From autopoiesis to the dissolution of one’s own identity through performative and corporal arts

Abstract

This article proposes the idea of a contemporary artistic practice —including the aesthetic experience of the artist and circumscribing ourselves to the sphere of the performative and corporal arts—, as an effective way for the dissolution of one’s own identity. To do this, we will start from the concept of autopoiesis in relation to a broad notion of «performativity», since the creation or constitution of the self is the result of performative acts and enunciations. After presenting this first premise, we will pose the following question: is it possible to perform the dissolution of the self? We will think about the possibility of the technologies of the self (in Foucauldian terms) as «technologies or techniques of the liberation of the self», that is, as modes of construction of a state of consciousness in which the construct «self» has no place. Finally, we will refer to artistic practice and aesthetic experience as spaces of resistance in the face of the demand for attribution and recognition of one’s own identity, including the assignment of gender.