Overview

The philosophical notion of "self," which first appeared more than four hundred years ago in John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, has been somewhat challenged in recent years by a series of scientific discoveries about the role of bacteria inside the human body and the functioning of our immune system. In addition to the trillion cells that make up the human body, there are ten to a hundred times more bacterial cells living on its mucous membranes, performing essential functions for the individual. So, what could an artistic self-portrait look like if it took into account this entire set of bacterial cells, known as the microbiota? This is the journey that ORLAN and Mael le Mée embarked on during the participatory performance TANGIBLE STRIPTEASE (in nano-sequences), which took place on June 2, 2016, at the Bains Numériques festival in Enghien-les-Bains and on September 16 at the Festival Vivant in Paris.