Self-representation as a performative act of the body: absence-presence disruptions and aporias in the works of Helena Almeida and Jorge Molder

Abstract

This text analyses the series “Voar” (2001) by Helena Almeida and “Anatomy and Boxing” (1996) by Jorge Molder. Their practice mainly uses the language of photography, although it also contains a conceptual discussion on performance, as the living body of the artist is an ongoing presence actively participating in the artistic process. In this process, photography is not a recording of a situation but the place of an event – a place of embodiment, performativity, representation, and also identity –, in which the body is seen as a function of an absent presence. It constitutes the site of the artistic experience and not simply its object, representing the continuity between the image and its referent, by the transforming of the performative self-presence into the iconic self-absence of the body in the works. Exploring their creative process enables understanding the links between the ephemerality of the staged performance and the endless fictional possibilities of the photographic subject matter.