Objects of Love

In July 2009, Agnes Limbos, a Belgian puppeteer , came to Israel to give a workshop on Object Theater. I know Agnes for years and love her work, I was not going to miss her workshop.The subject was "Love".I decided to work on a  short interview done to Derrida in which he is asked to define love. I saw it on the internet and knew it became the basis for my project.

I suggest you first look at the interview and then watch my performance.

here is Jacques Derrida:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj1BuNmhjAY

and watch here on youtube my work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPA3jO4J1sc

Love is a question of who and what. Is love the love of someone or the love of some thing?

Suppose I love someone, do I love someone for the absolute singularity of who they are? i.e. I love you because you are you. Or do I love your qualities, your beauty, your intelligence. Does one love someone, or does one love something about someone?

The difference between the who and the what at the heart of love, seperates the heart. It is often said that love is the movement of the heart. Does my heart move because I love someone who is an absolute singularity, or because I love the way that someone is?

Often love begins with a type of seduction. One is attracted because the other is like this or like that. Inversely, love is disappointed and dies when one comes to realise the other person doesn't merit our love. The other person isn't like this or that. So at the death of love, it appears that one stops loving another not because of who they are but because they are such and such [a person].

That is to say, the history of love, the heart of love, is divided between the who and the what. The question of Being is divided into what is it 'to Be'? What is 'Being'? The question of 'Being' is itself always already divided between who and what. Is 'Being' someone or some thing? I speak of it abstractly, but I think that whoever starts to love, is in love, or stops loving, is caught between this division of the who and the what. One wants to be true to someone - singularly, irreplaceably - and one perceives that this someone isn't x or y. They didn't have the qualities, properties, the images, that I thought I'd loved. So fidelity is threatened by the difference between the who and the what.

So do you love someone as a singularity? Or do you love some thing about that someone?

Suppose I love someone, do I love someone for the absolute singularity of who they are? i.e. I love you because you are you. Or do I love your qualities, your beauty, your intelligence?

Does one love someone, or does one love something about someone? The difference between the who and the what at the heart of love, seperates the heart. It is often said that love is the movement of the heart. Does my heart move because I love someone who is an absolute singularity, or because I love the way that someone is?

Often love begins with a type of seduction. One is attracted because the other is like this or like that. Inversely, love is disappointed and dies when one comes to realise the other person doesn't merit our love. The other person isn't like this or that. So at the death of love, it appears that one stops loving another not because of who they are but because they are such and such [a person].

That is to say, the history of love, the heart of love, is divided between the who and the what. The question of Being is divided into what is it 'to Be'? What is 'Being'? The question of 'Being' is itself always already divided between who and what. Is 'Being' someone or some thing? I speak of it abstractly, but I think that whoever starts to love, is in love, or stops loving, is caught between this division of the who and the what. One wants to be true to someone - singularly, irreplaceably - and one perceives that this someone isn't x or y. They didn't have the qualities, properties, the images, that I thought I'd loved. So fidelity is threatened by the difference between the who and the what.

So do you love someone as a singularity? Or do you love some thing about that someone?