Joke aside, this is the latest work of Perth-based scientist Stelarc, who has grabbed headlines on Australian TV with his body modifying project. Yup, you read that right!
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Although he thought of the idea in 1996, it has taken him a long time to recruit a medical team willing to do the necessaries to make his art come to life. Once securely transplanted into his arm, the artist’s own tissue and blood vessels morphed with the material and the ear is now a living, feeling, functioning part of his body.
We don’t know whether to be grossed out, fascinated or disturbed.
Wait, why? The idea is so that the internet can connect to his “ear” and listen to everything that he’s listening to on a daily basis.
“Increasingly now, people are becoming internet portals of experience… imagine if I could hear with the ears of someone in New York, imagine if I at the same time could see with the eyes of someone in London”, he told ABC News.
“I guess I’ve always got something up my sleeve, but often my sleeve is rolled down”, Stelarc stated in the ABC News report. “This ear is a remote listening device for people in other places”, he said.
Growing an ear lobe on the ear cultivated from his own stem cells is the next step, and then Stelarc intends to have a microphone with a wireless transmitter inserted so the ear can be connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi. “So wherever you are and wherever I am in the world you’ll be able to listen in to what my ear is hearing”, he said.
Commenting on his decision the eccentric artist said: “People’s reactions range from bemusement to bewilderment to curiosity, but you don’t really expect people to understand the art component of all of this”.
Stelarc, who was born Stelios Arcadiou but changed his name 45 years ago, first thought about getting an extra ear in 1996.
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Stelarc, the director of Alternate Anatomies Lab at Curtin, has previously created an exoskeleton, inserted a sculpture into his stomach and used a third, robotic, arm for writing.
