Rot(Hunger)16

The inspiration for my work series Rot(Hunger) is the book of the same name by Senthuran Varartharajah. The starting point for Varatharajah's book are proverbs such as ‘Ich habe dich zum Fressen gern’ or ‘I wanne eat you out’. He takes these proverbs and interprets them literally in his philosophical exploration of cannibalism, revealing the depth of the figurative language of love. Only love teaches us loneliness, according to the thesis of the book Rot(Hunger). For the person we love is the most absent person of all, because he can never be close enough. Our body, which gives us form, marks a boundary that prevents us from absolute closeness. For Varatharajah, this conflict is resolved in cannibalism, as this physical boundary can be overcome by eating the other. In this sense, a human eater or anthropophagus is a lover. According to Varatharajah, love therefore harbours an inherently destructive potential. In favour of overcoming loneliness, the individual must objectify himself for the desire of the other and thus give up his subjectivity. By marking the self and setting one's own boundaries, there is the other as the negation of the self. This distance between the self and the other enables true proximity, which has inscribed the distance and demands the dissolution of the set boundary. The transgression and destruction of boundaries presuppose a definition of these. My works show photographs of my body, as flesh, as Cator, as an object. They show its boundaries, which need to be dissolved. Because love without physical objectification is impossible. And so the threat of objectification and the dissolution of the individual is always implicit in the offer of love. The lines and words cut through the body. Language in its nature is discriminating (distinguishing) and draws boundaries between and around entities. What is linguised is the finite, the mortal. The non-existent has no language, because it has no boundaries. Words separate and differentiate, just as the body separates and divides lovers, making them truly lonely for the first time.