February 2022
FELTDARK

ALEDA LASZCZUK (SA)
Death of The Other

How do we as individuals become conscious of our place in the world? 

According to Hegel’s Master-Slave dialectic, the affirmation of one’s own consciousness requires a struggle to the death because each consciousness can only become self-aware by realising the extent of its limitations in relation to the other. Up until then our own conscious feelings, desires, powers, is the standard by which all things encountered are measured but the presence of the other creates an inconsistent tension that challenges our truth.

In this existential struggle each consciousness seeks to establish the certainty of its being not only for itself but also to dominate the other. Out of this life-and-death conflict emerges a master-slave dynamic where the victor is master and the vanquished is slave. Through defeat, the vanquished realises they are not the objective standard of truth in the world; achieving self-consciousness. The master, however, continues to see themselves as the measure of all things until perhaps they too succumb to the other.

Through exploring tensions between consciousnesses, this work seeks self-awareness.