Metafeminism and Subjectivisation : Performing the Matrixial

Περίληψη

In this essay, I propose to consider the connection between performance and a feminine form of subjectivisation by indicating the borderlinking between contemporary performance and psychoanalysis. Performance will be approached as an event of co-becoming through the filter of the metafeminist theory of Bracha L. Ettinger. My intention is to contest the hegemonic model of a singular and autonomous subjectivity and undermine the phallocentric thinking that reproduces the binary logic of self/other to suggest that an alternative model of subjectivisation, rooted in the feminine, can be energised through performance-based practices. To do so, I will argue that performance is an embodied encounter-event that suggests a feminine model of becoming-with in order to contest the phallic logic of identity and desire that follows the paradigm of castration anxiety. The Ettingerian theory illuminates the constitution of a being-together and offers a feminine vision in the field of desire, subjectivity and art by opening the space of visibility with transconnecting and co-affecting qualities via artworking. Stressing the levels of malleability and jointness of the performing bodies, subjectivity will be approached as a participatory and ongoing process of performing and reforming the self to inform the oedipal model of identification, gendering and sexualisation. The matrixial sphere will be first analyzed and, on a second level, activated in practice by examining Tino Sehgal’s performance Kiss. Antigone will be revisited as a paradigm of subject-Woman which radically contests the phallic structures to shed light on another complex, a feminine supplementary perspective to Oedipus imbued by the mother-daughter relationship towards the emancipation of desire and the construction of new trans-connected worlds.