Esercizi di esproprio e di riappropriazione. A nome tuo di Covacich

Many voices speak in Mauro Covacich's A nome tuo (2011): the author himself, in a piece of autofiction; a fictitious character, who has written a long memoir; an anonymous academic, who accuses him of lying with regard to a video installation. This multiplicity of voices attests to the dispersion of the Self, but also to its tyranny. Covacich actually aims at vouching for the truthfulness of the text, and he engages in a paradoxical struggle against fiction as a factor of derealization. The body art performance therefore becomes his model, thus giving rise to a contradiction: Discourse can only be grounded on the Self, i.e. on the body – but the body can't guarantee the reality of the Self. One can only «cheat while remaining honest», in a desperate (and exemplary) attempt to escape the paper prison of fiction.