Know thyself was an art intervention held on the 21st of May 2016 in the EU Parliament building in Strasbourg. Read the PR of the performative action here.
Tag Archives: March against Monsanto
Know thyself PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Art intervention Know thyself occurs in EU Parliament on World Diversity Day
STRASBOURG, FR, – May 21, 2016 – In the Hemicycle of the EU Parliament, during the Closing Plenary Session of the European Youth Event 2016, Artist of Self Jatun Risba carried out the art intervention Know thyself claiming the necessity for a more embracing, supportive and compassionate society founded on the awareness of the Interconnectedness of All Life.
Those present in the Hemicycle were exposed to an intervention of the Movement & Vocalization Awareness Practice called INTER-ESSE (Latin for “to be in-between”): a self-cultivating activity that fosters well-being and creativity while promoting social integration and empathy. By revealing the liminal expressions of the thinking body − movement, gesture, voice and contact in the functioning of the autonomic nervous system, at the level of the limbic system[1] − the art intervention in the EU Parliament aimed to destigmatise social constructions of awkwardness and the “fear of Otherness” that indeed, Risba states, – : “[…] arises from the fear of the other within ourselves and from the fear of nothingness of individual self.” The performative action was held on the 21st of May – World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development – for a reason; its message being that a genuine dialogue with others can emerge only after we dare to acknowledge and listen to our selfless embodied consciousness without fear. It is the fear that ultimately creates violence and oppression.
KNOW THYSELF MANIFESTS THE DESIRE OF EUROPEAN YOUTH TO LIVE A FREE, INFORMED, HEALTHY, ACTIVE AND RESPECTFUL LIFE, WHILE RECOGNIZING THE CRUCIAL NEED OF BEING PART OF A SANE SOCIETY IN ORDER TO FULLY ACHIEVE IT. This is why Know thyself supports the claims of the March against Monsanto for the boycott of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and all harmful agro-chemicals AS THERE IS NO CURE IF NOT WITHIN THE SOCIETY ITSELF.
About Inter-esse
Inter-esse practice researches the conditions:
- In-between consciousness and non-consciousness: Spontaneous rhythmic breathing & repetitive movements bring a state of full awareness in motion.
- In-between human subjects: The main focus is the synchronization of people through movements and breath.
- In-between life and death: Inter-esse is a meditation on death in motion intended as a key to better living. It makes disciples aware of the constructed and hence illusory nature of personal identity. Through the shedding of individual self, Inter-esse promotes metacognitive awareness which arises from a holistic experience of humanness.
The Inter-esse performance can be seen as the dance of the “homo sacer“[2], as it encompasses both the sense of the “hallowed” (the Inter-esse practitioner is someone who operates outside the fiction of autobiographical self and their social status) and that of “cursed” (the boundaryless self has been expelled from (post-) industrial societies through the modern concepts of insanity as mental illness and of health and self as personal properties).
About Artist of Self Jatun Risba
Jatun Risba is the pioneer of transformative art practices named Arts of Self, a body-mind researcher and performer. Arts of Self is a metaartistic proposal that promotes the use of self-cultivating technologies (“arts of self”), which disclosure and enforce human innate capacities in order to produce personal and collective self-empowerment. The website of the Arts of Self’s initiative can be found at www.artsofself.com.
Contact Information
Telephone: +386-51-776-933 (Jatun Risba)
Email Address: jatun.risba@gmail.com
[1] A group of interconnected structures of the brain including the hypothalamus, amydala, and hippocampus that are common to all mammals, and are associated with emotions such as fear and pleasure, memory, motivation, as well as with the release of endorphins , body’s natural opiates, and various autonomic functions.
[2] Homo sacer (Latin for “the sacred man” or “the accursed man”) is a figure of Roman law: a person who is banned and may be killed by anybody, but may not be sacrificed in a religious ritual. More on the subject can be found in Giorgio Agamben, “Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life” (1998)