Website deposited by Barry Smith, University of Bristol, 2006 and implemented into AHDS content delivery system.

Exoskeleton: Event for Extended Body and Walking Machine by S T E L A R C

A six-legged, pneumatically powered walking machine has been constructed for the body. The locomotor, with either ripple or tripod gait, moves fowards, backwards, sideways and turns on the spot. It can also squat and lift by splaying or contracting its legs. The body is positioned on a turn-table, enabling it to rotate about its axis. It has an exoskeleton on its upper body and arms. The left arm is an extended arm with pneumatic manipulator having 11 degrees-of- freedom. It is human-like in form but with additional functions. The fingers open and close, becoming multiple grippers. There is individual flexion of the fingers, with thumb and wrist rotation. The body actuates the walking machine by moving its arms. Different gestures make different motions - a translation of limb to leg motions. The body's arms guide the choreography of the locomotor's movements and thus compose the cacophony of pneumatic and mechanical and sensor modulated sounds....

Stelarc is an Australian artist who has performed extensively in Japan, Europe and the USA- including new music, dance festivals and experimental theatre. He has used medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, Virtual Reality systems and the Internet to explore alternate, intimate and involuntary interfaces with the body. In 1999 he was re-appointed as a Senior Research Scholar for the Faculty of Art and Design at the Nottingham Trent University.

This video shows a performance of an exoskeleton that shares some similarities with the Anatomical Exoskeleton. The Exoskeleton was developed by f18institut for use by Stelarc.

Download video file (WMV format, 552k)

Movatar - Inverse Motion Capture System by S T E L A R C

Motion Capture allows a physical body to animate a 3D computer-generated virtual body to perform in computer space or cyberspace. This is usually done by markers on the body which are tracked by cameras, their motions analyzed by a computer and mapped onto the virtual actor. Or it can be done using electromagnetic sensors (like Polhemus or Flock-of-Birds) which indicate position/orientation of limbs and head. Consider, though, a virtual body or an avatar that can access a physical body, actuating its performance in the real world. If the avatar is imbued with an artificial intelligence, becoming increasingly autonomous and unpredictable, then it would become more an AL (Artificial Life) entity performing with a human body in physical space.

Download video file (WMV format, 7529k)

The Extended Arm by S T E L A R C

The Extended Arm is constructed with the aesthetic of the Third Hand, using materials like stainless steel, aluminium and acrylic. The pneumatics are all for the operation of the manipulator. It is a five-finger human like hand with some novel capabilities. It's functions include wrist rotation, thumb rotation, individual finger flexion with each finger splitting open. Each finger can become a gripper in itself. The Extended Arm acrylic sleeve fits over the right arm whose fingers rest on an array of 4 switches allowing the actuation of pre-programmed sequences of motion of the manipulator. The right arm becomes primate in proportion.

The performance was a continuous 4 hour event which allowed people to circulate and come and go in the small gallery space. Whilst the right arm was extended and automated the left arm was moving involuntarily to 8 channels of muscle stimulation, allowing not only bending of the arm and wrist with deltoid, biceps, flexor and extender muscles but also activating some individual finger flexions. A split body both automated and involuntary.

Download video file (WMV format, 37774k)

BACK