Abstract
My performance involve wearing a self-made bikini adorned with selected words from Lacan's writings: CHOSE, THING, NOTHING, and Objet-petit-a. I will recline on a small, island-shaped carpet that I also crafted, evoking the act of sunbathing on a vacation. The movements will be minimal—perhaps subtle shifts in position—emphasizing stillness and silence. The performance unfold without sound, creating a space for contemplation.
The inspiration stems from a personal experience of discomfort when I felt objectified by men's gazes while at a beach. Through this work, I aim to explore the phenomenon of women being reduced to objects of desire under the male gaze. The performance is a reflection on the duality of existence, as articulated by Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida:
"I have two bodies. One is a narcissistic body, staring, falling into the mirror in front of me. The other is a perverted body, anxious not to fetishize the image, but to fetishize something beyond the image: obsessed with sound particles, the projection room, darkness, the blur of other bodies, light, entering and leaving; in a word, wanting to distance myself, to decouple myself from the screen."
By embodying both the objectified body and the resisting consciousness, I seek to interrogate the tension between being seen and asserting agency.