Week 1

The first introductory lecture of New Communications Technologies began with Lecturer Stephen Stockwell leading into the history of communication, from ancient oral transfer of story telling and songs to the modern technology of cinema and the internet. As Stockwell was winding down, he mentioned a very intriguing point by Marshall McLuhan-- That technology is an extension of the human body. Several students including myself were confounded by the idea that 'The wheel is an extension of the leg' or that 'A book is an extension of the eye'. Therefore I thought I should take it upon myself to widen my knowledge and explore what this concept was about.

I found an article by the Academy of Media and Arts in Cologne, Germany who interviewed a very interesting artist by the name of Stelarc, an Australian performance artist who creatively interprets McLuhan's  ideologies.
Stelarc continuously searches for new ways to break the boundaries of the human body by exploring various electronic and technological ways of living (Atzori, 2012). Stelarc argues that the new technological era should embraced by human bodies who are just as equally advanced (Atzori, 2012).

"Technology is what defines the meaning of being human, it's part of being human." Especially living in the information age, "the body is biologically inadequate." (Atzori, 2012).

Stelarc points out that for thousands of years, we have been exploring the human body looking for a window to the future, to evolve and to change (Atzori, 2012). Mentally, the human race have reached a broad capacity for new knowledge but unfortunately for the overall physique of the human, this has ceast to change(Atzori, 2012). Stelarc suggests that we shouldnt close off the idea of radically redesigning the body. We are not selling our soul because we are using foreign objects, "my attitude is that technology is, and always has been, an appendage of the body"(Atzori, 2012).

References:

Atzori, Paolo. "Extended-Body: Interview with Stelarc." Digital Delirium. N.p., 2007. Web. July 2012. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/stelarc/a29-extended_body.html.
Annotation: The reference used for this task was extremely helpful. As the article was an interview session with the artist it provided the actual quotes which I have then reqouted in my task. The article was a highly academic piece of work and I felt as if the article gave me all the answers I needed.