SPATIAL SEQUENCES OF PROSTHETIC MANIPULATIONS: THE RO(BODY)C SPECIES

In our new era, processes trump products. We are moving away from the world of fixed nouns and toward a world of fluid verbs. A world of becoming. We transform technology and technology is transforming us back, everything that surrounds us, the whole way we live. We have been so far, allowed as a species to establish complete domination over the rest of the natural world. But whether our species will still be the future dominant race is a matter for debate... And while everything is evolving rapidly, technology seems to be capable of transforming the way we see the world. Going from the desirable to the feasible and from the utopian to the physical, we tend to predict, control, gain and improve things around us. This tendency confirms that the body is open to incessant reconfigurations. A hybrid existence that lives in-between the artificial and the natural, the living and the non-living worlds and operates beyond the boundaries of the space it lives. Evolution calls for transformative environments that need to be populated by transformed bodies. Can these bodies be the subject of experimental design? And if so, who defines the experimentations? Each experiment hides behind it, the ambition not only of its creator but also of a whole society, while being affected by the various technological developments. For every theory that is applied in practice, a ‘test subject’ is needed. That is, a body with specific behavioral characteristics, on which tests are performed through prosthetic procedures. Sometimes the experiment is created to solve a problem and sometimes the experiment creates the problem itself.

The experiments, from being sci-fi scenarios, they are now considered to be a new-age medium surveying evolution. Evolution is now controllable by all ‘potential scientists.’ We are all potential scientists, since technology becomes more and more accessible. But what happens when this control acquired, is used to serve individual technofetishistic desires? This experiment is taking place in the city of Thessaloniki. The city’s dormant bodies are recorded by drones-robees and are activated through real-time prosthetic manipulations. The test-subject of this experiment is a body(structure) located on Agiou Dimitriou and 3rd Septevriou street. The body is hacked by the ‘potential scientists’/online intruders. This is a different version of experiment. An experiment where online users meet together in an online platform and share their ‘’fetishes’’ in the form of online experiements. Dormant bodies, are the bodies to apply their fetishes on. A new form of urban life, a hybrid space, a revolution between human and non-human which leads to a robotic evolution, made through real-time prosthetic manipulations.