‘My Self, the Fetus’ at The Curators Room La Oficina BCN (2022)

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

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.

artist lisette ros performance for the curators room la oficina barcelona gabriel rolt
performance artist lisette ros live the curators room gabriel rolt barcelona residue left over skin installation
the curators room lisette ros la oficina barcelona
the curators room lisette ros la oficina barcelona gabriel rolt
My Self, the Fetus and The Curators Room in Exibart Spain, 14 April 2022.
my self the fetus lisette ros the curators room performance artist

© Visuals: Charlotte Ros, Lidioligy
© Lisette Ros