Body

Beschrijving :

I’m researching the concept of body and the relationship between subject and object. According to certain philosophical standpoints (Hume, Sartre, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Legrand) the body as subject can only be felt and experienced in a pre-reflective stage, aka when one is not aware of it. Becoming aware of one’s body implies a switch from ‘the-body-that-I-am’ to ‘the-body-that-I-own’. The body that I own is thus a body ‘outside’ of me, that I can analyze, investigate, observe. It’s the body others get to see as well. It becomes a ‘body-for-others’. I’ve found fascinating to compare the look of Hasse, a painter, on her own body (while re-enacting the compulsive, critical way in which she would look at it when going through anorexia) and on a stranger’s body, a body she can recreate on paper. I think that the word ‘weight’ assumes a double, metaphorical meaning here, showing how harder it is to be kind to oneself than to another. Being inside your body asks for acceptance, way more than just ‘objectively’ looking at a body. It also shows how in the end the act of looking (intertwined with the ‘becoming aware of one’s body’ process via, in a certain sense, ‘objectifying’ it) involves learning to interpret and, like other practices, it involves relationships of power which, in this context, we play with our own bodily self.

Credits:

• Atalmi, Elena [Maker]
• RITCS, School of Arts [Uitgever]
• RITCS, School of Arts [Rechthebbende]