THE INTIMACY OF OTHERNESS (2023-)
"Ultimately, there is no other. The other is part of us and I will engulf it fully and tenderly."
The Intimacy of Otherness is a 45-minute transmedia, multisensory performance lecture on Risba’s radical lived experience of self-healing from Multiple Sclerosis (2012–2019). This transformative process unfolded through guerrilla art interventions, dances of urgency, and various bliss-inducing techniques, including clubbing, (self-)hypnosis, and erotic expression.
In Act 1 :Composting in the More-than-Human World. Finding Stillness on the Refuge Tree, the lecture’s script is voiced by AI-generated narrators while the artist lies motionless on vertical tree logs. By re-enacting their remarkable performance Be-coming Tree, they embody and reveal the qualities necessary to turn the seemingly “impossible” (healing, transformation, etc.) into an I’m possible reality. Alongside the narration, cinematic-scale projections showcase selected videos from Risba’s past art interventions, performances, and video works, providing context for the story.
Act 2: A piercing touch of gentleness is narrated by the artist’s cloned voice, addressing the impact of absent fathers on children and the destructive effects of patriarchy on all beings. This act also explores the materiality and performative uses of hypodermic needles.
Act 1 was produced and premiered at the Y: Survive! event at Divadlo X10 in Prague (November 2023) and later presented at the Opens: Ganachakra event in Singapore (March 2024) and in Špitalska kapela in Celje, Slovenia (June 2024). Act 2 was developed during the House of Research 2024 artist residency at Studio Alta and premiered as a proof-of-concept performance at the Festival Kvír Vědomostí in Prague on June 29, 2024.
CREDITS
A project by and with Jatun Risba.
Photo: Oskar Helcel
Video editing: Franco G. Livera
With special thanks to Anna Chrtková, Petr Dlouhý, Mara Ševčíková, Simon Macuh, Divadlo X10, Studio Alta and Festival kvír vědomostí.