The cyborg is usually imagined as an enhanced human body equipped with state-of-the-art technologies. Challenging this techno-utopian vision, I turned myself into a waste cyborg by installing electronic waste in my body that performed a useless technological function.

Parts of a deflection coil from a discarded CRT television were installed on my abdomen. A body piercer sewed magnetic wire from the coil through my skin and attached the coil’s connector above my belly button. For the duration of the exhibition at transmediale 2014, an electric current was run through the coil on my abdomen for one second every three-second interval. Thus, an electromagnetic pulse signal was generated. For several hours a day, I presented myself in the exhibition space, accompanied by a magnetometer detecting my magnetic field.

Body piercing by Dirk Hückler, Naked Steel Piercing and Body Modification, Berlin

Produced in collaboration with transmediale festival with support from the Mondrian Fund, NL