Australian artist to connect ‘ear’ on arm to web

Australian artist and academic Stelarc plans to connect an implanted ear — he has been growing on his arm for years — to the Internet. AFP

SYDNEY–An Australian artist and academic plans to connect an ear which he has been growing for years on his arm to the Internet so people can hear  and track his movements.

The project by a professor from Curtin University in Western Australia, known as Stelarc, is his latest in a series of artworks exploring the boundaries of blending robotics, prosthetics and the human body.

“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,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

A miniature microphone with wireless Internet connection will be inserted into the “ear”, while people will be able to track it through a GPS device placed on the body part.

“There won’t be an on-off switch,” he said of the microphone.