What’s your name is a project that was presented at one of the open studio’s at the Cité des Arts, while I was staying there as a resident in 2016.
Since I cut back on my caffeine intake, I sometimes go and get myself a decaf americano at Starbucks. Whenever you place an order at Starbucks, they ask you for your name and write it on the cup. My name is Martijn. When I go to Starbucks, For the barista serving me, a Martijn is a cup of decaf americano.
Martijn is just one way I can label myself. There are of course many more, which I instead started to use as my name at Starbucks. Over the course of a couple weeks I was among others Male, Blue Eyes, Skinny, Blonde or Tall. The baristas at Starbucks in Paris though don’t speak English very well. And they always expect to hear a name. A proper name. So often they changed the description I gave them into a first name they knew. Blonde became Lance, Thirty Six became Francis. Beard became Bert.
Of course my name isn’t Bert, or Francis, or Lance. But my cup of decaf coffee isn’t a real cup of coffee either.
