As Yet Unnamed
Above: Video of networked performance As Yet Unnamed.
For over ten years I have created a series of performances on the role of the artist, identity and being. These initially addressed ideas of identity in ‘virtual’ spaces, its relation to identity in ‘real’ space and subsequently how it changes to form what can be considered a total identity.
In As Yet Unnamed, a performance that occurred on the 11th of February 2019 within the context of a residency and the exhibition Self as Actor: colonising identity at NeMe Arts Centre in Cyprus, I legally changed my name to include IRL – the acronym in ‘real’ life and abbreviation of Ireland. Unlike my avatar Garrett Lynch (IRL) employed in performances in ‘virtual’ spaces the acronym is now employed without brackets as Garrett Lynch IRL in ‘real’ spaces. The performance occurred in Limassol, Cyprus and was live streamed to Facebook.
Combinations of language in the form of speaking, writing and typing functioned as performative acts within the performance enabling the folding of identity from ‘virtual’ space, originally folded into ‘virtual’ space in early performances, back out to ‘real’ space to complete a full cycle. In the process, the conventional relationship between what is ‘real’ and what is ‘virtual’, that is that the ‘virtual’ generally tends to a be a representation of what is ‘real’, is integrated and complexified. No longer a link or connection of identity from ‘virtual’ space out to ‘real’ space, Garrett Lynch IRL without brackets serves as a reference to all previous performances, their juxtaposition of ‘real’ with ‘virtual’ and affirms that the physical or corporeal embodiment of my identity is the original, the ‘real’ Garrett Lynch. By changing my name in this way my reality is transformed and the remainder of my life becomes an ongoing performance.
Above: As Yet Unnamed. Click to view larger images.