If This is a Man: a practice lead enquiry into questions of Authenticity, Jewishness and Masculinity

《如果这是一个男人：一种对真实性、犹太性和男子气概问题的探究实践》将为一个新兴的艺术写作领域做出贡献，该领域将自己定位在文学、表演和当代艺术实践的交叉点上。这项研究是由我作为一名艺术家的工作推动的，我把写作理解为一种实践形式，包括表演诗歌文本、展览、活动和雕塑对象。研究的核心问题是研究和发展哀悼的诗学。这个项目的重要性出现在政治冲突加剧的时期。在最后一批大屠杀幸存者死亡的同时，极右翼运动以及反犹太主义和法西斯主义事件却在增加。这个项目背后的紧迫性是进一步理解艺术研究作为一种生产方式如何有助于对抗这种影响。同样，全球男性自杀率也在上升，因此我们有必要问一下，造成这一统计数据的叙述、空间和机会是什么，我们可以做些什么来改变它？为了实现这个项目，我将利用我作为犹太侨民第三代成员的特殊个人历史身份，利用这些移民的历史作为我的研究交叉的支点。李维的文本为这个项目的追求提供了一个基本的出发点，将一种特殊的情感与理解历史事件的紧迫性结合起来，为思考我们当代的政治和社会气候提供了一个平台。哀悼诗学这个术语提出了激进的开放性作为一种方法论，它包括虚构化、自传、诗歌、理论分析和精神分析的使用，以及在表演和展览制作中使用亲密和在场。我们的目标是创造出既脆弱又诚实的作品，同时保持高度的智力严谨。核心问题围绕着真实性、遗产、表观遗传、创伤、哀悼和男子气概的构建等概念。我特别打算研究证词的政治和诗学，探索集体记忆的概念，将它们与见证、哀悼和悲伤的行为联系起来。这项研究从保罗·塞兰和雅克·德里达在《主权问题》一书中对他的作品的分析开始，然后进入路易斯·祖可夫斯基、内莉·萨克斯、弗雷德·莫顿和玛吉·纳尔逊的作品。这种追求与沃尔特·本雅明、贝尔·胡克斯和汉娜·阿伦特的著作的持续研究相结合。我还将探索表观遗传的科学领域，研究创伤和历史事件对DNA构成的影响。最近对大屠杀幸存者进行的这项研究表明，他们创伤的影响已经在基因构成中代代相传。这项研究与w.g.西博尔德的《奥斯特里茨》和《移民》以及克里斯蒂安·博尔坦斯基的作品有交集。这些探索与自我传记的问题有关，争论是否有可能在不了解导致一个人的地位、安全和地位的迁移和事件的情况下真实地理解一个人的经历？

If This Is A Man: A practice led enquiry into questions of Authenticity, Jewishness and Masculinity will offer a contribution to an emerging field of art-writing that positions itself at the intersections of literature, performance, and contemporary art practice. The research is driven by my work as an artist that understands writing as a form of practice and includes performative poetic texts, exhibitions, events, and sculptural objects. The central research questions seek to investigate and develop a poetics of lamentation. The significance of this project comes at a time of heightened conflicting politics. Whilst the last Holocaust survivors are dying, far-right movements and episodes of anti-Semitism and fascism have been increasing. The urgency behind this project is to further the understanding of how artistic research as a mode of production can contribute to combatting such affects. Similarly, there has also been an increase in global male suicide, as such it is vital to ask, what are the narratives, spaces and opportunities that is causing this statistic and what can be done to change it? In achieving this project, I will draw upon my particular personal historical identity as a third-generation member of Jewish diaspora, using the histories of these migrations as the fulcrum around which my research intersects.Levi's text acts a foundational departure point for the pursuit of this project, combining a particular emotional sentiment with the urgency to understand historical events, producing a platform for contemplating our contemporary political and social climate. The term poetics of lamentation proposes radical openness as a methodology, which encompasses the use of fictionalisation, autobiography, poetry, theoretical analysis and psychoanalysis, in conjunction with the uses of intimacy and presence in performance and exhibition making. The aim is to create work that is vulnerable and honest in combination whilst maintaining a high degree of intellectual rigour. The core questions revolve around notions of authenticity, heritage, epigenetic inheritance, trauma, mourning and constructs of masculinity. In particular I intend to investigate the politics and poetics of testimony, exploring ideas of collective memory, tying them to the act of witnessing, mourning and grief. This research starts with Paul Celan and Jacques Derrida's analysis of his works in Sovereignties in Question, moving into the works of Louis Zukofsky, Nelly Sachs, Fred Moten and Maggie Nelson. This pursuit is combined with an on-going study of the writings of Walter Benjamin, bell hooks, and Hannah Arendt. I will also explore the scientific field of epigenetic inheritance, which studies the effects of trauma and historical events upon the make-up of DNA. Most recently this research was conducted on survivors of the Holocaust, suggesting that the effects of their trauma had been passed down through generations in the genetic make-up. This research intersects with W.G Sebald's Austerlitz and The Emigrants as well the work of Christian Boltanski. These explorations are attached to questions of auto-biography, debating whether it is possible to authentically understand one's experiences without understanding the migrations and events that lead to one's position, security and place?