Dismantling the self : exploring the infinite becomings in Orlan's body of work

Abstract

This study is an attempt to elaborate the significance of multimedia and performance artist Orlan’s body and identity altering practices along the lines of Deleuzian theory, and to explore the points of overlap and resonances between their projects. It focuses on a range of conceptual resources, primarily Deleuze's formulations together with Guattari on ‘becoming’ to explore the artist’s fluid states of being that are always in the process of transition and her body’s constantly changing nature as a transformative experience. It also includes their theories of ‘rhizome’, ‘machinic assemblages’ and ‘body without organs’ to provide insights into her work as a form of expanded art practice that enables proliferating connections and collective arrangements, as well as to characterize it as a non-dualistic process that is no longer contingent on binary divisions.