Exercises in Existential Eccentricity. Conceptualising autoimmunity as a variation of the conditio humana
(2023)
author(s): Barbara Macek
published in: University of Applied Arts Vienna
Barb Macek (PhD candidate and fellow (DOC) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences at the Institute of Fine Arts & Media Arts) takes as her starting point self-reflections and her own experiences with the autoimmune disease SLE. She approaches the phenomenon of autoimmunity in relation to fundamental human ambiguity, following the philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner. Macek’s contribution, "Exercises in Existential Eccentricity", explores the bio-philosophical dimension of the disease rather than its bio-medical dimension, showing how autoimmunity raises existential-phenomenological questions regarding bodily ownership, the self, and the notion of the body as “one’s own”. From an assumed embodied diversity, she designs an artistic technique, EEE - Exercises in Existential Eccentricity, drawing on the technique of auto-interviewing, autoethnography and poetics to facilitate a dialogue between different inner voices.
EEE – Exercises in Existential Eccentricity: Movements, Artefacts, Transitions. By Barb Macek
(2022)
author(s): Barbara Macek, Jonas Howden Sjøvaag
published in: SAR Conference 2020
Autoimmune diseases have become a global health problem, with rising numbers of people affected. But cause and genesis of these diseases are still unresolved, so finding new ways to understand the underlying processes is in demand.
Aiming at a new conception of autoimmunity I developed a technique titled “Exercises in Existential Eccentricity” (EEE) within the framework of autoethnography and the biophilosophy of Helmuth Plessner. The EEE were designed to investigate autoimmunity in a practical and daring way by exposing the researcher in her vulnerability as being affected by a chronic autoimmune disease.
The results are expected to expand our understanding of autoimmunity and provide new images to help people cope with autoimmune diseases.