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Dr Daniël "Dani" Ploeger is a new media and performance artist.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a3/Stelarc_and_Dani_Ploeger_2011.jpg/220px-Stelarc_and_Dani_Ploeger_2011.jpg)
Life
editPloeger was born in the Netherlands and is currently living and working in the United Kingdom. [citation needed]. He holds a PhD from the University of Sussex, UK, and teaches at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London.[1]
Work
editDani Ploeger's artwork focuses on the human body in connection to technology, sexuality and consumer culture.[2]
His work frequently addresses issues connected to sexuality and technology. In ELECTRODE, an anal electrode connected to an EMG sensor is used to replicate the sphincter contraction pattern of a masturbating experimental subject.[3] His work Ascending Performance features a Super 8 film of the naked artist and can be downloaded from MiKandi, an adult app store for Android phones.[4] The sexually explicit and technology-critical aspects of Ploeger's work have led to some controversies and both amused and fierce media responses. He has been described as a 'post-Stelarc' artist and the 'Jimi Hendrix of the Sphincter'.[5] Music critic Andy Hamilton has stated that there are "two assholes too many" in Ploeger's performance ELECTRODE[6] and the German newspaper Der Freitag has suggested that he 'abuses gender criticism to inflate something as art'[7]
Ploeger has created pieces addressing consumer culture and electronic waste, including Recycled Coil (2014), as part of which a body piercer installed a cathode ray television coil in Ploeger's abdomen for Art Hack Day Berlin,[8] and the installation Back to Sender (2013–14), a collaboration with Nigerian performance artist Jelili Atiku. It consists of a pile of broken European electronic appliances which were collected on dump sites in Lagos, Nigeria, and subsequently sent back to Europe.[2] In writing, interviews and public talks, Ploeger has critiqued consumption and planned obsolescence of digital devices,[9][10] the technological utopianism of artists such as Stelarc and Atau Tanaka,[11] and the sexualization of naked bodies in media culture[5] He performed at Arse Elektronika in San Francisco, where his sex tech performance installations involved medical consumer technologies and explored themes around the technologized body, sexuality and vanity.
References
edit- ^ "Dr Dani Ploeger | Royal Central School of Speech and Drama". www.cssd.ac.uk. Retrieved 12 September 2015.
- ^ a b "Dani Ploeger: The body electric". Imperica magazine. Imperica. Retrieved 9 September 2015.
- ^ Clarke, Alissa (2013). "Orgasms and Oppositions: Dani Ploeger's ELECTRODE". The Drama Review. 57 (3): 158–163. doi:10.1162/dram_a_00286. S2CID 57562986.
- ^ Schuler, Will (2015). "Getting a Rise out of ASCENDING PERFORMANCE: An Interview with Dani Ploeger" (PDF). Platform. 9 (1). Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 11 September 2015.
- ^ a b Reisz, Matthew (7 February 2013). "Naked lecturer looks for nude truth". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 11 September 2015.
- ^ Hamilton, Andy (14 November 2011). "Ostrava Music Days 2011". The Wire.
- ^ Vollmer, Jan (26 February 2014). "Schwer auf Draht". Der Freitag. Retrieved 11 September 2015.
- ^ Haught, Graham (7 February 2014). "Exhibition // Art Hack Day 2014". Berlin Art Link. Retrieved 11 September 2015.
- ^ Ploeger, Daniel (24 October 2014). "The smartphone I didn't need, electronic waste, and art". V&A Museum blog. V&A Museum. Retrieved 11 September 2015.
- ^ "Yourope: Vom Stromfresser zum Öko-Web? Auf dem Weg zum grünen Internet". ARTE tv. 2 May 2015. Archived from the original on 16 September 2015. Retrieved 11 September 2015.
- ^ Ploeger, Daniël (2011). "Sounds Like Superman? On the representation of bodies in biosignal performance". Interference: A Journal of Audio Culture. 1 (1). Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 11 September 2015.