Suspended Sentences: An Interview with Stelarc

'Suspended Sentences: An Interview with Stelarc', conducted by Joanna Zylinska and myself, has been published in Stelarc's Stretched Skin: Obsolete, Uncertain and Indifferent Body (Oslo: PS Media, 2018).

Stretched Skin: Obsolete, Uncertain and Indifferent Body, by Stelarc is a beautifully bound book with 200 pages containing stunning images from various photographers and informative texts about Stelarc’s suspension performances. In addition to texts by the artist, it include articles (some previously printed, others newly commissioned) about Stelarc and his work by writers including Darren Tofts and Shannon Bell.

For over 40 years, Stelarc has been pushing the physical, conceptual, and technological boundaries of the body. His work has inspired and awed people the world over, and given many a new perspective on what the body means, where it begins and, indeed, ends. His first book Obsolete Body was published in 1984 as a compilation of Stelarc's suspension performances, it is now a very rare and expensive book to come by. But Obsolete Body, while the source of many people's inspiration, does not tell the whole story or contain a complete record of Stelarc's suspension performances. After its publication, Stelarc continued and expanded his work, and those performances have never been seen in print.

Stretched Skin focuses on all of Stelarc's suspension performances—from the very first in 1976 to the most recent in in 2012, including the collaborations with Håvve Fjell and Wings of Desire in 2012 and 2013. The book also contains some of Stelarc's other performances; where they have direct relevance to, or lead up to, the suspension series.