the very self in action

The sneezing person symbolizes the moment of being completely oneself. The very natural reflex of the body is something anyone can experience. A short moment in which we lose any kind of control, constraint or even reason. Moments of loss of control and the uncontrollable are the focus of the cinematic work, the very self in action by Anna Baranowski. In the video loop, she stages an everyday moment of loss of control: sneezing.. During the sneezing, an immediate reaction of the body to a stimulus, the "self" shows itself to be inferior to the physical despite all attempts at self-control: the face turns to the grimaces, the body cramps, the eyes tear and the voice barks – but after this short-term ecstasy refreshed and tidy to give the controlling "self" the supremacy again. By consciously bringing this moment forward and repeating it several times, Anna Baranowski shows the alternation between body and self-control and the loss of it as an undecided relationship between ratio and irratio.