Body artists such as Orlan and Stelarc have experimented with using new technologies as tools for physical transformation , offering social comment on future directions via performance art . Orlan 's operations, performed theatrically yet very real, demonstrate an extremity of physical mutation via plastic surgery Modern medicine sculpts her face progressively into a combination of different features modelled on figures from famous artworks. Earlier performances with multi-piercing suspensions began his experimentation with manipulation of the human form. New technologies offer vaster potentials for mutation, and Stelarc is facing the challenge. He claims that the human form is becoming obsolete -we are merely data in the information age.
Theories abound as to future of the human species and our relationship with cyberspace .
Despite their extremity these theories are nevertheless possibilities. However, one would hope that in our zealous hurtling into dimensions of hyperspace we do not abandon the physical. Fantastic alternatives and enhancers may be manifested, surely, but simultaneously these should remind us of the sacredness of the flesh, and of the Earth. Let us use technology for transformation and even escapism, but not to the exclusion of our outer biosphere. Perhaps Stelarc is beginning to real-ize this, if reports that he is beginning experimentation with grafting of living plant matter to the human form are true.