Sideshow freaks and repressive state apparatuses

Here is Erik Sprague, a former doctoral candidate and philosophy degree holder, known around the world for his amazing transformation from man to lizard as well as his modern sideshow performance art. A proud freak. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the nose flossing, or other sideshow undertakings Sprague does in his act, but he is clearly a thoughtful agent of change and his discussion of the medical procedures behind his body modification project is rich with observations about the social importance of regulating the human body. In particular, his filed teeth and bifurcated tongue have caused a movement to form around writing laws to make such body modifications illegal, thus invoking and Althusserian repressive state apparatus to protect us from turning ourselves into lizard people.

While Erik Sprague occupies the low culture sideshow stages, his high culture colleagues, Strelarc and Orlan, among others, explore related boundaries in their surgical interventions, which are displayed and exhibited in gallery spaces and universities.

Here's Lizard Man speaking about his origins and some of the procedures.

collage and montage

In May of next year, I have arranged a roundtable of artists and scholars to discuss technology and collage/montage. In this NY Times slideshow, the work of 16th century Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo will amuse many, and it has a corresponding relevance to the Dada photomontage from the early twentieth century in which the human form again appeared in collage assmblies, grotesque, and newly politicized. In the excellent notes and the accompanying review, the New York Times writer Michael Kimmerman does a good job of tying Arcimboldo's paintings to the state of the art in technology and politics of the day.

Here's the link to the pics.

MacArthur "Genius" grants given to post-evolutionary scholars

Perhaps it's just my perspective these days, but the MacArthur foundation, which gives out $500k grants to selected individuals it deems as geniuses, seems to be endorsing post-human developments. University of Washington in Seattle reports here that three of their own received grants this year. Of the three, one has improved drinking water, but the other two are have accomplished things directly related to post-evolutionary reconfiguring humans. One is researching roboticized prosthetics for people, and the other is developing technology to keep people in a state of suspended animation.

Suspended animation makes me think of the hive-boudn humans in The Matrix, or the 1978 suspended organ transplant donor farm in Coma.