playing with dead things on the internet

"Experiments in Galvanism is the culmination of studio and gallery experiments in which a miniature computer is implanted into the dead body of a frog specimen. Akin to Damien Hirst's bodies in formaldehyde, the frog is suspended in clear liquid contained in a glass cube, with a blue ethernet cable leading into its splayed abdomen. The computer stores a website that enables users to trigger physical movement in the corpse: the resulting movement can be seen in gallery, and through a live streaming webcamera."

I love that the web server is actually in the frog. It's the little things.

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16 Responses:

  1. azul_ros says:

    That's very strange...

  2. matthew says:

    The artist cheated and uses servos to move the legs. Where's the fun in that?

    • That's pretty much the only way to fly if the frog is dead. Hooking up muscle-triggering wires to take long-term control of a living frog has the twinned difficulties of being beyond the abilities of most neurosurgeons, and inviting a tac nuke strike by PETA. (Of course, if you let the latter stop you, you're letting the terrorists win...)

      • matthew says:

        Any artist not willing to supply a new dead frog every day just isn't trying hard enough ;) That's sure to piss off PETA.

      • mmm
        It seems like they don't have to aim electrodes precisely into nerves. Actually, they can use electrodes _instead_ of nerves, just applying sufficient voltage to the muscles directly. AFAIK. Since the frog is dead, and not meant to serve for long, they can ignore consequent damage.

        • usufructer says:

          Muscles aren't powered by electricity. That will work until the energy stored in the muscles before the frog died is used up, and then stop. The frog would have to be replaced on a regular basis, as another poster said, or you would have to fashion a heart-lung device for the frog and find a way to feed the frog zombie.

  3. wyndebreaker says:

    What I found just as bizarre was the fact that they use the Camino browser in their screenshots.

  4. dossy says:

    New business plan:

    1. Dig up physically attractive corpses.

    2. Attach computer to body, connect Ethernet and set up webcam.

    3. Set up website for viewing of webcam. Offer private one-on-one sessions where payee can control the body behind the cam.

    4. PROFIT!!!

    This is the Porn Webcam 2.0, and now you don't even have to pay the models, they're dead!

  5. wetzel says:

    talk about case mods . . .

  6. 40hex says:

    That's even more macabre than the reanimated dogs thing...

  7. jwm says:

    <lj-raw>

    I was just reading 1602, part 4, where, amongst other things, Count Otto Von Doom is tinkering with twitching, galvanic frogs...

    </lj-raw>