Anders Kolle

Two Be or Not Two Be Anders Kolle

Two Be or Not Two Be is an inquiry into the construction of identity, the concepts of sameness and self regarded from a postal perspective and postal economy of sendings and returns. Through a reading of Derrida´s The Postcard and Freud´s Beyond the Pleasure Principle the self is brought from stasis to movement, from a given to a gift: The gift of self that one must ceaselessly give and hand over to one-self. Following in the footsteps of the animal and in particular the territorial animal marking out a piece of land, manifesting it-self through repetitions and returns, the author asks: In what way does this animal practice differ from the everyday practice of humans and our influence on our surroundings? Are we not as well constantly engaged in a doubling practice turning our surroundings into mirrors and surfaces for our image and its return? Endlessly engaged in a writing and a marking of objects and each other? What in this sense is in other words not auto-biographical in our conduct? A life self-written, a self-writing of life, and a life-writing of self.