Gerjanne van Zuilen

Marijke en Gerjanne van Zuilen Our work questions the autonomy of and the possibility of modifying identities. As monozygotic twins we have developed a distinctive perspective and have rare possibilities to investigate the matter. Even though we have the same genetic blueprint, we look upon ourselves as two different possibilities of one individual. If we are not careful in making decisions we end up making the same choices, which brings us to the question: how much freedom of choice does one have? Which part of the search for your identity is already fixed? As twins, we have been more than average aware of being confronted with these questions, making us very conscious in the choices we make therein. This search for identity is universal. Every individual tries to distinguish him or herself, but remain part of the group at the same time. We explore this matter by doing various experiments, in which we ourselves are the subjects. Identical twins have a special position in science to explore the effects environments have. Our research doesn’t focus on physical aspects, but more on identity and possible variants of the same blue print. We are so much alike, having our own identity is something we have to fight for. This raises universal philosophical questions. To have a base for our research we both took philosophy courses. We rely on a self-composed theoretical framework, based on philosophers like Plato, Heidegger, Richard Dawkins and Susan Blackmore. Our work consist of Experiments, Video works, drawings and sculptures, in wich we explore the possibility of modifications bij making subtle or extreme changes to the original product or idea.