Electric body manipulation as performance art: A historical perspective

Leonardo Music Journal

Volumn 12, Issue , 2002, Pages 17-28

  Elsenaar, Arthur ^a   Scha, Remko ^b  

^a Institute of Artificial Art Amsterdam   (Netherlands)

^b UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34249349143     PISSN: 09611215     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/096112102762295089     Document Type: Article

References (64)

1. Stephen Gray, "A Letter Containing Several Experiments Concerning Electricity," Royal Society Philosophical Transactions 37 (1731/1732) pp. 18-44
2. Dick Raaijmakers, "Proefneming met een tabakspijp" (Experiment with a Tobacco Pipe), in Korrie Korevaart and Steven Moors, eds., Het samengaan van kunsten en wetenschappen (Joining Arts and Sciences) (Leyden: Leyden Univ., 2001) p. 33
3. Gray [1] ; Christian Augustus Hausen, Novi profectus in historia elektricitatis (Leipzig, 1743)
4. Charles François de Cisternay du Fay, "A Letter Concerning Electricity," Royal. Society Philosophical Transactions 38 (1733/1734) pp. 258-266
5. Margaret Rowbottom and Charles Susskind., Electricity and Medicine: A History of Their interaction (San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Press, 1984) pp. 4-8
6. Albert Kloss, Von der Electricität zur Elektrizität. Ein Streifzug durch die Geschichte der Elektrotechnik, Elektroenergetik und Elektronik (Basel, Boston, Stuttgart: BirkhäuscrVerlag, 1987) pp. 30-31. Note that we conveniently described (and "explained") Gray's experiment in terms of notions from modern physics, which were completely unknown to Gray and his contemporaries. We adopt this policy throughout the historical parts of this paper. It is not within our current scope to discuss the struggle of 18th-century physicists towards the development of an empirically adequate description of electricity
7. See J.L. Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1979)
8. Roderick Weir Home, The Effluvial Theory of Electricity (New York: Arno Press, 1981)
9. Jean Antoine Nollet, Leçons de Physique Expérimentale, Vol. 6 (Paris; Guérin, 1764)
10. Eusebio Sguario, Dell'elettricismo (Venice: Presso Gio, Battista Recurti, 1746) pp. 268-269. Natural instances of this phenomenon occur before and after thunderstorms, and are known as "St. Elmo's Fire."
11. Georg Mathias Bose, "Abstract of a Letter from Monsieur De Bozes," Royal Society Philosophical Transactions 43 (1745) p. 420
12. Georg Mathias Bose, Tentamina electrica (Wittenberg, 1744)
13. Nikola Tesla, My Inventions (Williston, VT: Hart Brother), 1982) pp. 73-77
14. Margaret Cheney, Tesla: Man Out of Time (Englewood Cliffs, Nj: Prentice Hall, 1981) p. 73
15. Robert Lamas, The Man Who Invented the Twentieth Century (London: Headline, 1999) pp. 103-104
16. Stephen Wilson, Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science and Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002) pp. 409-411
17. Vou Kleist's invention was initially much less well known. The first public report about the new device was a paper by Abbé Nollet about "the Leyden experiment" ("l'expérience de Leyde") extensively quoting a letter by van Musschenbroek. See Jean Antoine Nollet, "Observations sur quelques nouveaux phénomènes d'Électricité," Mémoires de Mathématique et de Physique, tirés des régistres de l'Académie Royale des Sciences (1746) pp. 1-23
18. A few years later, Nollet declares proudly: "I resigned myself to calling it the Leyden Experiment, and that is the name it has carried ever since." See Nollet [4] p. 480
19. John Turbervill Needham, "Extract of a Letter Concerning Some New Electrical Experiments Lately Made at Paris," Royal Society Philosophical Transactions 44, Part 1 (1746-1747) pp. 256, 261
20. Sigaud. de la Fond, Précis historique et expérimental des phénomènes électriques, depuis l'origine de cette découverte Jusqu 'a ce jour, 2nd Ed. (Paris: Rue et Hôtel Serpente, 1785) pp. 230-233
21. Johann Heinrich Winkler: "An Extract of a Letter Concerning the Effects of Electricity upon Himself and His Wife," Royal Society Philosophical Transactions 44, Part 1 (1746-1747) pp. 211-212
22. Daniel Gralath, Elektrische Bibliothek, Abhandlungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft zu Danzig (1747) pp. 525-558
23. Benjamin Franklin, Experiments and Observations on Electricity, 6th English Ed., with an introduction by I. Bernard Cohen (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1941) pp. 93-94, 300-301 (originally published in London, 1751)
24. Joseph Priestley, The History and Present State of Electricity, with Original Experiments (London, 1767) pp. 653-658
25. Percy Dunsheath, A History of Electrical Engineering, (London: Faber and Faber, 1962) pp. 89-156
26. Harold C. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 1875-1900: A Study in Competition, Entrepreneurship, Technical Change, and Economic Growth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1953) pp. 118-120
27. Elbridge T. Gerry, "Capital Punishment by Electricity," North American Review 149 (September 1889) pp. 321-325
28. Arnold Beichman, "The First Electrocution," Commentary 35, No. 5 (May 1963) p. 410
29. Andre J. Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1990) pp. 105-106
30. Robert E. Canot, A Streak of Luck (New York: Seaview Books, 1979) pp. 255-256
31. Harold P. Brown, "The New Instrument of Execution, " North American Review 149 (November 1889) pp. 586-593
32. Carlos F. MacDonald, The Infliction of the Death Penalty by Means of Electricity, Being a Report of Seven Cases. With Remarks on the Methods of Application and the Gross and Microscopical Effects of Electrical. Currents of Lethal. Energy on the Human Subject (New York: D. Appleton, 1892)
33. The New York Times (7 August 1890) reported: "The electric charge was too weak and the miserable work had to be done again, becoming an awful spectacle, far worse than hanging."
34. Anon., "Bad Elephant Killed. Topsy Meets Quick and Painless Death at Coney Island," The Commercial Advertiser (New York) (5 January 1903)
35. Michael H. Reggio, "History of the Death Penalty," in Laura E. Randa, ed., Society's Final Solution: A History and, Discussion of the Death, Penalty (Univ. Press of America, 1997)
36. Nat Hentoff, "Why Not Televise Executions?" The Village Voice (28 March 1995) pp. 22-23
37. Frances Morris, Chris Burden: When Robots Rule: The Two-Minute Airplane Factory (London: Tate Gallery, 1999) pp. 30-31
38. Sam McBride, "Sing the Body Electronic: American Invention in Contemporary Performance," Sycamore, A Journal of American Culturel, No. 3 (1997)
39. Charles Kite, An Essay on the Recovery of the Apparently Dead (London: 1788)
40. Jean Jallabert, Expériences sur l'électricité avec quelques conjectures sur la cause de ses effets (Geneva, 1748)
41. Aloysii Galvani, "De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari," De Bononiensis Scientiarum Et Artium Instituto Atque A cademia ComeniariiVII (Bologna Academy and Institute of Sciences and. Arts, 1791)
42. Reprinted with an introduction by Giovanni Aldini and letters by Bassano Carminati and Luigi Galvani (Modena, 1792). English translation: Commentary on the Effect of Electricity on Muscular Motion (Cambridge, MA: Elizabeth Licht, 1953). We cite from this translation
43. Marcello Pera, La rana ambigua (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1986). English translation: The Ambiguous Frog: The Galvani-Volta Controversy on Animal Electricity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1992)
44. Emil du Bois-Reymond, Untersuchungen über thierische Elektricität, Vol. 1 (Berlin: Reiner, 1848) pp. 50-51
45. Christoph Heinrich Pfaff, Über thierische Elektricität und Reizbarkeit. Ein Beytragzu den neuesten Entdeckungen über diese Gegenstände (Leipzig: Siegfried Lebrecht Crucius, 1795)
46. Jean Aldini, Essai Théorique et. Expérimental sur le Galvanisme, avec une série d'expériences faites en présence des Commissaires de l'Institut National de France, et en divers Amphithéatres Anatomiques de Londres, Vol. 1 (Paris: Founder Fils, 1804) p. 115
47. Giovanni Aldini, "Concerning the Origin and. Development of the Theory of Animal Electricity," in Galvani [38] pp. 11-12
48. Luigi Galvani, letter to Don Bassano Carminati in. Galvani [38] pp. 96-97
49. Ludwig Friedrich von Froriep, "Versuche an dem Körper eines Guillotinierten kurz nach dem Tode," Magazin fúr den. neuesten Zustand der Naturkunde mit Rücksicht auf die dazu gehörigen Hilfswissenschaften (September 1.802). Cited from Kloss [3] p. 74
50. E. Vassalli, "Galvanische Versuche, angestellt an drei Enthaupteten am 13. und 14. August zu Turin," Annalen derPhysik 13 (1803) pp. 223-231
51. Jean Aldini, "Sur des expériences galvaniques faites sur un supplicié pendu à. Londres, le 17janvier 1803," in Aldini [42] Vol. 2, p. 42
52. Jean Baptiste Sarlandière, Mémoires sur l'électropuncture considérée comme moyen nouveau de traiter efficacement la goutte, les rhumatismes et les affections nerveuses (Paris, 1825)
53. Bernard Raymond Fabré-Palaprat, Du galvanisme appliqué à la médecine (Paris, 1828)
54. Guillaume Benjamin Armand Duchenne, Mécanisme de la Physionomie Humaine ou Analyse Électro-Physiologique de l'Expression des Passions (Paris, 1862)
55. Stelarc, "Prosthetics, Robotics and Remote Existence Postrevolutionary Strategies," Leonardo 24, No. 5, 591-595 (1991)
56. Succinct information about several prototypical performances can be found on Stelarc's web site:
57. Huge Harry is one of the voices of the speech synthesis machine DECtalk, designed in the late 1970s by Dennis Klatt at the MIT Speech Laboratory. Harry is president and "spokes-machine" of the Institute of Artificial Art Amsterdam, When he delivers our research reports about human facial expression at scientific meetings, he usually employs Elsenaar's face as a live display device. On. these occasions, he cooperates closely with a sequencer or Max program controlling the electrical signals which are sent to Elsenaar's facial muscles. For a transcript of one of Harry's lectures, see: Huge Harry, "On the Mechanism of Human Facial Expression as a Medium, for Interactive Art," in. Gerfried Stocker and. Christine Schópf, eds., Fleshfactor: Informationsmaschine Mensch, Ars Electronica 97 (Vienna and New York: Springer, 1997) pp. 110-120
58. Mark Defy, "Fractal Flesh: Stelarc's Aesthetic of Prosthetics," TalkBack! e-zine (1996)
59. From Johann. Gabriel. Doppelmayr, Neu-entdeckte Phaenomena von bewunderswürdigen Würkungen der Natur (Nuremburg, 1774)
60. From Physikalische und Chemische Lehrmittel, 10th Ed. (n.d.) p. 141
61. From L. Figuier, Les Grandes Inventions Anciennes et Modernes dans les Sciences, l'Industrie et les Arts (Paris, 1.861) p. 25.1
62. Alessandro Volta, "On the Electricity Excited by the Mere Contact of Conducting Surfaces of Different Species," letter to Sir Joseph Banks, 20 March 1800, Royal Society of Philosophical Transactions 90 (1800) pp. 403-431
63. From Aldini [42] Vol. I
64. Plate No. 33 from Duchenne [48]; photograph by Adrian Tournachon