SELF as OTHER, or: speaking aut*
We, Anna Nygren (AnnaN/annan) and Barb Macek (barb/brab), started an exchange of thoughts about the meaning of "aut" – as in aut/istic and aut/oimmune – that became the initial point for a collaborative project. We want to investigate what it means to live as auts, to write about it in regard to everyday life, in regard to the medical discourses about autism and aut/oimmunity, and in regard to the view of the "others", the not-auts.
Beyond that, as writers we are also interested in the aut/hor-ror – as something that disturbs within or next to the aut and makes it scary, but also triggers something else, and thereby invites to a rethinking of aut/hor(ror)-ship.
In the context of language-based artistic research we seek to develop practices that allow for investigating the meaning of aut on different levels of our existence.
Anna works with miss-spellings: with Spells, the magic spells and rituals of witches, the magic, dark and blooming – the spelling of wor(l)ds finding hidden things in miss-takes. As for the OTHER, Anna became AnnaN – "annan" in swedish means "other", indicating the hidden thing inside her that is unknown, the autistic, the mysterious.
Barb’s practice aims at a different understanding of an immune system that shows autoimmune activity – that treats the immunological SELF as the immunological OTHER, and asks for the meaning of this confusion, or dissolution, with the aid of poetical means, like chance and repetition.
By exchanging our experiences with "being aut" we try to explore new wor(l)ds, we experiment with transgressing borders (self – other / human – nonhuman / something – nothing / …) not only on the level of language but also on the pictorial and material level.
* Speaking out and at the same time speaking as auts, but also speaking in a language called "aut"
the eye in the mouth
dragging over the skin
the room in the head
the hurting in the wound
cover with a blanket
tender to keep
look of mine
dream sequence
late to come
in over
soft skin
soft bones
sceleton that
the foxes and the dogs
leave nothing behind
no the child can’t get a grip of the adult psychology
like the mother, the market is whimsical
humour are troublesome
SEE MY EYE MY EYES ARE CLOSED MY MIND IS OPEN MY MOTH IS OPEN MY EYES ARE CLOSED MY SORE IS THROAT MY TUMMY IS EMPTY MY HEART IS HURT MY EYE IS A LID MY EYE CAN’T LOOOOOOK AT UUUUU MY HANDS ARE EYES MY
the flimsical freedom of the nerd
sunky
masochism
mass-oh-schism
dead and blind
who is actually this “self” and how to like them?
touchy abstractions
bliss blush plus size
murderous bittersweet
body-heavy
so embarrassing so sorry so softified so sophisticated
GLOWING
O
Other
O meta-death, metaphors are living dead
O a-lien
O zzzzz-oh!-mbie
Anna Nygren / annan, 2023
NIGHT EMOTIONS
heartbeat protects
us groping flesh
at night.
autoantibody.
grasping fingers death flesh
to be traced in the thicket.
MY SOFT ORGANS
a finger destroying
silence, is, propositions
body. my soft organs.
aberrant finger systemic
lupus erythematosus.
AFTER WORDS
substantives, propositions
an autoimmune disease.
can this immune system
after words can this
is it the truth
newly invented?
CHIRPING CALLED SLE
perfect forehead awkward
autoantibody – the course of disease
sound flames, parasites.
the immune system against
viruses, wing wind.
chirping called SLE
a predisposition kidneys
destroy, the exterior –
BEHIND THE CLOUDINESS
lupus erythematosus
in the worst case. the human fronthead
generates destroying.
sound flames, autoantibodies.
against itself. cloudiness of sparrows.
also against burdens, strains. the body
is able to, also behind
the cloudiness, autoantibodies …
ANTIBODIES AGAINST SPARROWS
the body generates destroying
antibodies against sparrows
blue tits behind the forehead.
inconvenient, against itself.
Also young factors and a certain.
kidneys work perfectly
in (at) mood like. A perfect
forehead, antibodies may –
Barb/Brab, SELF-description:
autoimmune eccentric:
selfdiffering, selfdissolving entity,
multiplicity
less and more than one
all at the same time.
CAUSING DEATH ARE REDDISH FACTORS
sound flames and causing
death are reddish factors
few. human kidneys.
destroy. lupus erythematosus.
sound flames. it is the night sky
clouds of sparrows.
it is lupus who endangers the birds.
also known as SLE
wallpaper –
FLOOD OF BLACK BIRDS
lupus: cloudiness of autoantibodies,
in the worst case it is a flood
of black birds. At closing
the eyes the night sky.
while the environment leads to death.
a perfect defense, that quickly can
switch color to impatience known as SLE
or a package of earth –
AGGRESSIVE DEFENSE IN THE HEAD/ MIND
a perfect elaborate
health police in
impatience. burdens
work. sky, antibodies.
also of genetic factors.
how can lupus erythematosus
– clouds of sparrows, whose
aggressive defense in the mind –
INSOLATION
also insolation,
package of earth that quickly
recolors to impatience. erythematosus.
in all organs, wing winds, virus attack.
the human speed generates
in the worst case destroying antibodies.
a package, is it a disposition –
ANTIBODIES, ACOUSTIC
lupus. also in the head
the systemic lupus
erythematosus
also insolation,
package of earth, that quickly recolors
into impatience.
reddish factors in the head
the human speed
antibodies, acoustic –
DESTROYED TIME AUTOANTIBODY
– inflamed, whose aggressive
out of shadows, destroyed time autoantibodies.
halted, time.
out of shadows, by itself is. the
body time itself or protects, accordingly
bodily and temporary
out of the shadow death a physical
place, its time –
NOISE TREATMENT
grasping, during defense reactions
internally sets of
the noises‘ treatment
as a general rule life-long
of knives the noises
behave without treatment
are the noises, same as,
while internally,
life-long …
COLLECTING SIGNS
tracing lupus signs
collecting human sounds
inventing. or
autoimmune diseases
destroy the human kidneys …