Revisiting Authenticity

Revisiting Authenticity: Artistic Practice in an Evolving Cultural and Philosophical Landscape
Research Master thesis, Art and Performance, University of Amsterdam

Revisiting Authenticity asks what it means for an artistic practice to be ‘authentic’ in a time of constant change. Starting from a personal question about my own sense of self and my work, the thesis moves through four dimensions of authenticity: gender performativity (Judith Butler, with the documentary Paris is Burning), individual versus collective identity (Donna Haraway, Homi Bhabha and ruangrupa’s documenta fifteen), cognitive consonance between the inner self and the work (Heidegger, Foucault and Rancière, with Olivier S. Garcia’s In Between These Mountains), and AI (Refik Anadol’s Machine Hallucinations and Arca’s Echo). My own works, Where you (don’t) want to be, Future on the Rocks and slowly i’ve been beginning to see your eyes as something i want to keep, are part of the research.

The thesis doesn’t settle on a definition. Instead, it proposes authenticity as a practice and a relation rather than a fixed essence: fragile, embodied and ethical. It closes with a call to protect artistic voices in the age of AI, through law, collective organisation and a relational understanding of authorship.

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2025