Performing abjection in Wafaa Bilal's domestic tension

الملخص EN

This paper is a psychoanalytic literary study of the online performance Domestic Tension (2007) by the Iraqi-American artist Wafaa Bilal.

Fundamentally built on the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection is well suited to be the critical tool to analyze the online performance Domestic Tension.

This paper yields answers to these questions: How does Bilal transform his body into an abject body? How do the Brechtian theatrical techniques suppress any cathartic experience by the audience? The paper concludes that Wafaa Bilal has performed abjection in which his body is transformed into an abject body.

These viewers-cum-shooters have finally “disavowed” Bilal's body and ined from their cannibalistic desires, and rather started chatting with him online.