But They Are Not You
32 letters and a book, 2011
Someone is leading a life parallel to your own. This person looks like you, answers to your name, lives in your house. But they are not you.
But they are not you is a work produced by MAP conceived in two parts - a series of letters and a book. The work took place directly inside the viewers' homes, unobtrusively accompanying their lives throughout the month of December of 2011. The message above was sent to the entirety of MAP's mailing list in an email that called for those "interested in being on the receiving end of the piece" to write back.
Those who replied to this message were sent an exhaustive questionnaire, which ranged from standard survey questions to others such as "If someone's underwear was showing, would you tell them?" or "What do you do when you are home alone at night and you hear noises that sound like footsteps?"
After reading the answers, the artist selected 8 people and created a fictional character for each of them that was as close to the real person as she could get. Throughout the month of December, each participant received a number of letters at home or at their workplace. The letters arrived through the post's 'return to sender' method, signed under their name and directed to one of the other participants. In this way, a story with multiple and intertwining plotlines was created, with each person only receiving the point of view of his own, fictional character.
Documentation of the project, together with a critical essay by Mia Jankowicz, is collected in the book But They Are Not You, published by Bielbooks and available here.
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Alguien está llevando una vida paralela a la tuya. Esta persona tiene el mismo aspecto que tú, responde a tu nombre, vive en tu casa. Pero no eres tú.
Pero no eres tú es una obra producida por MAP (Estocolmo) y concebida en dos partes: una serie de cartas y un libro. El mensaje citado arriba se envió a todos los contactos de MAP, pidiendo a los que estuvieran "interesados en ser receptores de la pieza" su confirmación por mail. La pieza se llevó a cabo en el hogar de los espectadores, acompañando sus vidas a lo largo del mes de diciembre de 2011.
Quienes contestaron recibieron un cuestionario extenso. Al estudiar las respuestas, la artista seleccionó a 8 personas y creó un personaje ficticio para cada uno de ellas, intentando mantenerse tan fiel a la persona real como le permitiera la información obtenida.
A lo largo del mes de diciembre, cada participante recibió una serie de cartas en su hogar o su lugar de trabajo, firmadas con su nombre. En los sobres se encontraba únicamente el nombre de pila de otro de los participantes y como única dirección "Estocolmo", de modo que las cartas venían devueltas a su remitente. De esta manera, se generó una trama coral, con cada persona recibiendo únicamente el punto de vista de su propio personaje ficticio.
El libro But They Are Not You, publicado por Bielbooks y disponible aquí, reúne una selección de la documentación del proyecto, junto con un texto de la escritora y comisaria Mia Jankowicz.
