andUniversity of Amsterdam, Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, Spreeuwenpark17, 1021 GS Amsterdam, the Netherlands. E-mail: <[email protected]>.

most powerful ones in this respect: Theyshow the body in a helpless, passive state.That is why the exhibition of suspendedhuman bodies has always been an im-portant motif in performance art andcontinues to be practiced to this day.Well-known examples in the ancient

world are the cruci� xions of criminals inseveral provinces of the Roman Empire,the most famous being the execution ofJesus Christ in Jerusalem, in about 33 C.E.

Stephen Gray’s suspensions thus al-luded, in a rather implicit way, tomasochism and martyrdom. Explicit re-

ligious denotations appeared in the nextwave of electric demonstrations, in Ger-many around 1740. The “beati� cation”pieces of Georg Mathias Bose continuedGray’s involvement with the electri�edhuman body, while employing a differ-ent method to visualize the body’s elec-tric � eld. Bose would gradually electrifya person in a darkened room; when theperson’s surface voltage would get highenough, it would ionize the surroundingair, creating a bluish glow around theperson. In the words of an eyewitness:“Finally his entire body was bathed inlight and surrounded in the mannersometimes used to depict the glory of asaint by encircling him in rays of light”[5].

By providing the charged person withpointed metal headgear, the light rayscould be concentrated on the head, re-sulting in an arti� cial halo. In Bose’s ownwords: “A Chair being suspended byRopes of Silk, made perfectly dry, a Manplaced therein is render’d so much elec-trical . . . that, in the dark, a continual Ra-diance, or Corona of Light, appearsencircling his Head, in the manner Saintsare painted” [6].

The Human Body as a ConductorIn 1732, Stephen Gray launched a seriesof variations on his original piece, intro-ducing a second theme: the capacity ofthe human body to function as a conduc-tor, allowing an electrical charge to betransferred between two points. Graynow employed two boys holding hands,or two boys connected by a 4-foot metalruler, or two boys connected by a metalwire. In this setup, inducing an electricalcharge in one boy creates an electrostaticforce in the other. The pieces thus showthat the electricity passes from one boyto the other, offering a subtle parody onthe idea of “interpersonal communica-tion” [7].

Again, Georg Mathias Bose was theone to turn allusions into blatant signi-� ers. His piece Venus Electri�cata, a.k.a.“the electric kiss,” is a truly interactivesalon performance. An attractive femaleperson is secretly electri�ed; newly arriv-ing guests are hit by strong electric sparkswhen they touch or kiss her [8].

Electric Venus is obviously a perfor-mance piece, set up for the entertain-ment of the onlookers. But from thepoint of view of the person receiving the“electric kiss” it is � rst of all an instanceof what we may call “immediate art”: anart experience that does not involve theperception of an external object throughthe senses; instead, the end-user’s affer-

18 Elsenaar and Scha, Electric Body Manipulation

Fig. 1. Stephen Gray, static electricity demonstration, London, 8 April 1730. The electri� edhuman body: An electrically charged boy attracts small particles of brass leaf through electri-cal induction [56].

Fig. 2. This plate shows some of the effects of static electricity on an electrically isolatedperson standing on a piece of resin: small metal particles are attracted; hair stands on end;combed � ax attached to clothes moves in a similar way [57].

ent nerves are directly stimulated bymeans of electric current.

The spark of the electric kiss was barelyvisible. But when the voltages used arehigh enough, electric discharges can beproduced that look like strokes of light-ning. The equipment that makes this pos-sible was developed by Nikola Tesla at theend of the 19th century. Tesla’s demon-strations are still in the repertoire ofmany science museums today [9]. Theyhave also been incorporated into recentperformance pieces by Barry Schwartz[10].

An important step in this developmentwas made in 1745, when the � rst electri-cal condenser device was invented inde-pendently by Ewald Georg von Kleist inGermany, and by Pieter van Musschen-broek at the electrical engineering de-partment of Leyden University in theNetherlands; it was called the “Leydenjar” as a result of the P.R. of one of vanMusschenbroek’s most enthusiastic beta-testers, the French abbot Jean AntoineNollet [11].

The Leyden jar is a glass bottle coatedon the outside with metal foil and � lledwith water. It is essentially a pair of par-allel conductors (metal foil and water),separated by a nonconductor (the glass)(Fig. 3). It can store (and release) muchlarger charges than could the glass rodsused in Gray’s early performances. Whenthe two conductors are connected witheach other, the bottle discharges, and theconnection (brie� y) carries a fairly largecurrent. When the connection is madethrough the human body, the currentmay be strong enough to produce a visi-ble effect: an involuntary convulsive con-traction of the muscles in the affectedbody parts.

This phenomenon was noted in the� rst reports on the Leyden jar. Von Kleist

himself received a shock that set his armand shoulders in motion; Johann Hein-rich Winkler felt a convulsion in hiswhole body, in particular in his lips andjaws; and Johann Carl Wilcke fell un-conscious on the � oor [12].

The Leyden jar created the techno-logical preconditions for electric per-formance art in the modern sense of theword: pieces in which electric currentsare used to affect the operation of thehuman body. In particular, they createdthe possibility of transposing Gray’s con-ductivity pieces to a more dramatic form.Performances involving several personsconnected together became very popu-lar. The Abbé Nollet, for instance, di-rected several pieces of this sort. One ofthem, performed for the king of France,involved a chain of 180 guards, who wereall made to jump into the air at the sametime when they were used to close thecircuit with a Leyden jar. Another pieceemployed an entire community ofCarthusian monks, who were connectedby iron wires over a distance of morethan 1.5 km. Remember that Gray’schamber pieces focused on observingthe motions of very small metal parti-cles—with Nollet’s work we have clearlymoved to a very different scale of “socialsculpture” [13].

Some of the connotations of this kindof work were made explicit in a piece di-rected in 1772 by Joseph-Aignan Sigaudde la Fond for the duke of Chartres, in-volving a chain of 20 persons. This piecemay seem more modest than Nollet’sgrandiose performances, but it had amore speci�c point. The chain containedthree castrati, in order to test whetherbodily � uids with a sexual function mightbe essential for the electrical conductiv-ity of the human body; this turned outnot to be the case [14].

TRANSGRESSING THE BODY’SLIMITS: DESTRUCTIVETESTING

The electric shocks enabled by the Ley-den jar were in fact strong enough to vi-olate the integrity of the body and causeminor or major damage. This was � rstdiscovered accidentally by brave scientistsexperimenting on their own bodies inthe solitude of their laboratories. JohannHeinrich Winkler, for instance, reporteda shock that caused his nose to bleed[15].

Animal ElectrocutionsAlmost immediately, experiments werecarried out to investigate this property ofthe electric current in a systematic way.Once more, the proli�c Abbé Nollet wasone of the � rst to do so. He realized thatthe amount of damage in� icted on abody would very likely be inversely pro-portional to the size of that body. A cur-rent causing a bleeding nose in a humanmight have much more serious conse-quences for a smaller animal. With hiswell-known sense of theater, Nollet de-cided to go for the killer application. Heset out to investigate whether the Leydenjar could be used to terminate the life ofsuitably chosen higher animals. He soonsucceeded in killing a sparrow by meansof a Leyden jar discharge. He observedthat it appeared as if the bird had beenstruck by lightning; on dissection it wasfound that most of its blood vessels hadburst [16].

At the same time, Daniel Gralath, inDanzig, began small-scale experiments inwhich he killed beetles. In order to cre-ate stronger shocks, he then invented thecondenser battery: he linked several Ley-den jars in a series and used this setup tokill birds [17]. Gralath failed in his attempt to electrocute a goose, but Ben-jamin Franklin, in Philadelphia, man-aged to dispose of guinea fowls and aturkey [18]. The enlightened Englishminister Joseph Priestley raised the deathcount further while writing the � rst his-tory of the newly developing science ofelectricity; he found it useful to do someadditional experiments of his own, andin the process sacri�ced the lives of a rat,a shrew, a dog and some cats [19].

We all know where this would lead.The deadly experiments with animalspresage the deliberate electrocution ofhumans. But with 18th-century technol-ogy, this was not yet feasible; effectiveexperimentation with animals largerthan cats or chickens would have re-quired impractically large batteries ofLeyden jars.

Elsenaar and Scha, Electric Body Manipulation 19

Fig. 3. The Leyden jar, invented in 1745, was the � rst electrical condenser device. Its im-proved storage capacity made it possible to produce much larger charges than before. Thisgave rise to new electrical performance pieces, which became very popular in the Europeancourts [58].

The Electric ChairIn the course of the 19th century, the sit-uation changed dramatically. MichaelFaraday discovered in 1831 that me-chanical motion could be transformedinto electric current by means of elec-tromagnetic induction. On the basis ofthis principle, the � rst electric power gen-erator (a rather inef� cient one) was builtby Hyppolite Pixii in 1832. It took almosthalf a century of further inventions be-fore large-scale power generators, drivenby steam engines or waterfalls, becamepractically feasible [20].

The world’s � rst power plant for pub-lic use was built in 1882 by the EdisonElectric Illuminating Company of NewYork on Pearl Street in New York City. Ini-tially it generated the electric current for1,284 lamps in 59 houses [21]. This was the beginning of Edison’s power-generation and distribution empire,based on the use of direct current (DC).Soon afterwards, the techniques for usingalternating current (AC) were developed.AC has a signi�cant advantage, becauseit can be more ef� ciently distributed overlong distances. Edison stuck with DC,however, and ended up in � erce compe-tition with George Westinghouse, whowas using AC. (Nikola Tesla, one of theinventors of AC technology, was workingfor Westinghouse after a falling out withEdison.) This business battle was the con-text for a new wave of electrocution per-formances beginning at the end of thenineteenth century [22].

The new electric power infrastructurewas already claiming victims in the early1880s, as people sometimes made acci-dental contact with high-voltage lines. In1881, the dentistry professor Alfred P.Southwick of Buffalo, NY, witnessed suchan accident. He noticed that death oc-curred instantly, and realized that elec-tricity might be the answer to a dif� cultbut pressing societal question: how to ad-minister the death penalty in a clean,quick and painless way. (The establishedmethod for capital punishment in NewYork State, death by hanging, was in-creasingly experienced as undigni�edand barbaric [23].) To investigate thisidea, Southwick revived the 18th-centuryresearch tradition that we discussedabove: he exposed several animals to var-ious doses of electric current, in order todetermine under which conditions theywould die [24].

Having ascertained the feasibility of de-liberate and controlled electrocution,Southwick proceeded to lobby for its in-troduction as the legal method for capi-tal punishment in the state of New York.

His efforts were successful. In the au-tumn of 1888 the state legislature passedthe Electrical Execution Law [25].

At the same time, another noteworthyseries of animal electrocutions was beingcarried out on the premises of Edison’sresearch laboratory in West Orange, NJ.These experiments, initiated and di-rected by the freelance electrical engi-neering consultant Harold P. Brown,were primarily intended to demonstratethe dangerous nature of alternating cur-rent. In the course of 1888, Brown killed50 dogs and cats with AC; he concludedthis series with a calf and a horse [26].Brown would explain his results by point-ing out that AC currents create a rigidcontraction of all muscles, includingheart and lungs; a modest dose of AC istherefore suf�cient to cause immediateunconsciousness and rapid death. Brownmaintained that for this reason AC wascompletely unsuitable for most applica-tions, but ideal for administering thedeath penalty [27].

The � rst execution under the Electri-cal Execution Law took place on 6 Au-gust 1890, and it was indeed carried outby means of AC equipment. HaroldBrown had been appointed as the of� cial“New York State Expert on Electrical Ex-ecution,” and he had taken pains to pro-cure some second-hand Westinghousedynamos for this purpose. The axe mur-derer William Kemmler was killed atAuburn Prison (Auburn, NY), in thepresence of 25 witnesses, including 14physicians and some journalists. Theevent, however, did not unfold assmoothly as had been hoped. The volt-age was too low, and the electrode place-ment not optimal. A second dose ofelectric current was needed beforeKemmler � nally succumbed, with hisblood vessels exploding and his skinburning [28]. What was supposed to bean unusually clean procedure ended uplooking like a drawn-out torture session.The result was a big publicity scandal[29]. The medical expert reviewing theexecution considered the experimentcompletely successful, however, arguingthat the victim had become unconsciousas soon as the current was applied [30].

Kemmler’s death was the � rst in a longand open-ended list of of� cial electro-cutions of humans. But from a purelytechnical point of view, interesting chal-lenges were still to be found in the animal kingdom. The ultimate electro-cution demo took place on 4 January1903, when Edison killed an elephant.The Coney Island–based elephant Topsywas in fact a dangerous animal: She had

killed three innocent people. Her exe-cution was recorded on � lm (Fig. 4).

Edison’s scare campaign could notchange the course of history, and AC wonthe battle for the electricity infrastruc-ture. Nevertheless, the electric chair didbecome an important and well-recog-nized instrument of justice in many partsof the United States [31].

Electrocutions had (and have) all theproperties of large-scale festive specta-cles, with one exception: The set of peo-ple who witness the actual event is keptextremely limited. Death-penalty execu-tions used to be important social eventsalmost everywhere in the world, but inthe course of the 19th century this beganto change. In some U.S. states, the deathpenalty was abolished altogether, while


Fig. 4. Thomas A. Edison, stills from the � lmThe Electrocution of Topsy, Coney Island, 4January 1903.

in others the executions were removedfrom the public sphere. In 1835 (long be-fore the electric chair!), the state of NewYork was one of the � rst to adopt a pol-icy of concealed executions, in order toprevent the unruly behavior of the ex-cited crowds that public executionswould often attract [32]. In today’s massmedia society, the situation has changedonce more, of course. Jazz critic NatHentoff has argued convincingly that intelevision, we now have an ideal mediumfor making death penalty executionspublic events again:

A once familiar argument against publicexecutions was that they would be ac-companied by rowdy crowds, sleazy en-trepreneurs selling souvenirs, drunkenbrawls, and other assaults on our cus-tomary harmony and civility. But withtelevision, that fear is obsolete. We wouldbe watching in our homes, not in crowds.

Through our taxes, we all pay for theelectrocution or the lethal injection orthe gas chamber or other instruments of� nality. Why, then, can’t we see what wepay for? Why can’t we—including chil-dren—see the ultimate majesty of Amer-ican justice in its most Wild West form?Watching a man turn into a thing willconvince kids that if they don’t mindtheir parents, they’ll fry.

If—as politicians believe—there is aravenous hunger among the people forof� cial killing of those who kill, why notfully satisfy that hunger by showing ontelevision the last twitching moments ofthe justly condemned? Should we not beable to hear the prisoner’s � nal desper-ate, cracked breaths? [33]

Home electricity conquered the world,and the means to in� ict electric body-damage has become available to every-one. The artist Chris Burden hasperformed several pieces that toy withthe lethal power of electric current.Some of these pieces (110 and 220[1971]) merely set up possibilities fordangerous accidents. In Doorway toHeaven (1973), Burden comes close toputting some actual current through hisbody. His report runs as follows: “At 6 p.m. I stood in the doorway of my stu-dio facing the Venice boardwalk. A fewspectators watched as I pushed two liveelectric wires into my chest. The wirescrossed and exploded, burning me butsaving me from electrocution” [34].

To end this section about electricdeath on a more pleasant note, weshould also mention the opposite appli-cation: the resuscitation of apparentlydead human bodies by applying moder-ate shocks to various vital muscles. Thispossibility was � rst suggested by CharlesKite in London in 1778, and has beenvery popular ever since [35].

THE BODY ASAN ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:MUSCLE CONTROL SIGNALSLet us now turn back and review the pos-sibilities of the more re� ned and non-destructive control of human bodies.Work in this area began immediately

after the invention of the Leyden jar in1745, and right away there were some im-portant successes.

Triggering Individual MusclesIn 1747, Jean Jallabert in Geneva discov-ered that individual muscles could be


Fig. 5. Luigi Galvani discovered that a frog’s leg will contract if the circuit between the leg’smuscle and the frog’s spinal cord is closed by means of a connection involving differentmetals [59].

Fig. 6. The electrochemical battery was invented by Alessandro Volta after Luigi Galvani’sresearch group discovered the electric properties of metal junctions. This “Voltaic cell” wasthe � rst steady source of stable electric current [60].

stimulated by electric shocks from a Ley-den jar. He created muscle contractionsin a patient’s arm that had been paralyzedfor 14 years; electrical treatment led tocomplete recovery of the arm’s function-ality within three months. Jallabert alsocreated involuntary contractions in themuscles of his own (healthy) arm [36].

In 1756, Marc’Antonio Caldani and Fe-lice Fontana in Bologna began their workon electrical stimulation of animal mus-cles. They succeeded in applying themore old-fashioned technique of electri-� ed rods to induce muscular contrac-tions in all parts of living frogs, as well asdead ones, and they found that electricalstimulation caused the intestines of a catto display very unusual movements.

Caldani and Fontana then went on todemonstrate that the nerves conductelectricity to the muscle. The contractionof a muscle group can thus be externallytriggered by electrically stimulating thenerve that normally carries the signalsfrom the brain to the muscle. Caldaniand Fontana cut the femoral nerves of afrog at a point close to that of their exitfrom the spinal column and spread themout in four curves on a board; apart fromthat, the frog was left fully functional.When an electri�ed rod was broughtclose to the nerves, movement of thelower limbs occurred [37].

Similarly prepared frogs were also usedby Luigi Galvani in the 1780s, in his rathercomplete survey of techniques for gener-ating muscle contractions in animals [38].Galvani’s big discovery was to generatecontractions by simply closing the circuitbetween the nerve and the muscle bymeans of a metal connection. He thoughtthat this demonstrated the intrinsiccharge of the muscle (“animal electric-ity”), though what he had in fact discov-ered was the electric potential of metaljunctions (Fig. 5). (Alessandro Volta real-ized this soon after Galvani’s publicationand proceeded to exploit this phenome-non in the “Voltaic cell”) [39] (Fig. 6).

Galvani also triggered muscle contrac-tions by means of nearby electric sparks(“arti� cial electricity”). He found that theeffect was stronger if the nerves were extended with long metal wires. This is probably the � rst instance of musclestimulation through radio control. Thethird source that Galvani explored was“atmospheric electricity”: contractionsevoked by strokes of lightning, or bycharges picked up from thundercloudsby means of high metal poles. Galvani’swork became very well known; his ex-periments were duplicated by large num-bers of physicists, biologists, physiciansand amateurs [40].


Fig. 7. Giovanni Aldini, Demonstration of “Animal Electricity” in the Human Body, Paris, ca.1800. This piece was part of a long series of experiments with the heads and trunks of decapi-tated animals and beheaded criminals, investigating the electric properties of their muscles [61].

Fig. 8. Arti� cial emotional expressions on the face of a model, induced by Guillaume B.A.Duchenne de Boulogne. Duchenne � rst practiced the technique of Transcutaneous ElectricalNerve Stimulation, which is still used in electric performance art today. This photographshows an example of Duchenne’s efforts toward “arti� cial theater”: staged situations withexpressionless actors whose faces were “turned on” by means of electrical currents [62].(Photo: Adrian Tournachon)

To ascertain that his conclusions ap-plied to warm-blooded animals, Galvanisuccessfully experimented with live chick-ens and sheep. Christoph Heinrich Pfaffestablished that “animals from all classes”were susceptible to electric muscle stim-ulation: mammals, birds, amphibians,� sh, insects and worms. Plants, however,seemed not to react at all [41].

This research line was continuedaround 1800 by Galvani’s nephew, Gio-vanni Aldini, who performed a long se-ries of impressive demonstrations withdecapitated animals. He stimulated theheads and trunks of cows, horses, sheepand dogs. An eyewitness reported:

Aldini, after having cut off the head of adog, makes the current of a strong bat-tery go through it: the mere contact trig-gers really terrible convulsions. The jawsopen, the teeth chatter, the eyes roll intheir sockets; and if reason did not stopthe � red imagination, one would almostbelieve that the animal is suffering andalive again [42].

To what extent these phenomenawould also occur in humans was of courseof particular interest. Galvani had there-fore continued his investigations withfreshly amputated human arms and legsobtained from the local hospital [43]. InParis, this kind of research was facilitatedby the French Revolution. Some fortu-nate researchers received of� cial per-mission to conduct galvanic experimentswith the corpses of those who died underthe guillotine: “One minute before three,the axe fell on the Place de Grêve, and at3.15 I already had the head in my handsand Mr. Nysten the body” [44].

But much of this research remainedcentered in Italy. In 1802, for instance,there were extensive presentations in-volving beheaded bodies in the anatomi-cal theater of the University of Turin [45](Fig. 7). Aldini took his show on the roadand gave very successful demonstrationsin London with the body of a recentlyhanged criminal. An electrical current be-tween the mouth and an ear created “ter-rible convulsions” in the mouth, andcaused the left eye to open [46].

In the early 19th century, consider-able progress was made in France con-cerning the techniques for preciselycontrolling muscles in living humans.Bernard Raymond Fabré-Palaprat andJean Baptiste Sarlandière pioneered theuse of thin metal needles (derived fromChinese acupuncture) to administergalvanic current to quite speci�c pointsinside the human body. François Ma-gendie showed that needles could be in-serted in nerve cells without causingdamage [47].

Duchenne de BoulogneThe crucial step towards modern musclestimulation technology was made by Guil-laume Benjamin Armand Duchenne deBoulogne. He pointed out various prob-lems with the “electropuncture” methodand showed that very often there is a con-venient alternative. Many individual mus-cles can be triggered by putting voltagesacross electrodes on the skin, if theseelectrodes are positioned suf� cientlycarefully; also, the voltages applied mustbe calibrated very precisely. This is thetechnique known as TranscutaneousElectrical Nerve Stimulation, which is stillused today by artists such as Stelarc andArthur Elsenaar (co-author of this arti-cle). Duchenne gave rather precise indi-cations about the locations at whichvarious muscles can be accessed. He alsomade a detailed study of the human fa-cial muscles, their excitation points andtheir emotional signi�cance [48].

Much of Duchenne’s work was con-cerned with innovative medical applica-tions of electricity, in particular with thetreatment of various kinds of paralysis. Atthe same time, he pioneered the scien-ti� c use of the recently invented art ofphotography. He published photographsof the various expressions that he couldevoke on human faces—“straight” onesas well as photographs of staged situa-tions with props and actors (Fig. 8).

One series of photographs about facialexpression was deliberately made with“an old toothless man, with a thin face,whose features, without being absolutelyugly, approached ordinary triviality andwhose facial expression was in perfectagreement with his inoffensive characterand his limited intelligence” (Fig. 9).Duchenne explained: “I preferred thiscoarse face to one of noble, beautiful fea-tures . . . because I wanted to prove that,despite defects of shape and lack of plas-


Fig. 9. Duchenne investigated in great detail how to access the different muscles of thehuman face. This photograph displays an arti� cial grin on the face of his favorite model[63]. (Photo: Adrian Tournachon)

tic beauty, every human face can becomespiritually beautiful through the accuraterendering of emotions” [49]. In fact, thissubject also suffered from an anestheticcondition of the face, which made him abetter passive receptacle for the displayof arti� cially simulated expressions. Forthe same reason, Duchenne also re-peated these “arti� cial expression” ex-periments with a dead body and with ahead severed from its trunk [50].

Twentieth-Century Performance ArtDuchenne’s ideas and techniques werethe basis of 20th-century physiotherapytechniques and armchair-workout de-vices. This paramedical technology, in itsturn, constituted the point of departurefor the muscle-control devices employedin contemporary electric performanceart. Several pieces by Stelarc and by Else-naar involve Duchenne-style muscle-stimulation devices hooked up to a com-puter interfacing the artist’s muscles withan automatic control regime or with thewhims of a (local or remote) audience.Compared to their 19th-century prede-cessors, these pieces focus less on staticpostures or expressions, and more onmotion patterns and behavioral pro-cesses. In other words, they moved fromthe sphere of visual art into the sphere oftheater.

Since his attempt to jump through aglass pane in 1976, Australian artist Stelarc has put forward a large variety ofdifferent performance pieces. In manyof these, Stelarc employs his own body asa passive physical object, subject to theforces of gravity or to electrical manipu-lation. At the same time, the physical pa-rameters of his body (including itsmuscle activities) are ampli� ed and ex-ternalized in various ways: as sounds, vi-sual projections or movements of robotsor prostheses. He pioneered, for in-stance, the use of a “Third Hand”: an ad-ditional robotic hand attached to one ofhis arms, which is moved by electric sig-nals that are picked up by electrodesfrom other parts of his body [51].

Stelarc introduced external muscle con-trol in his work in the Event for VideoShadow, Automatic Arm and Third Hand atthe Caul�eld Art Complex in Melbournein August 1988. In this fairly complexevent, Stelarc’s left arm was operated au-tomatically and continuously by two mus-cle stimulators—curling the � ngers,closing the hand and jerking the arm up-wards. At the same time, six body signalsand his third hand were acoustically am-pli�ed. Also, a “fragmented and synthe-sized” video shadow of Stelarc’s body was


Fig. 10. Stelarc, Split Body: Voltage-In/Voltage-Out, Galeria Kapelica, Ljubljana, 1996. One ofthe many pieces in which the Australian performance artist Stelarc enabled the audience tocontrol the muscles of a substantial part of his body. On the left, this photo shows the touch-screen interface that was used for this purpose. (Photo: I. Andjelic, © Stelarc)

Fig. 11. Huge Harry, Towards a Digital Computer with a Human Face, Galeria Kapelica, Ljubl-jana, 2000. In this lecture, computer voice “Huge Harry” explains how the human facialmuscles may be externally controlled through electrical stimulation. He employs the face ofArthur Elsenaar as a live “display device.” (Photo © J. Jasperse)

projected, obtained through live manip-ulation of the output of four video cam-eras. In the subsequent “Split Body”performances (� rst shown in 1994 in var-ious locations in Australia), the automatedpart of Stelarc’s body (also including oneof his legs) is programmed by the audi-ence through a touch-screen interface inthe gallery space [52] (Fig. 10).

Duchenne’s investigation of the mus-cle system of the human face is beingcontinued in our own work at the Insti-tute of Arti� cial Art Amsterdam, at theDepartment of ArtiFacial Expression.Elsenaar built a muscle-interface devicearound a microprocessor system that al-lows fast, precisely synchronized and� nely tuned simultaneous control of 16different facial muscle groups using a vir-tually continuous scale of 128 levels ofcontraction strength. This device can becontrolled by a host computer throughMIDI.

Using this equipment, we have con-� rmed and extended Duchenne’s � nd-ings about the ways in which humans useparticular con� gurations of muscle con-tractions to signal particular states oftheir operating systems. Since 1994, theseresults have been regularly reported invarious lectures with live demos by HugeHarry [53] (Fig. 11).

INTERNET INTERACTIVITY

In the fall of 1995, the time was ripe toexplore the possibility of remotely con-trolled body movements with large-scaleaudience participation via the Internet.In November, Stelarc presented the Frac-tal Flesh event. During this event, Stelarc’sbody was located in Luxemburg, whileaudiences in Paris, Helsinki and Amster-dam could view and control his musclesthrough a web interface. At the sametime, Stelarc could activate his roboticThird Hand and also trigger the uploadof images to a web site [54] (Fig. 12).

In December 1995, Arthur Elsenaarpresented the interactive Internet per-formance rEmote, a.k.a. Compose YourEmoticon: Elsenaar’s live face in Gronin-gen was connected through a Web inter-face with audiences in Amsterdam, Delftand Toronto, who could trigger his facialmuscles so as to put together whatever facial expressions they liked to see (Fig. 13).

ALGORITHMIC CONTROLIn Stelarc’s more recent pieces, he hasmoved to muscle-control regimes that arelargely unpredictable and not in� uencedat all by any conscious human ideas. In


Fig. 12. Stelarc, Involuntary Body/Third Hand (performed in Padua, 1995; Auckland, 1996;Vienna, 1998). Diagram indicating which muscles are controlled externally and which mus-cles are employed to control the “Third Hand” prosthesis. In the Fractal Flesh event (Luxem-burg, Paris, Helsinki, Amsterdam, 1995), the input controlling the “Involuntary Body” camefrom a remote audience through the Internet. (© Stelarc)

Fig. 13. Arthur Elsenaar, rEmote, live Internetperformance, Groningen, Amsterdam, Delft,Toronto, 1995. This photograph shows theplacement of electrodes on Arthur Else-naar’s face. By clicking on the marked spotsvia a Web interface, the Internet audiencecould trigger Elsenaar’s facial muscles. (© Arthur Elsenaar)

the Ping Body performance, which pre-miered in 1996 in Sydney, Stelarc’s involuntary gestures turn into a repre-sentation of a part of the Internet. In thispiece, a program sends signals over theInternet to more than 30 domainsaround the world and measures howmany milliseconds it takes before the re-ceipt of the signal is acknowledged. (Thisprocess is known as “pinging”.) The num-bers resulting from these measurementsare used as inputs that control Stelarc’sleft arm, left leg and right upper arm,causing these body parts to engage inrather random-looking movements. Atthe same time, Stelarc employs his ThirdHand, controlled by his abdomen andright leg, and presents video projectionsand audio ampli� cation of the musclesignals. Stelarc’s 1997 ParaSite Event (ForInvaded and Involuntar y Body) uses a sim-ilar setup but employs JPEG � les from theInternet rather than random pinging tocontrol his muscles [55].

At the Institute of Arti�cial Art, on theother hand, the muscle-control patterns

are becoming more elaborately system-atic. In 1997, we developed an algorithmthat successively realizes all possible mus-cle-contraction con� gurations of theface. A limited version of this algorithm,which only enumerates the facial ex-pressions that can be realized by the com-binations of on/off settings of 12 speci�cfacial muscles, is shown on a 32-minutevideotape entitled The Varieties of HumanFacial Expression (12 Bit Version), which hasbeen shown in several visual-art exhibi-tions (Fig. 14).

We are using the insights from such sys-tematic pieces in the development of anew theatrical genre. In “algorithmic fa-cial choreography,” the algorithmic ap-proach to facial expression generation iscombined with algorithmically generatedmusic. At Ars Electronica 1997 we pre-miered the electric-guitar band Arthurand the Solenoids, which consists of a dig-ital computer controlling the muscle sys-tem of a live human face, with preciselysynchronized musical accompaniment byMIDI-controlled electric guitars.

These pieces demonstrate one of ourmajor research � ndings: Most of the mus-cle-contraction con� gurations that thehuman face is capable of are never spon-taneously used by humans, and many ofthem cannot even be produced withoutexternal electrical stimulation. Algorith-mically controlled human faces thus en-able us to explore new and unusuallycomplex emotional states.

CONCLUSIONOne of the biggest challenges in therealm of computer-generated art is theproduction of fully computer-controlleddance and theater performances. The-atrical performances that do not involvepeople tend to make a rather limited im-pression on human audiences. The emo-tional impact that theater can have is theresult of visceral resonances between thebodies on stage and the bodies in the au-dience.

Computer-controlled dance and the-ater performances thus present a pecu-liar dif�culty: they require interfaces thatmake the expressive possibilities of thehuman body directly accessible to thecomputer. This paper has shown thatthere are viable techniques that solve thisinterface problem. These techniques de-rive from a long research tradition, whichfrom the very beginning has been ap-plied in many impressive manifestationsof “electric performance art.” But we mayhope and expect that the best is yet tocome.

References and Notes

1. Stephen Gray, “A Letter Containing Several Ex-periments Concerning Electricity,” Royal Society Philo-sophical Transactions 37 (1731/1732) pp. 18–44.

2. Dick Raaijmakers, “Proefneming met een tabak-spijp” (Experiment with a Tobacco Pipe), in KorrieKorevaart and Steven Moors, eds., Het samengaan vankunsten en wetenschappen ( Joining Arts and Sciences)(Leyden: Leyden Univ., 2001) p. 33.

3. Gray [1]; Christian Augustus Hausen, Novi profectusin historia electricitatis (Leipzig, 1743); Charles Françoisde Cisternay du Fay, “A Letter Concerning Electric-ity,” Royal Society Philosophical Transactions 38(1733/1734) pp. 258–266; Margaret Rowbottom andCharles Susskind, Electricity and Medicine: A History ofTheir Interaction (San Francisco, CA: San FranciscoPress, 1984) pp. 4–8; Albert Kloss, Von der Electricitätzur Elektrizität. Ein Streifzug durch die Geschichte der Elek-trotechnik, Elektroenergetik und Elektronik (Basel, Boston,Stuttgart: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1987) pp. 30–31.

Note that we conveniently described (and “ex-plained”) Gray’s experiment in terms of notionsfrom modern physics, which were completely un-known to Gray and his contemporaries. We adoptthis policy throughout the historical parts of thispaper. It is not within our current scope to discussthe struggle of 18th-century physicists towards thedevelopment of an empirically adequate descriptionof electricity. See J.L. Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th


Fig. 14. Arthur Elsenaar and Remko Scha, The Varieties of Human Facial Expression (12 BitVersion), 1997. A computer program enumerates all facial expressions that can be realizedwith a particular electrode con� guration on Arthur Elsenaar’s face. (Stills from a videotape:© J. Jasperse)

and 18th Centuries (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of CaliforniaPress, 1979); Roderick Weir Home, The Ef�uvial The-ory of Electricity (New York: Arno Press, 1981).

4. Jean Antoine Nollet, Leçons de Physique Expérimen-tale, Vol. 6 (Paris: Guérin, 1764).

5. Eusebio Sguario, Dell’elettricismo (Venice: PressoGio, Battista Recurti, 1746) pp. 268–269. Naturalinstances of this phenomenon occur before andafter thunderstorms, and are known as “St. Elmo’sFire.”

6. Georg Mathias Bose, “Abstract of a Letter fromMonsieur De Bozes,” Royal Society Philosophical Trans-actions 43 (1745) p. 420; Heilbron [3] pp. 267–268.

7. Stephen Gray, “Two Letters Containing FartherAccounts of His Experiments Concerning Electric-ity,” Royal Society Philosophical Transactions 37(1731/1732) pp. 397–407.

8. Georg Mathias Bose, Tentamina electrica (Witten-berg, 1744); Heilbron [3] p. 267.

9. Nikola Tesla, My Inventions (Williston, VT: HartBrothers, 1982) pp. 73–77; Margaret Cheney, Tesla:Man Out of Time (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall,1981) p. 73; Robert Lomas, The Man Who Invented theTwentieth Century (London: Headline, 1999) pp.103–104.

10. Stephen Wilson, Information Arts: Intersections ofArt, Science and Technology (Cambridge, MA: MITPress, 2002) pp. 409–411.

11. Von Kleist’s invention was initially much less wellknown. The � rst public report about the new devicewas a paper by Abbé Nollet about “the Leyden ex-periment” (“l’expérience de Leyde”) extensivelyquoting a letter by van Musschenbroek. See Jean An-toine Nollet, “Observations sur quelques nouveauxphénomènes d’Électricité,” Mémoires de Mathématiqueet de Physique, tirés des régistres de l’Académie Royale desSciences (1746) pp. 1–23. A few years later, Nollet de-clares proudly: “I resigned myself to calling it the Ley-den Experiment, and that is the name it has carriedever since.” See Nollet [4] p. 480.

12. Kloss [3] pp. 45–47.

13. John Turbervill Needham, “Extract of a LetterConcerning Some New Electrical Experiments LatelyMade at Paris,” Royal Society Philosophical Transactions44, Part 1 (1746–1747) pp. 256, 261.

14. Joseph-Aignan Sigaud de la Fond, Précis historiqueet expérimental des phénomènes électriques, depuis l’orig-ine de cette découverte jusqu’a ce jour, 2nd Ed. (Paris: Rueet Hôtel Serpente, 1785) pp. 230–233.

15. Johann Heinrich Winkler: “An Extract of a Let-ter Concerning the Effects of Electricity upon Him-self and His Wife,” Royal Society PhilosophicalTransactions 44, Part 1 (1746–1747) pp. 211–212.

16. Needham [13] pp. 247–263; Nollet [4] p. 22.

17. Daniel Gralath, Elektrische Bibliothek, Abhandlun-gen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft zu Danzig (1747)pp. 525–558.

18. Benjamin Franklin, Experiments and Observationson Electricity, 6th English Ed., with an introduction byI. Bernard Cohen (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ.Press, 1941) pp. 93–94, 300–301 (originally pub-lished in London, 1751).

19. Joseph Priestley, The History and Present State ofElectricity, with Original Experiments (London, 1767)pp. 653–658.

20. Percy Dunsheath, A History of Electrical Engineer-ing, (London: Faber and Faber, 1962) pp. 89–156.

21. Harold C. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers,1875–1900: A Study in Competition, Entrepreneurship,Technical Change, and Economic Growth (Cambridge,MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1953) pp. 118–120.

22. Passer [21] pp. 168–171.

23. Elbridge T. Gerry, “Capital Punishment by Elec-tricity,” North American Review 149 (September 1889)pp. 321–325.

24. Arnold Beichman, “The First Electrocution,”Commentary 35, No. 5 (May 1963) p. 410.

25. Beichman [24] p. 411.

26. Andre J. Millard, Edison and the Business of Inno-vation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press,1990) pp. 105–106; Robert E. Conot, A Streak of Luck(New York: Seaview Books, 1979) pp. 255–256.

27. Harold P. Brown, “The New Instrument of Exe-cution,” North American Review 149 (November 1889)pp. 586–593.

28. Carlos F. MacDonald, The In�iction of the DeathPenalty by Means of Electricity, Being a Report of SevenCases. With Remarks on the Methods of Application andthe Gross and Microscopical Effects of Electrical Currentsof Lethal Energy on the Human Subject (New York: D.Appleton, 1892).

29. The New York Times (7 August 1890) reported:“The electric charge was too weak and the miserablework had to be done again, becoming an awful spec-tacle, far worse than hanging.” See Lomas [9] p. 87.

30. MacDonald [28] p.8.

31. Anon., “Bad Elephant Killed. Topsy Meets Quickand Painless Death at Coney Island,” The CommercialAdvertiser (New York) (5 January 1903).

32. Michael H. Reggio, “History of the DeathPenalty,” in Laura E. Randa, ed., Society’s Final Solu-tion: A History and Discussion of the Death Penalty (Univ.Press of America, 1997).

33. Nat Hentoff, “Why Not Televise Executions?” TheVillage Voice (28 March 1995) pp. 22–23.

34. Frances Morris, Chris Burden: When Robots Rule:The Two-Minute Airplane Factory (London: TateGallery, 1999) pp. 30–31; Sam McBride, “Sing theBody Electronic: American Invention in Contempo-rary Performance,” Sycamore, A Journal of AmericanCulture 1, No. 3 (1997).

35. Charles Kite, An Essay on the Recovery of the Ap-parently Dead (London: 1788); Rowbottom andSusskind [3] p. 23.

36. Jean Jallabert, Expériences sur l’électricité avecquelques conjectures sur la cause de ses effets (Geneva,1748); Rowbottom and Susskind [3] pp. 16–17.

37. Rowbottom and Susskind [3] pp. 34–35.

38. Aloysii Galvani, “De viribus electricitatis in motumusculari,” De Bononiensis Scientiarum Et Artium Insti-tuto Atque Academia Comentarii VII (Bologna Academyand Institute of Sciences and Arts, 1791). Reprintedwith an introduction by Giovanni Aldini and lettersby Bassano Carminati and Luigi Galvani (Modena,1792). English translation: Commentary on the Effect ofElectricity on Muscular Motion (Cambridge, MA: Eliza-beth Licht, 1953). We cite from this translation.

39. Marcello Pera, La rana ambigua (Turin: GiulioEinaudi, 1986). English translation: The AmbiguousFrog: The Galvani-Volta Controversy on Animal Electric-ity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1992).

40. Emil du Bois-Reymond, Untersuchungen überthierische Elektricität, Vol. 1 (Berlin: Reiner, 1848) pp. 50–51.

41. Galvani [38] pp. 34, 57–58; Christoph HeinrichPfaff, Über thierische Elektricität und Reizbarkeit. Ein Bey-trag zu den neuesten Entdeckungen über diese Gegenstände(Leipzig: Siegfried Lebrecht Crucius, 1795).

42. Jean Aldini, Essai Théorique et Expérimental sur leGalvanisme, avec une série d’expériences faites en présencedes Commissaires de l’Institut National de France, et endivers Amphithéatres Anatomiques de Londres, Vol. 1(Paris: Fournier Fils, 1804) p. 115.

43. Giovanni Aldini, “Concerning the Origin and De-velopment of the Theory of Animal Electricity,” in

Galvani [38] pp. 11–12; Luigi Galvani, letter to DonBassano Carminati in Galvani [38] pp. 96–97.

44. Ludwig Friedrich von Froriep, “Versuche an demKörper eines Guillotinierten kurz nach dem Tode,”Magazin für den neuesten Zustand der Naturkunde mitRücksicht auf die dazu gehörigen Hilfswissenschaften (Sep-tember 1802). Cited from Kloss [3] p. 74.

45. E. Vassalli, “Galvanische Versuche, angestellt andrei Enthaupteten am 13. und 14. August zu Turin,”Annalen der Physik 13 (1803) pp. 223–231.

46. Jean Aldini, “Sur des expériences galvaniquesfaites sur un supplicié pendu à Londres, le 17 janvier1803,” in Aldini [42] Vol. 2, p. 42.

47. Jean Baptiste Sarlandière, Mémoires sur l’électro-puncture considérée comme moyen nouveau de traiter ef�-cacement la goutte, les rhumatismes et les affectionsnerveuses (Paris, 1825); Bernard Raymond Fabré-Palaprat, Du galvanisme appliqué à la médecine (Paris,1828); Rowbottom and Susskind [3] p. 54.

48. Guillaume Benjamin Armand Duchenne, Mécanisme de la Physionomie Humaine ou Analyse Électro-Physiologique de l’Expression des Passions (Paris,1862).

49. Duchenne [48] p. 42.

50. Rowbottom and Susskind [3] p. 84.

51. Stelarc, “Prosthetics, Robotics and Remote Exis-tence Postrevolutionary Strategies,” Leonardo24, No.5, 591–595 (1991).

52. Succinct information about several prototypicalperformances can be found on Stelarc’s web site:, http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/cards/index.html. .

53. Huge Harry is one of the voices of the speechsynthesis machine DECtalk, designed in the late1970s by Dennis Klatt at the MIT Speech Laboratory.Harry is president and “spokes-machine” of the In-stitute of Arti�cial Art Amsterdam. When he deliv-ers our research reports about human facialexpression at scienti�c meetings, he usually employsElsenaar’s face as a live display device. On these oc-casions, he cooperates closely with a sequencer orMax program controlling the electrical signals whichare sent to Elsenaar’s facial muscles. For a transcriptof one of Harry’s lectures, see: Huge Harry, “On theMechanism of Human Facial Expression as aMedium for Interactive Art,” in Gerfried Stocker andChristine Schöpf, eds., Fleshfactor. Informationsmas-chine Mensch, Ars Electronica 97 (Vienna and NewYork: Springer, 1997) pp. 110–120. See also Wilson[10] pp. 38, 162–164, 790–791.

54. Mark Dery, “Fractal Flesh: Stelarc’s Aesthetic ofProsthetics,” TalkBack! e-zine (1996).

55. Wilson [10] pp. 549–552.

56. From Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr, Neu-entdecktePhaenomena von bewunderswürdigen Würkungen derNatur (Nuremburg, 1774).

57. From Nollet [4].

58. From Physikalische und Chemische Lehrmittel, 10thEd. (n.d.) p. 141.

59. From L. Figuier, Les Grandes Inventions Ancienneset Modernes dans les Sciences, l’Industrie et les Arts (Paris,1861) p. 251.

60. Alessandro Volta, “On the Electricity Excited bythe Mere Contact of Conducting Surfaces of Differ-ent Species,” letter to Sir Joseph Banks, 20 March1800, Royal Society of Philosophical Transactions 90(1800) pp. 403–431.

61. From Aldini [42] Vol. I.

62. Plate No. 79 from Duchenne [48]; photographby Nadar’s brother Adrian Tournachon.

63. Plate No. 33 from Duchenne [48]; photographby Adrian Tournachon.

Manuscript received 22 January 2002.


http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/cards/index.html

Arthur Elsenaar is an artist and an electricalengineer. He used to run his own pirate radiostation, and he built the transmitters for manyillegal radio and television stations through-out the Netherlands. He has developed radar-controlled interactive sculptures, interactiveperformance pieces, video installations andaudio installations. Elsenaar coordinates theNew Media curriculum at the Frank Mohr Institute in Groningen. His recent work in-vestigates the artistic potential of the computer-controlled human face (“ArtiFacial Ex-pression”).

Remko Scha was trained as a physicist. Heworked in linguistics and Arti�cial Intelli-gence at Philips’ Research Laboratories (Eind-hoven), BBN Laboratories (Cambridge, MA),and Tel Aviv University. He built an auto-matic electric guitar band (“The Machines”),designed an image-generation program (“Ar-ti�cial”), and developed a language-processingtheory (“Data-Oriented Parsing”). Currently,he is professor of Computational Linguisticsat the University of Amsterdam, and performsas a DJ on the Amsterdam pirate station“Radio 100.”

Arthur Elsenaar and Remko Scha work to-gether at the Institute of Arti�cial Art Am-sterdam (IAAA). Their joint projects includethe Huge Harry Lectures on Human FacialExpression (presented by an automaticspeech-synthesis system, and involving com-puter-controlled expressions on a live humanface); Arthur & the Solenoids (MIDI-con-trolled “facial choreography,” accompaniedby MIDI-control led electric guitars); andAgent Radio (an automatic radio station,based on random audio-downloads from theInternet).


electric body manipulation as performance art: a

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