Born Now Here

In Born Now Here Laís Pontes returns to her previously created Born Nowhere-characters, transposing the virtual existence of the crowd-sourced Facebook identities into the real world. By wearing each character’s typical wardrobe and make-up, and entering into its ascribed behaviours and activities, the artist assumes the fictional persona as an ongoing performance in her everyday life. Thereby, each character’s ‘journey’ into the real world is documented on its personal Facebook account. Pontes’s performance blends elements of the virtual biographies with her personal lived experience, resulting in a fusion of the ‘self’ and the ‘Other’. To explore this further, she transfers the fictional characters to other Facebook-users, which enables her to become an external observer of her own creation. Being performed by different participants, the Born Nowhere characters undergo a continuous transformation, while those assuming their roles experience the inner world of the Other, including differences in race, sexuality, gender, class, and career.