Originally published in the catalogue Teleporting an Unkown State,Peter Tomaz Dobrila and Aleksandra Kostic, editors. Published by KIBLA,Maribor, Slovenia, 1998, pp. 63-66. (ISBN 961-6304-00-3)

2. October 1998, Maribor

Aleksandra Kostic

The South American breakthrough into the European art galleries happenedat the time of the most recent, 10th Documenta in Kassel (1997) and duringthe Internet conferences such as "Identification" created inthe New York Atelier Eye-Beam together with Blast (1998). During this conferencethe predominance of the Anglo-Saxon geographical, political and linguisticfields was clearly noticeable as well as the white patches around the globe-- despite the effort and wishes of the moderator and several participantsto include them in the conference, it was not possible to wire them.

The contemporary artist Eduardo Kac has also warned about the problemof access to the Internet and consequently of censorship and freedom ofspeech. According to the biographic facts he tries to avoid any nationaland geographic definitions. His European ancestors of Polish origin havedisappeared in the World War II. Kac began to be engaged in creating artisticworks in Rio de Janeiro. About ten years ago he moved to Chicago wherehe became an Assistant Professor of Art and Technology at the School ofthe Art Institute of Chicago.

I have always wanted to know which definition of art is the right one.So far only one has persisted: breaking down conventions and establishednorms. Artist are often characterized as being insane, in reality it seemsto be insane to insist in absurd situations because of self-interest. EduardoKac strives to diminish the boundaries -- either national, political, social,linguistic or galleristic.

Kac's linguistic problems, in the sense of meaning and word sequencesas well as with interactions between words and images, are being solvedin "Erratum". Old issues -- let us remind ourselves of MarcelDuchamp and his "The Large Glass" (1915-1923) and Rene Magrittewith his whole opus till his death (1967) -- have by means of new technologiesoutgrown into developing complex systems. The fields which were separatedfor centuries are now being unified -- words and paintings, science andart, authorship begins to be divided among artists and the audience. Thebreaking of hermetically closed specific units of human behavior, whichhappened in art with the usage of electronic media, and the breakthroughof scientific facts and processes, are usually a topic of festivals ofelectronic art, including Ars Electronica in Linz, 1994, and the 3rd InternationalFestival of Computer Arts in Maribor, 1997. These festivals promote newideas, which are also of interest to the mass media.

Eduardo Kac's work can be seen in the context of interactivity whichinvolves the viewer as an equal part in the art system -- in the classicalsense it breaks the dominance of the artist and his work as well as thegallery and the dealer in the pyramid, in which the audience was alwaysat the bottom - and he involves the audience so that the programmed processesof interactivity are surpassed. With his first artistic work in the fieldof telepresence, which includes robotics, telecommunications and computers,Eduardo Kac became known as an "artist of telepresence", naturallyin the frame of electronic interactive art and not in the frame of telekinesis.The space of the gallery is thus expanded onto the Net until it vanishes.The old issue of defining space and time remains; however, in telepresencetime is above space.

Technological interventions into the human body are often met with disapprovalof the audience -- for example behavioristic performances or mechanicalcuts in the skin, not to mention real interventions inside the body, asin the case of Stelarc, Orlan and Kac! In the case of Kac the microchipis in the ankle and enables transpondering of his body, thus the biologicalmicrostructure and social macrostructure are connected.

Kac's blood donations to the biobot and biobot's glucose being transferredto Kac's veins are on the edge of biology and humanity where the questionof biological conditions of new species is raised. Stelarc and Orlan arethe pioneers who have foreseen fundamental transformations in our species.The integral composition of a human which is happening in science is reachingalso the field of art. Cyborg and now Kac's biobot where biological organsare implanted into machines touches at present still delicate philosophicaland moral question of human identity.

Aleksandra Kostic is an art critic and curator for contemporary artas well as the head of the Multimedia Center Kibla Art Gallery in Maribor.

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