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The Affirmation of ‘Life’ Beyond Governance

The Russian born artist BioNihil has performed a number of artistic interventions in public buildings and spaces, including in Germany where he currently resides. In his performance Everybody is Illegal (2011), he cut this particular phrase into the skin of his chest before an audience, at the Institute of France in Valencia. After the bloody ‘affirmation’ had been made with the razor, he then proceeded to embrace the individual audience members present in the room, performatively stamping them with his blood. This article looks at BioNihil’s performance as an example of performance art that directly critiques the idea of citizenship in a time that is marked by securitarian styles of governance, austerity and anti-asylum hysteria. The objective is to demonstrate that whilst BioNihil performs a critique of ‘citizenship’ informed by the current political and economic climate, the critique is presented in the form of a written ‘affirmation’. The ‘affirmation’, in the case of this art work, relates to the idea of a ‘life’ that may exist beyond the current modes of biopolitical governance and policing of the citizen. Furthermore, the artist delivers the ‘affirmation’ by enacting a confronting gesture with his body.