My Self, the Fetus
Live-performance + residue installation
Duration: 5 hours
2015

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My Self, the Fetus, a durational live performance with a special audio-piece at The Podium, Het Nieuwe Instituut.

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 private opening of PRIDE and Art Rotterdam, on top of this beautiful architecture art piece The Podium at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, NL. For this exclusive performance, a special audio piece was created and exhibited.

© Photos by Ossip van Duivenbode, Naomi van Heck
© Lisette Ros