Category Archives: Tasks

Feederism: What it means to be a female.

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Having looked into the concept of the audience picking out foods for us to try, we began to think about the idea of having no control. This then sparked a few thoughts about ‘feederism’. It seems this sexual fetish is all about one person having control over another, as you can see in the video below.

Within the sexual fetish it is often ‘the man preparing food and caring for the woman’ (Richardson, 2010, p.113.), but is this really care? As an all-female group it seems we all strive to look a certain way, and the idea of putting on weight would completely take away how confident we feel about ourselves sexually. Therefore, for our performance we began to question whether it would make sense for us to be dressed provocatively, or whether we should be dressed as ourselves as personally we would not find anything sexual about the experience at all. Also, during a day our bodies will not realistically show much change so instead it would be more testing how we handle loss of control over something so personal.

The idea of being fed and having no control for us seems daunting and not knowing what has been put into the calorific meals that have been created. If for our performance we decide last minute who will become the ‘feeders’ and who will be fed, this will ensure even more loss of control and test ourselves. We are looking at having the three chosen feeders to cook calorific meals the night before. The entire process will be filmed so audiences will be able to see what has been put into the food that the other group members will be consuming. If the film is silent and the people being fed have their back to the projection, they will yet again be giving complete control to their feeder.

‘Digital media is wonderful because it can be endlessly duplicated and/or presented without fear of the tiniest change or degradation. But, it is this very quality that is antithetical to the fluid and ever changing nature of live performance’ (Carder and Beardon, 2004)

With our piece, however, the idea of changing performance will only be strengthened. As time goes on and more food is consumed, the film showing what has been put into the food will become more grotesque for audiences as they can see how the quantity is affecting the gainers. Time is another crucial element with this piece. How far do you take it? We have been considering either keeping the feeding process going until all the food has been demolished, or continuing the experiment until the person can literally consume no more. If this is the case it may make for a more interesting piece as depending on who randomly gets chosen to be fed, different reactions and different amounts of consumption will occur. It seems this experiment will be more about pushing ourselves and testing our own limits. The feeders will have to deal with potentially pushing someone else too far, where as those being fed will have to push past personal boundaries of how they feel about their bodies and how much they can consume. In the video below we began to practise giving up control with a few foods we enjoy. As our experiments continue, we will slowly build up the intensity of giving over control.

Works Cited

Carver, G. and Beardon, C. (2005) New Visions in Performance: The Impact of Digital Technologies. Lisse: Tayler and Francis e-Library.

Richardson, N. (2010) Transgressive Bodies: Representations in Film and Popular Culture. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited.

Tasks.

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Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s article on Playing to the Senses: Food as a Performance Medium discusses the use of food as a performative medium and the various ways in which food has been used as art. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett states that

“to perform is to do, to execute, to carry out to completion, to discharge a duty–in other words, all that governs the production, presentation, and disposal of food and their staging. To perform in this sense is to make food, to serve food. It is about materials, tools, techniques, procedures, actions. It is about getting something done.” (Gough, 2012, p. 1)

This definition rings true in our performance on a number of levels. Firstly the “task” of our performance is for the eaters/gainers to complete the task of eating as much food as they can in a given amount of time. The idea of fulfilling a task in our performance was one that our group decided to focus on from very early on in the devising process, having been influence by artists such as Melati Suryodarmo, who’s performance Exergie- Butter Dance might be considered an extreme example of how the act of completing a set task with rules or time restrictions can be a very entertaining spectacle.

(Carey Goodman, 2012)

In watching this performance I found myself going through stages of reaction. First I laughed, because the concept of dancing on butter was strange to me and entertaining to watch. Yet as she started to fall I became uncomfortable. I did not like to see her inflict pain on herself, yet I was mesmerised by the movement and music to the point where I could not look away. It struck me that in completing her set task she was also pushing herself physically to the point of pain but also mentally; knowing that in completing this task you are going to fall and hurt yourself multiple times when you could just as easily walk away would take will power.

While I do not think that the butter in Exergie-Butter Dance influenced our choice to use food in our performance, our aims to push the body to complete a task soon lead us to eating as a challenge.

While Abramovic and Mary Coble have created art using the human body as a canvas, artists such as Fiona Gregore in her piece Water # 1: Decent (2011) create their pieces by pushing their body’s physical and mental endurance without mutilating or putting their bodies in obvious pain or danger. Pushing yourself mentally is a challenge that others can see if you allow them to, but it can be purely internal and private. So what would happen if we pushed our internal body?
We decided to start with the taste buds.
In our original ideas on creating tasks with food we looked into forcing ourselves to eat food we didn’t like. I for example cannot stomach bananas, even the smell makes me feel ill, and so in this experiment I had to force myself to eat one. As you can see below my feelings towards the food had not changed.

Eating

Photo by Andrew Tinley, 2013

 

The experiment wasn’t pleasant for anyone, including our voluteer audience. But it was fascianting. One of the most disturbing things about this experiment was how interesting it was to see each others reactions to the food that they were eating. The discusted facial expressions and noises of protest coupled with a determination that each of us should complete our task made for a mesmerising experience.

 

Word Count

Gough, R (2012) Playing to the Senses: Food as a Performance Medium. Performance Reasearch. On Cooking, 4, 1.

Carey Goodman (2012) Melati Suryodarmo – Butterdance. [online video]. Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73MJxB7tCkk [Accessed 1 Novemeber 20213].

Frustration In One Thousand Pieces…And Sardines.

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When thinking of a performance or experiment, I was instantly drawn towards the idea of a task. Completing a task, or setting a physical challenge that had to be completed, despite obstacles or impediments which may affect the process. When thinking of a task, a durational performance offers much more to both performer and audience member, than one which is time restrained. “The phrase ‘durational art’ implies a specific construction of time, a deliberate shaping of it to effect a particular experience for the viewer or the audience” (Scheer 2012, p.1), and it is the construction or deconstruction of time which I believe has the possibility to hold the most performance potential.

Melati Suryodarmo’s ‘Butter Dance’ experimental performance, although uncomfortable to watch, made for fascinating and compelling viewing. Every time she falls you inwardly gasp, wondering if she is going to get back up again; if anything is broken or if she will just give up on her set task because the pain and bruises become too much.

This performance of (as a concept) a simple task is captivating. No façade or artsy pretence; just one woman deciding to dance on butter, in heels, to the beat of a steady rhythm. Experimental performances such as these “mark identities, bend time, reshape and adorn the body, and tell stories” (Schechner 2002, p. 28), even without a vocal narrative. And this is something I wanted to explore further; to have a task set, and for it to be completed in front of an audience. The first idea which materialised within the group was that of completing a jigsaw.

P1010352(Photo taken by Lauren Watson: 28.10.13)

Initially, we wanted to develop this idea into a more performative piece, with the use of multiple jigsaws (one for each member of the company to complete), while all being in one pile, with us not being able to leave the space until your own jigsaw was completed. However, after just 40 minutes of attempting and failing to complete just one 1000 piece jigsaw between the six of us, this idea quickly dissipated. Although it started off as a novel and slightly entertaining task, our excitement and positive outlook quickly disappeared, and in its place we were left with fits of anger, an almost constant stream of expletives and multiple urges to throw the puzzle pieces out out of any window we could find.

Eating(Photo taken by Andrew Tinley: 31.10.13)

With the jigsaw idea well and truly buried for the sanity of everyone involved, we then turned to food, and the idea of feeding and being fed. For our first experiment we each brought two items of food; one which we liked, and one which we hate. We then placed all these items on a table, and got an impromptu audience member to give each one of us an item of food.

Russian Roulette with food.

As seen in the above image, not everyone received foods they liked or bought for themselves. For this experiment to work, it was imperative that the ‘audience member’ didn’t know our likes and dislikes, this way they could not be biased when handing out the food. From this experience, the magnitude of what we wanted to achieve really started to make itself apparent. Eating is a day-to-day task, without which we wouldn’t survive…but what happens if we over indulge in this life saving task; forcing ourselves to eat food which repulsed us. Even though this experiment lasted merely minutes it was a difficult process, with members of the group retching and fighting down sick. Even though this would make for a personally difficult experiment for us as performers, it wouldn’t be all that stimulating or enjoyable for the audience. Therefore, from this experiment we decided to choose foods which we liked, but to eat them in abundance.

Theatre, and especially contemporary experimental performance “have been deployed as key metaphors and practices with which to rethink gender, economics, war, language, the fine arts, culture and one’s sense of self” (Ridout 2009, p. vii), and this is hopefully what we hope to achieve, although physically we are just completing a task which we have all agreed upon; to eat. Eating is a necessity. A vital part to any life. However, some people go days without eating, while other gorge themselves to death. And for 6 average sized girls to potentially gorge themselves to the point of sickness starts to question the social position of food, alongside that of young women, while also on one level questioning and challenging body image acceptance. Why would six, healthy girls who care about their image and size want to binge? These are questions which we hope the audience wills start to ask themselves, after all, “to witness an event is to be present at it in some fundamentally ethical way, to feel the weight of things and one’s own place in them, even if that place is simply, for the moment, as an onlooker” (Etchells 1999, p. 17).

Works Cited
Etchells, Tim (1999) Certain Fragments, London: Routledge.
Ridout, Nicholas (2009) Theatre & Ethics, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schechner, Richard (2002) Performance Studies: an introduction, London: Routledge.
Scheer, Edward (2012) ‘Introduction: The end of spatiality or the meaning of duration’, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, XVII (5) October:  pp. 1-3.