How do I lose I — raffiali

吾丧我 How do I lose I

single-channel video & performance, 20-30 min, 2021
performers: Raffia Li, Miiel Ferráez, Iga Świeściak, and Yanfei Li (in video) at Performing Arts Forum, Saint-Erme-Outre-et-Ramecourt, France

This performance is a playful and expansive research about languages as sites/landscapes for collective subjectivity, working through an ancient text from Zhuangzi, a Taoist literature, and the different definitions of an “I” in Chinese characters, as “我”, a position of holding a weapon, or a kind of tilting ; as “吾”, the five entrances/exits in the encountering and sensing. What would happen if 吾 can lose 我？

It plays with the body in action of writing “我-I” with hand and chopsticks, in the air, and on water, on purposely producing the kind of writing that would disappear, playing with the idea of a constantly disappearing “I”, but also bringing up front the question of what counts as writing, and criticizing the performance itself using a highly sighted and hearing oriented format, reflecting the hierarchy of senses in a neurotypical world.

performance excerp, editing/Raffia Li
camera/Dakota Guo photo/Miyoung Chang

Raffia Li 融

Raffia
Li 融