Dr Daniël "Dani" Ploeger is a

new media New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...

and

performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...

artist.

Life

Ploeger was born in the Netherlands and is currently living and working in the United Kingdom. . He holds a PhD from the

University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...

, UK, and teaches at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London.

Work

Dani Ploeger's artwork focuses on the human body in connection to technology, sexuality and consumer culture. 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. His work ''Ascending Performance'' features a

Super 8 film Super 8 mm film is a motion-picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement over the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format. The film is nominally 8 mm wide, the same as older formatted 8& ...

of the naked artist and can be downloaded from MiKandi, an adult app store for Android phones. 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 Stelarc (born Στέλιος Αρκαδίου ''Stelios Arcadiou'' in Limassol in 1946; legally changed his name in 1972) is a Cyprus-born Australian performance artist raised in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine, whose works focus heavily on ex ...

' artist and the 'Jimi Hendrix of the Sphincter'. Music critic Andy Hamilton has stated that there are "two assholes too many" in Ploeger's performance ELECTRODE and the German newspaper Der Freitag has suggested that he 'abuses gender criticism to inflate something as art' 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, and the installation ''Back to Sender'' (2013–14), a collaboration with Nigerian performance artist

Jelili Atiku Jelili Atiku is a multimedia performance artist and sculptor from Lagos, Nigeria. His performance with drawing, photography, installation sculpture, video and live performance have made him one of the most recognized performance artists from Nigeri ...

. 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. In writing, interviews and public talks, Ploeger has critiqued consumption and

planned obsolescence In economics and industrial design, planned obsolescence (also called built-in obsolescence or premature obsolescence) is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life or a purposely frail design, so that ...

of digital devices, the

technological utopianism Technological utopianism (often called techno-utopianism or technoutopianism) is any ideology based on the premise that advances in science and technology could and should bring about a utopia, or at least help to fulfill one or another utopian i ...

of artists such as Stelarc and Atau Tanaka, and the sexualization of naked bodies in media culture He performed at ''

Arse Elektronika Arse Elektronika is an annual conference organized by the Austrian arts and philosophy collective monochrom, focused on sex and technology. The festival presents talks, workshops, machines, presentations and films. The festival's curator is Johann ...

'' in San Francisco, where his sex tech performance installations involved medical consumer technologies and explored themes around the technologized body, sexuality and vanity.

References

External links

Dani Ploeger's homepage

Staff profile at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ploeger, Dani 1973 births Living people Dutch performance artists Academics of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama Alumni of the University of Sussex Royal Conservatory of The Hague alumni