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Arts & Communication A mean, the body. A mean body

where my head should land so I could have a sense of space When I started covering my body with the compost,
when starting the covering since no one was present with its strong smell emanated. This odor somehow began to
me in my apartment that day. My head should be in the intensify as I transferred it from the can to the aluminum
middle of the rectangular frame. Once I tried landing and bowl, which would lay next to me on the floor. I had
positioning myself in place a couple of times and recording never encountered such a pungent smell before. Strong.
it to check I was doing it correctly, I decided to proceed Decomposition, oxidation, molding, all, at once, over me.
with the real version — the only version, in fact, because I, too, am undergoing oxidation. “The body produces free
up to that point, I had not touched the compost yet. radicals during normal metabolic processes. Oxidative
Performativo — performative — is not an accepted word stress can damage cells, proteins, and DNA, which
by the Real Spanish Academy (RAE), “una institución can contribute to aging. It may also play a role in the
cultural dedicada a la regularización lingüística entre el development of a range of health conditions, including
mundo hispanohablante” (a cultural institution dedicated diabetes, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases such
[12]
to linguistic regularization among the Spanish-speaking as Alzheimer’s” . My mother had thyroid cancer in her
world) . Only “performance” — written the same in early forties, resulting in one less organ in her inventory;
[11]
Spanish — is recognized and hence allowed by them. On my grandaunt from my mom’s dad’s side had breast
February 11, 2019, they stated in a tweet ( RAEinforma) that cancer, resulting in two less organs in her inventory; my
@
“«Performativo», «performatizar» y «performatividad» no grandmother from my dad’s side has Alzheimer’s, ok the
están en el diccionario académico, por considerarse voces brain is still there; my grandpa, from my dad’s side, too,
técnicas no generalizadas,” meaning that “performativo,” faced Alzheimer’s and he just left all — organs together —
“performatizar,” and “performatividad” are not in the at once. It happened in <3 months, that my grandfather
academic dictionary because they are considered technical showed the first signs of dementia or Alzheimer’s (there
terms that are not widely used. Because they are considered was not enough time for a clear diagnosis), and then he
technical voices, not generalized—enough. Who cares? died. Heart attack. He could not bear losing his mind, I
What is technical? Who are you to decide? Anyway, I am guess, so he rather lost it all. Flawless health till then. Do
writing this in English, so performative will suffice (and tumors count as organs? No need to answer; I do not
has sufficed because I have been using this word for a think I want to know. Thankfully, humans do not smell
while now). that strong. However, I read somewhere that when you get
older, you start to smell — more — and it is not due to a lack
of hygiene. It is a type of peptide that is accentuated with
A B oxidation, and regular soap is not capable of denaturalizing
this. This is what produces that old smell.
Similarly, as with the collected compost, I covered
my torso with blue tape, black tape, brown rice (looked
white), a Walgreens paper bag, processed compost (the
one I got at the farmers market where I dropped my raw
compost so they could let the worms convert it into a less
Figure 4. Grids 1 (A) and 2 (B), sculpture, Plaster of Paris (New York, smelly version), and cream cheese. In all these iterations,
February 2020). I preserved a similar frame with the camera, so it was a
horizontal rectangle with my head in the middle, and
mostly, in all of them, my breasts showed. Nothing below
that. These were made during strict social distancing times.
And I recorded them with my phone in this way, so I could
revise them later, present them on Zoom to my professors,
make fun gifs, or just show my tits. I love to go topless, yes,
free the nipple for all.
In a way, I was recording spaces of a grid. Self-
inventorying.
6. The grid is (too) active

Figure 5. Grid me, photographic documentation of performance by the I tried to remember which floor you lived on. I should
author (New York, March 2021). have known this; I have been there plenty of times,

Volume 1 Issue 2 (2023) 7 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1137