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[0:45]

Hello dear friends, I am Lili, and you are looking at my muse. My muse is Wolfgang. Wolfgang is my friend and my model. He belongs to the rare but much-discussed species of the old white man, of which there are (by my calculation) approximately 200 million specimens. That’s about 2.5% of the human species.

[1:37]

To capture his body from all angles, I and my colleague Jannis photographed Wolfgang from every side using a large camera, taking 286 detailed images. With the help of geomapping software, the images were assembled into a three-dimensional model in a studio. A truly brutal act of fixation. One that undeniably holds a certain voyeuristic pleasure. And so here he is: the fixed, captured body of my muse.

[2:37]

A muse that will not remain in its current form for much longer. Wolfgang’s body stands at a tipping point. He has been diagnosed with cancer. Let’s have a look at a tipping body.

[3:10]

Eye flying over the Earth

[3:19]

Earth imagery fills the screen.

[3:47]

On the 18th of September, 2024, the day of fixation, we can read traces on the surface of the skin. Traces of an eventful life. A life that led through an abusive childhood, through youth spent in homelessness and prostitution, through the saving embrace of friendship, through the turbulent political upheavals of the 1980s in Berlin’s squatted houses, through the discovery of a passion: storytelling on stage.

[4:58]

Earth zooms in to cover the frame.

And with it, the liberation from the shame that had inhabited this body for so long. And finally, this life has led this body to me—the observer, the one who captures.

[5:17]

Still images of Earth appear.

[5:45]

Lili smiles with Earth imagery covering her eyes. Her face fades out.

[5:55]

[Wolfgang:]

Ich denke, dass die Aussage über meine Lebenserwartung viel einschneidender war als die Diagnose. Mit der Diagnose bin ich recht schnell umgegangen als: das ist ein Teil von mir. Ich hab mich gefragt, ob ich, ob ich, ob ich ihr einen Namen gebe, habe mich dann aber dafür entschieden zu sagen, das ist mein Mitbewohner, das ist mein Untermieter. Und habe das auch immer so benannt und habe damit natürlich sämtliche Leute durcheinandergebracht, weil die überhaupt nicht wussten, warum ich den Untermieter habe. Ob ich die Wohnung nicht mehr finanzieren kann. Aber das brauchte ich, um damit leben zu können. Ich möchte ja damit leben, ich möchte mich nicht behandeln lassen, ich möchte damit leben.

[English translation:]

I think the statement abot [sic] my life expectancy was much more incisive than the diagnosis itself. I dealt with the diagnosis quite quickly. By thinking: This is a part of me. I asked myself whether I should give it a name, but then I decided to call it my lodger, my subtenant. I always referred to it that way, which confused everyone. They didn’t understand why I had a subtenant. If I could no longer afford my flat or something.

But I needed that in order to live with it. I want to live with it!

I don’t want to be treated. I want to live with it.

[7:10]

[Lili:]

No surgery. That’s a pity. I am good at surgery.

[7:24]

Dear friends, you need my gaze for the diagnosis. I am a sensor, I am a camera, a man, a satellite. I look at bodies without having a body myself.

[7:57]

[Lili:]

This is my diagnosis:

The planetary body is infested by white men.

The white man is infested by his own cells.

[8:18]

And I have white men’s eyeballs, that are itching on the back.

[8:31]

The question arises why I am telling you about white men. It has to do with the origin of this scan. I have been working as a performer with my own body for several years. A young woman‘s body, whose physicality is usually very important for the perception of my identity. It is always read when I speak and act. That has often bothered me. The least discussed body, on the other hand, seemed to be the old white male body. I naively asked my friend Wolfgang if I could work with his body. Whether the old white man would like to be my muse. In the photo studio then, between the glaring clinical light and the big cameras I am painting marks on Wolfgang’s body with a tiny black make-up pencil.

[9:30]

And Wolfgang tells me about his cancer. I am not quite sure how to react. Later the camera feels very strange in my hand. I’m doing a kind of conservation here. I wanted to use his body just because of its category, but now I feel my own fixating, categorising gaze with such brutality that I’m left with the scan all baffled.

[10:00]

What am I doing with the image of the ephemeral? I’m doing a kind of conservation here. I hadn’t considered that. I am ashamed. Everything in my hands. I hold a whole story in my hand. A story of an incredible body. A body that resists.

[10:45]

[Wolfgang:]

Also andere würden jetzt sagen, ich habe immer dafür gesorgt, dass ich unattraktiv bin. Nein, ich habe immer daran gearbeitet, mein Körper zu zerstören. So dass es niemand sieht. Vom Haare ausreißen bis. Bis Fingernägel abkauen. Alles.

Mein Körper war immer mein Schutzschild. Und meine Waffe.

[English translation:]

Others would say I always made sure I looked unattractive. No. I always worked on destroying my body. So that no one would notice it: From pulling out my hair to biting my nails. Everything. My body was always my shield. And my weapon.

[11:37]

[Lili:]

Was soll mit dem Schutzschild passieren?

[11:46]

[Wolfgang:]

Wenn ich sterbe dann sterbe ich und dann ist mir das sowas von wurscht was mit meinem Körper passiert. Das ist mir so schnurzpiepegal. Ich weiß das ich da nichtmehr drinne bin und das meine energie schon vorher irgendwo hingegenagen ist und das ist das einzige was mir wichtig ist. Alles andere ist Kadaver.

[English translation:]

If I die, I die.

I really couldn’t care less what happens to my body. I truly don’t care. I know I won’t be in there anymore. My energy will have already gone somewhere else and that is the only thing that matters to me. The rest is just a carcass.

[Lili:]

Und hast du das Gefühl wenn man jetzt ein Bild von dir für immer konserviert und festhält ist deine Energie da drin?

[12:35]

[Wolfgang:]

Also. Mein mein Helfer hat gesagt. So, nun bist du für die Ewigkeit. Das hab ich mir angekuckt und hab gedacht. Stimmt. Ich glaube es gibt drei Bilder von mir, ne vier von denen ich sage ja, da steckt meine Energie drinne, aber es ist jedes mal eine andere. So was verschmitztes, das verschmitze des alters, das ist auch meine Energie. Wie gesagt in dieser liegenden Pose das ist Frieden. Das ist mein ganz persönlicher Frieden und da steckt auch diese Energie drinne.

[English translation:]

My medical assistant said: “There you go. Now you’re immortal!” I looked at it (the scan) and thought: That’s true.

I think there four images of me that I would say: yes, that one holds my energy. It is always a different kind. There is a certain slyness. The slyness of age, that is part of my energy too.

And that reclining pose, that one holds peace. That is my personal peace. That energy is definitely inside it.

[13:50]

Das erste Mal, daß ich, daß ich mir das angeguckt habe und gesagt habe, Gott was bin ich für ein schöner Mensch. Mit mit jedem, mit jedem Gramm, mit jeder, mit jeder. Auswuchtung dieser Bauch. Ich liebe diesen Bauch. Den hab ich vor ein paar Jahren hab ich den noch verflucht. Das ist eigentlich das Schöne, weil das das ist das, was mich verändert hat. Ich sehe mich heute so positiv. 10 Jahre Therapie in eine Arbeit gepackt…

[English translation:]

The first time I looked at myself and said: GOD, what a beautiful human being I am.

Every gram, every countour of this belly. I love this belly. A few years ago I cursed it. And now it’s the most beautiful thing. This is what changed me. Today I see myself so positively (through this work).

It is, yes… ten years of therapy packed into a work.

[15:05]

[Lili:]

Large bodies tip over, small bodies tip over. Can we preserve something of life? Or is preservation already the opposite of life?

[15:47]

PRESERVATION OF A MUSE

A captured performance by

Lili Süper

in collaboration with

Wolfgang

supported by

Jannis Reinelt

Thank you to

Ros Gray

Jol Thoms

Saskia Olde Wolbers

Elly Clarke

and my colleagues from the

Art and Ecology Department @Goldsmiths

Visual Materials

3D Scan

3D scan of Wolfgang (24 September 2023). Photographed by Jannis Reinelt and Lili Süper

Desktop Image

Edited version of Earthrise. Photograph by William Anders (NASA), 1968

Webcam Footage

Performed, written, spoken and subtitled by Lili Süper

Sticky Notes

Stock images of drones, plantations, and human gatherings. Adobe Stock

Earth Visualisation

Google Earth Pro, coordinates 23°57’16.9”N 6°54’28.7”W (Mauritania). Imagery © Google

Audio Materials

Interview Recording

Audio conversation between Wolfgang and Lili Süper (3 h 18 min). Recorded on 22 December 2024. English subtitles translated by Lili Süper

Voiceover

Written, spoken and subtitled by Lili Süper

Background Music / Sound Effects

Royalty-free audio from YouTube Audio Library:

– Shuttlecraft white noise

– Heart monitor sound effect

– Fallen

– Down (From Undertale)

– Space ambient track

Accessed on 23 May2025

Podcast in the Background

“What Does Cancer Look Like?” YouTube channel: Journey of the microcosmos

Accessed on 11 June 2025

Visible Software (on-screen)

OBS Studio

Blender 4.2

Google Earth Pro

Windows Text Editor

Sticky Notes (Microsoft Corperation)

Windows Image Viewer

Always-on-top

HP-1973 Vintage Calculator for Windows

Winamp Player

Software used for Processing

Agisoft Metashape

Blender 4.2

Audacity 3.7.3.

Adobe Premiere Pro 2024

Adobe Photoshop 2024

Adobe Audition 2024

Microsoft Audio Recorder

Inspired by research of:

Chakrabarty, Dipesh. The Climate of History in a Planetary Age. University of Chicago Press, 2021.

Foucault, Michel. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. Translated by A. M. Sheridan, Routledge, 2003. (Original work published 1963.)

Haraway, Donna J. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies, vol. 14, no. 3, 1988, pp. 575–599.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Gingko Press, Berkeley, California, 2013. (Original work published 1964.)

Singh, Julietta. No Archive Will Restore You. Punctum Books, 2018.

Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. “Earth Stalked by Man.” The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, vol. 34, no. 2, 2016, pp.

financial support

German Academic Scholarship foundation

London, 2025

Wolfgang would like you to know that he intends to return as a daisy.

You might want to keep an eye out.

[17:19]

[Podcast:]

Cancer under the microscrope… There are other techniques, biopsies, and tests involved in confirming the presence of cancerous cells. And there are other tests involved diagnosing a person with cancer. But what is remarkable that, at the end of the day, this complicated and destructive disease is something you can just see every day someone is looking under a microscope to see whether the slide in their hands holds someone’s cancer. But there is something else that cancer has made me think about. It’s this idea that maybe cancer is kind of its own type of organism, another version of sorts to a past that is of course also very much present: the life of single-cell organisms… We spend our days… And it’s not that cancer is a person’s cells becoming those organisms. But, rather, something weirder. But, to get there, lets look at the reverse and talk about how organisms…