ORLAN on Tarantism, Body Liberation, and Technology in Salento

French artist ORLAN (born 1947 in Saint-Étienne) participated in the fourth edition of Perform(her), a project by Domus Art Residency in Galatina, Salento, in July 2022. The residency, conceived by Romina De Novellis, explores performing art through the lens of tarantism, a Southern Italian phenomenon historically linked to women's oppression. ORLAN, known since the 1960s for using her body as a medium to challenge social norms, gave an interview discussing the connection between her feminist practice and tarantism. She sees tarantism as a desperate public cry for bodily liberation from religious and patriarchal constraints. ORLAN advocates for fluid, nomadic identities, rejecting fixed identities as sources of communitarian horror. She incorporates science and technology—from video to augmented reality and AI—not as ends in themselves but as tools to express critical ideas. Her 1989 Art Charnel manifesto describes her work as a self-portrait made with contemporary technology, oscillating between defiguration and refiguration. The autumn residencies continue with artists Federica Zianni, Serena Antignani, and Sara Terracciano.