Ötza
An influencer. A fanfiction writer. A leader. Incredibly skinny. These are just some of the words used to describe art-world phenomenon Ötza, who is coming to Ujazdowski on Monday, December 8th. She will read from her critically reviewed debut The Skinny Body Without Organs and even share some brand-new material
In her fanfiction vignettes, Ötza transforms from a tourist guide / LARP troglodyte (for huts) to an aspiring yogi in a post-situationist silent retreat, from an indicted entrepreneur (multiple counts of tax evasion and copyright infringement) to an enterprising inmate at Litchfield Prison. She goes on double dates, she speaks at Davos, she sells T-shirts, she consults for start-ups in exchange for equity—but whatever she does, you will recognize her by her long blonde locks, her 22-inch waist, her natural lip flip, and her thigh gap that can fit a thousand plateaus.
Ötza is a 5,300-year-old cryodesiccated fanfiction writer from the Neolithic, an advocate for prehistoric literacy, and a self-proclaimed connoisseur of post-historical theory-fiction. As her corporeal counterpart is locked in a cooling cell at the Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy, her writings become hopeful yearnings for counterfactual salvation from her fate of archaeological conservation, and an attempt to rewrite the narrative (unfairly) extrapolated from scientific reconstructions.
Ötza is written and performed by artist Levi van Gelder (1995), in collaboration with costume designer Leila El Alaoui (1995).
- About the Artist:
- Through working in performance, writing, sculpture and video work, Levi explores fanfiction as a tool for queer resistance and counterfactual reclamation of histories and fictions. By writing, performing and making as Ötza (5300 year old mummified fanfiction entrepreneur and drag adaptation of Ötzi the Iceman) Levi creates a subversive, post-historical rendering of the Neolithic mummy, queering (pre)history in a meta-textualized account of misrepresentation, questioning and resisting claims to truth with quick-witted storytelling and playful critique. Levi lives and works in Amsterdam.
