My Self, the Fetus
Live-performance + residue installation
Duration: 4 hours
2015

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My Self, the Fetus, a durational live performance at The Curators Room – La Oficina Barcelona, Spain.

My Self, the Fetus has meant the start of researching the self and the identification process. This research series is now existing of 5 parts, and arose from the convention of “just being yourself”. Because, what does that actually mean and contain: just being yourself? 

The recognition of who we are is defined by our self-conscience as it is defined by ‘the Other.’ The start of our identification process means decreasing the sense of self. As poet Arthur Rimbaud sharply stated: “Je est un autre” – the I is someone else / I am someone else – the I is created through other people’s view. Throughout our lives, after we’ve lost this self, we will be constantly performing [other people’s vision on/of us]. An insight occurred: in the current society a human being can only have a sense of self when the identification process has not yet started, and therefore when there is no self-consciousness yet.

This research was translated into a durational live performance and installation in which the artist lies down in fetal position with the body covered in a material that evolves from liquid to fixed to cracked within a durational time frame. This represents the decreasing of the self while other people’s vision takes over. The left-over skin – the residue – which is peeled off at the end of the performance, is the representation of this.

This page shows some stills taken during the live performance at the pre-birth of the second space by The Curators Room – La Oficina Barcelona in March 2022.

© Visuals: Charlotte Ros, Lidioligy
© Lisette Ros