The Hinges on the Doors of Marriage: The Body’s Openness to Information in the Art of Stelarc and Blake

Abstract

When William Blake makes statements regarding the experience of human life, his tone varies between inclusive and exclusive statements. Consider the contrast between two of the instances where Blake compares the experience of humans with those of flies. In Songs of Experience, Blake identified commonalities between flies and men, who are linked by their inability to resist mortal blows dealt by careless hands, whether human or divine in origin. Small or large, bodies need thought and feeling to live. If thought, exemplified by dancing, drinking, and singing, is life then Blake’s poem constructs bodies as closely linked with emotions. In ‘The Fly’ (E23) life is characterized by summer’s play and death by the absence of the same. The simplicity of the poem’s language emphasizes that humanity is a state, freely accessible to all and common across different species.