Marcel.lí Antúnez Roca (Moiŕ, 1959.) is well-known on the inter-national art scene for his mechatronic performances and robotic installations. A founding member of La Fura dels Baus, he worked in this company as an art co-ordinator, musician and performer from 1979 to 1989. In the nineties his avantgarde mechatronic performances combined such elements as bodybots (body-controlled robots), sy-stematurgy (interactive narration with computers) and dresskeleton (the exoskeleton body interface). The themes explored in his work include: use of biological materials in robotics (as in JoAn l’home de carn, 1992), telematic control (on the part of a spectator of an alien body in the performance Epizoo, 1994), expansion of body movements with dresskeletons (exoskeletical interfaces) used in the performan-cesAfasia (1998) and Pol (2002), involuntary choreography with a bodybot (Réquiem, 1999), and microbiological transformations in the installations (Rinodigestió, 1987 and Agar, 1999). He is currently working on the spatial artwork titled Daedalus.

In the early nineties his performance Epizoo caused a commotion on the international art scene. For the first time a performer’s body movements could be controlled by the audience. By operating a video-game, a spectator interacts with a bodybot worn by Antúnez, moving his buttocks, pectoral muscles, mouth, nose and ears. This performance stresses the ironical, and even cruel, paradox rising from the coexistence between virtual digital iniquity and the perfor-mer’s physical vulnerability.

Since the eighties, Antúnez’s work has been based on a continuous observation of how human desires are expressed and in what spe-cific situations they appear. First in the tribal performances of La Fura dels Baus and later, on his own, he expressed this interest by creating complex and in many cases hybrid systems, hard to classify. Antúnez’ works respectively belong to the fields of both visual and scenic arts.

From the early nineties, incorporation and transgression of scientific and technological elements in Antúnez’ work and their interpre-tation by means of unique and specific devises, have produced a new cosmogony — warm, raw and ironic — of traditional themes such as affection, identity or death. In his works these elements take on an extremely human dimension that causing a spontaneous reac-tion in the audience.

Antúnez has presented his work at numerous international venues: La Fundación Telefónica in Madrid, the P.A.C. in Milan, the Lieu Unique in Nantes, the I.C.A. in London, Kapelica Galleryin Ljubljana, Cena Contemporanea in Rio de Janeiro, the Barcelona MACBA and the DOM Cultural Center of Moscow. He has performed at the Inter-national Festivals EMAF, Osnabruck Germany, Muu Media Festival, Helsinki, Nouveau Cinéma Nouveaux Médias, Montreal, DEAF Rotterdam, Spiel.ArtMunich, and many others.

Antúnez’s work has appe-ared in the following publications: Il Corpo Postorganico by Teresa Macrě, ed. Costa&Nolan Milano;Body Art and Performances by Lea Vergine, ed. Skira, London;Marcel.lí Antúnez Roca performances, objetos y dibujos by Claudia Giannetti, ed. MECAD Barcelona, and the catalogueEpifanía published by Fundación Telefónica, Madrid, among others.

Antúnez received many awards: the first prize at the Festival Étrange, Paris, 1994; the Best New Media Noveaux Cinéma Noveaux Médias award, Montreal, 1999; the Max New Theatreaward, Spain, 2001; the FAD award, Barcelona, 2001; the Ars Electronica award, 2003; Prix Ciutat de Barcelona, multimedia, 2004.