Story of the “I”
Year: 2016.
Duration: 02:07
HD video, no sound
Story of the “I” (English)
The representation of one’s own body in works of female artists is opposed to the stereotypical ideal of the female body which is a universal metaphor for male desire, power, and social control.
In that way, representation of female sexuality in artworks of female artists became one of the key elements in finding new strategies in representing women that defied objectification as a norm in the production of artworks. In the video work, Story of the “I”, I’m using elements of performance art and fetishism that puts a sexual focus on a nonliving object and represents the obsessive attention and adoration.
The result is the creation of fantasy and different realities that are mutually intertwined. Through literary references, like Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille, a symbolic object, the egg, is used as a fetishistic object that becomes a symbol of desire and fantasies that are often hidden and repressed. In that way, objects that are traditionally considered as non-sexual become objects of power and desire in the context of fantasy.
That is opposed to the traditional symbolism and meaning of the egg as a symbol of life, birth, fertility, and also Christian symbolism of the egg as a metaphor for immortality, resurrection, and The Holy Trinity.
Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille Quotes
“The entire Story of the Eye was woven in my mind out of two ancient and closely associated obsessions, eggs and eyes, but nevertheless, I had previously regarded the balls of the bull as independent of that cycle. Yet when I finished reading to him, my friend remarked that I had absolutely no idea of what the glands I was writing about were really like, and he promptly read aloud a detailed description in an anatomical textbook. I thus learned that human or animal balls are egg-shaped and look the same as an eyeball.”[1]
“That was the period when Simone developed a mania for breaking eggs with her behind. She would do a headstand on an armchair in the parlor, her back against the chair’s back, her legs bent towards me, while I jerked off in order to come in her face. I would put the egg right on the hole in her ass, and she would skillfully amuse herself by shaking it in the deep crack of her buttocks. The moment my come shot out and trickled down her eyes, her buttocks would squeeze together and she would come while I smeared my face abundantly in her ass.
She was extremely weak and naturally I never stroked her seriously; but nevertheless, she soon delighted in having me throw eggs into the toilet bowl, hard-boiled eggs, which sank, and shells sucked out in various degrees to obtain varying levels of immersion. She would sit for a long time, gazing at the eggs. Then she would settle on the toilet to view them under her cunt between the parted thighs; and finally, she would have me flush the bowl.
Another game was to crack a fresh egg on the edge of the bidet and empty it under her: sometimes she would piss on it, sometimes she made me strip naked and swallow the raw egg from the bottom of the bidet. She did promise that as soon as she was well again, she would do the same for me and also for Marcelle.
At that time, we imagined Marcelle, with her dress tucked up, but her body covered and her feet shod: we would put her in a bathtub half filled with fresh eggs, and she would pee while crushing them.
Upon my asking what the word urinate reminded her of, she replied: terminate, the eyes, with a razor, something red, the sun. And egg? A calf’s eye, because of the color of the head (the calf’s head) and also because the white of the egg was the white of the eye, and the yolk the eyeball. The eye, she said, was egg-shaped. She asked me to promise that when we could go outdoors, I would fling eggs into the sunny air and break them with shots from my gun, and when I replied that it was out of the question, she talked on and on, trying to reason me into it. She played gaily with words, speaking about breaking eggs, and then breaking eyes, and her arguments became more and more unreasonable.
She added that, for her, the smell of the ass was the smell of powder, a jet of urine a “gunshot seen as a light;” each of her buttocks was a peeled hard-boiled egg. We agreed to send for hot soft-boiled eggs without shells, for the toilet, and she promised that when she now sat on the seat, she would ease herself fully on those eggs. Her cunt was still in my hand and in the state she had described; and after her promise, a storm began brewing little by little in my innermost depth—I was reflecting more and more.” [2]
[1] Georges Bataillle, Story of the „I“
[2] Georges Bataille, Story of the „I“
Story of the “I” (Croatian)
Prikazivanje vlastitog tijela kod umjetnica suprotstavljeno je stereotipnom idealu ženskog akta, koji je univerzalna metafora muške želje, moći, i društvene kontrole. Tako kroz pozicije modela žene ulaze u javni prostor, kao figure izložene muškom pogledu.
Taj koncept reprezentacije ženskog tijela naša tradicija prikazuje fiksnim i uokvirenim. Na razini prikazivanja, umjetnice su se suprotstavljale stereotipizaciji žena kao objekata u kulturi, razotkrivajući i kritizirajući strukture gledanja koje su je podržavale.
Tako je predstavljanje ženske seksualnosti u radovima umjetnica postalo jedan od ključnih elemenata pri nalaženju novih strategija u reprezentaciji žene, koje se opiralo objektivizaciji kao normi u produkciji umjetničkih djela.
Korištenjem elemenata performansa i fetišizma koji seksualni fokus stavlja na ne živući predmet i predstavlja opsesivnu pozornost i obožavanje, stvara se fantazija koja je isprepletena sa snovima i fikcijom.
Stvaraju se druge stvarnosti koje su međusobno isprepletene. Kroz literarne reference kao što je Story of the Eye Georgesa Bataille-a, koristim simbolički objekt jajeta kao fetišistički predmet koji putem performativnog čina postaje simbol želja i fantazija koje su često skrivene i potisnute.
Na taj način, objekti koji se tradicionalno ne smatraju seksualnim, postaju predmeti moći i želje u kontekstu fantazije.
To je suprotstavljeno tradiconalnoj simbolici i značenju jajeta kao simbola života, rođenja, plodnosti, te Kršćanske simbolike jajeta kao metafore za besmrtnost, uskrsnuće, i Sveto Trojstvo.