Introduction – Minds, Bodies, Machines

Abstract

Which of us has not stood, captivated, before one of the ‘human statues’ that are now such a feature of tourist sites the world over? In October 2006, so many such figures lined the famous boulevard Las Ramblas in Barcelona’s red light district that the City Council resolved to submit them to an ‘artistic test’, as a way of reducing their number. These bizarre street artists, mutely and inscrutably defying the spectator to detect a flicker of life in their expressionless faces or their still, poised bodies, are magical figures of suspended animation.