Event for Stretched Skin no. 1, Maki Gallery, Tokyo 16 May 1976

Stelarc is a pioneering performance artist who has tested and pushed the limits of the human body for over fifty years. His performances and installations explore themes of the post-human and the trans-human and use prosthetics, robotics, biotechnology and virtual technology systems to demonstrate the possibilities  and reality of humankind’s increasingly hybrid existence.

Between 1976 and 1988 Stelarc completed twenty-seven body suspensions with insertions of hooks into his skin, adopting varying positions, each installation event taking place in different situations and locations around the world. Referring to himself as ‘the body’, Stelarc noted that, in these suspensions, the body was:

'rotated through 360 degrees, in space, spun, swung, counter-balanced by a ring of rocks, inserted within a tensegrity structure, a tree, swayed precariously on an outcrop of rocks at the seaside and hung 4 stories between 2 buildings over a street'.

The duration of each suspension varied from one minute to thirty-two minutes. These photographs document Stelarc’s first successful suspension, held at the Maki Gallery Tokyo in 1976. The performance was extensively photographed by Shigeo Anzai and captured on video.

Maria Zagala, Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs