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from the new-one-for-the-internet-of-things dept.
In a combination of artistic expression and cutting edge medical technology, Curtin University professor and artist Stelarc is working on a project to grow a human ear on his forearm and connect it, via microphone, to the Internet.
"People's reactions range from bemusement to bewilderment to curiosity, but you don't really expect people to understand the art component of all of this," Stelarc said.
A medical team built a scaffold of the ear under the skin, within six months blood vessels and tissue began to grow around it.
The next step is to make the ear more three-dimensional — lifting it up off the arm and growing an ear lobe from Stelarc's stem cells.
Selarc's plan is to embed a microphone into the ear and connect it to the Internet, so anyone, anywhere, anytime can listen in. He's not planning to wire in an off-line option.
"Increasingly now, people are becoming internet portals of experience ... imagine if I could hear with the ears of someone in New York, imagine if I at the same time could see with the eyes of someone in London."
Original story from the ABC.
An interview with Stelarc.
Stelarc's web page for the project.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @08:42AM
Internet-connected man murders wife in fit of rage, with the entire Internet listening in. Prosecutors agree to drop all charges against him, in exchange for wiring every person with a mandatory microphone to record everything everyone does all the time.
(Score: 1) by xav on Wednesday August 12 2015, @12:18PM
Such guys are single and will remain so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @02:16PM
Not all internet-connected men are single despite all single men being connected!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 12 2015, @05:16PM
Which demographic? Guys on the Internet? Murderers? Artists?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by xav on Wednesday August 12 2015, @05:23PM
Guys that grow ears on their arms and offer anyone on the Internet the possibility to listen to their surroundings day and night. I can't imagine a wife would accept this.
(Score: 4, Funny) by jimshatt on Wednesday August 12 2015, @08:49AM
You don't need to grow an ear on your arm for that, idiot!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @08:57AM
It's the Internet of Things, man. Every Thing needs to be on the Internet because all the trendy morons are doing it. Next he'll hook up his fucking dick to the Internet because he's never heard of teledildonics before.
(Score: 3, Funny) by wantkitteh on Wednesday August 12 2015, @01:02PM
Way to completely miss the artistic aspect of the whole thing dude, total failure to understand what's going on here. Which isn't surprising, it's cutting edge performance art. My other half used a bunch of this guy's work in her masters dissertation and it took me a while to understand what he was doing even just on the surface level. I won't try and explain it, I'd make a total hash of it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @01:06PM
STFU moron.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @09:14AM
but it's still hardcore to grow an ear on your arm
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @09:20AM
It would be hardcore, if he could grow an ear on his arm and wire it to his own brain instead of Siri. But then, I doubt this jackass even has a brain to call his own.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday August 12 2015, @09:23AM
It's not an ear. None of the actual organs for hearing are being grown. It's a piece of deformed skin on a bit of scaffolding. They stuck a microphone in it, but had to remove it because it got infected.
Unsuccessful reconstructive plastic surgery on the wrong part of the guy's body. Whoopie doodle...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @09:55AM
Oh I'm so sorry, the medical team don't have any talents, that's why they're doing pointless cosmetic art projects instead of saving lives, healing the sick, curing diseases, you know, practicing real medicine like real doctors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @10:12AM
Kardashians are less asinine than "art" (note the quotes).
(Score: 1) by chrysosphinx on Wednesday August 12 2015, @10:24AM
is coming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @11:05AM
Oh yes. I got this weird looking scar on the back of my hand from falling in the shower when I was a kid. My scar totally deserves its own Facebook page.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @11:46AM
Cortex?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @01:43PM
a self-promoting attention whore, innit.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Wednesday August 12 2015, @01:57PM
"People's reactions range from bemusement to bewilderment to curiosity, but you don't really expect people to understand the art component of all of this," Stelarc said.
What, opposed to the scientific component of it? He knows that the actual outer ear is mostly cartilage right?
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @02:44PM
Well it does serve to focus sound.
Presumably the ear also act as a reminder that conversations are bing recorded.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Wednesday August 12 2015, @05:23PM
and instead of 3D printing it or something he grows it off his arm? I really think we should reconsider the idea that there's no such thing as non-art. Because come on.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Wednesday August 12 2015, @04:21PM
There's a surprising amount of vitriol about this.
Not really what I expected here, considering most soylentils take time to consider before they post.
Stelarc has quite a history in pushing the boundaries of the intersection between body and technology. You may or may not like his art but it's difficult to deny his impact upon popular culture and emerging concepts and discourse about the body.
Yes artists do attract attention to their work and from the early days of his work, Stelarc has used his body as a canvas;
I'd expect commenters here to be a little more astute than to recoil and consider it a cheap trick or "attention whore[ing]"
Though, ironically, I wonder whether that may in some way be quite a correct artistic description...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 12 2015, @05:13PM
Don't take it personally. Most "performance art" pieces like throwing raw meat on a bed get the same reaction from me.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @04:22PM
If this is not an Onion.com article, I'll bite my own ear off.
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Wednesday August 12 2015, @05:14PM
This guy is going to be proof that even a real human can be lost in the depts of the uncanny valley!
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday August 12 2015, @10:55PM
All those IOT vendors should sign this guy up for endorsement... having an ear grown on an arm connected to the internet would make one hell of a marketing pamphlet..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @11:13PM
Jane, you ignorant slut!