I Love Myself Fully and Unconditionally (ILMFAU) is equal parts Installation and Individual Guided Tour. Originally commissioned for the 2018 Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt in partnership with Nadar Ensemble’s Our Ears Program, ILMFAU was installed in Oetinger Villa, a Ducal mansion built in 1898, now an autonomous cultural center. As Installation, ILMFAU makes light but assertive interventions into into its environment through sound, light, video projections, and a transduced mattress. Rather than eschewing completely the identity of the installation site, it seeks to augment the pre-existing space to create new dream-like narratives and experiences; a foyer becomes a private divination booth; a living room becomes a butterfly conservatory; a basement becomes a center for sound healing; yet another room becomes the stage for a singing orchid. The rooms maintain their identity, but become layered with new potentials and actualizations. As Individual Guided Tour, ILMFAU completes the dream narrative. Guests enter at 5 minute intervals to begin a tour that lasts 25-30 minutes. Hosts deliver one-on-one scripted tours that incorporate languages of healing, sugary pop lyrics, and fantasy, with the goal of creating an alternate reality that makes use of theatrical distance to open new intimate spaces. At its most aspirational, ILMFAU acts as a brief escape, making space to play with the monster, so one can face it.
(c) Kristof Lemp
