Tag Archives: Jessica Jarvis

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

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Our piece was to explore the relationship between the Feeder/Gainer fetish within modern society and how people are influenced by food. Not only did we explore the relationship between Feeder and Gainer we explored much more than this when performing our piece to an audience.

From the start of this process we have had a very personal approach to this experimental performance, experiencing physical and mental elements through the use of food. Personally, I associate food as a social and enjoyable thing to do, ‘food and eating are central to our subjectivity.’ Lupton (1996 pg1) however pushing the boundaries within our piece it opens up a variety of different assumptions and opinions on our piece, making it controversial. This makes it an experience in which we are not comfortable in, pushing the limits of our bodies and emotional intelligence within this performative task.

Not only are we exploring the relationship between foods but we are doing something that isn’t necessary seemed conventional for us, this relates to proportion sizes and the mixing of food and the views on our westernised society. We see food as a luxury which is something very similar to the feeder fetish, however we control our quantities and what we seem as ‘normal’ to mix certain foods together, but because we are pushing the boundaries of high calorific foods we mixed certain foods such as curry and cream together, this was a recurring process throughout the performative task, including sweet and savoury snacks etc. Another angle of this performance you could this experiment from was from a feminist approach, due to us all being the same sex, it has certain elements of politics and how women should/could be perceived, which is something we could have potentially explored further.

The start of our experimental performance the table is neatly spread, with velvet table cloth, food spread evenly on the table, it was hot and the smells over powered the room, giving familiar scents for our audience to become indulged with pleasurable scents.

food pic 2

(Layout of the Food. Taken by Jessica Jarvis: 11.12.13)

 

The structure of our set was for the audience to become aware of other audience members, for them to watch other people’s responses and watch the Feeders and Gainers, this is because watching someone else’s reaction can be just as interesting as to what is going on in front of them. Mary Douglas (anthropologist) states food ‘is a ritual activity’ Lupton (1996 pg9) which again highlights the structure of our set, which created a social atmosphere for people to analyse one another and our actions, from a young age we associate food being a social concept, from mother feeding her child, to childhood parties and onwards.

The control and power is in the behold of the Feeder, we got to choose what the Gainer would eat, personally I did feel pressure to pick hot food firsts this was due to the smells, I then thought about the mixing of cream with this particular dish. Then I thought I would mix it up a little bit and go for the sweet dishes, I thought I was actually being nice, seeing my Gainer enjoying the food made me feel relaxed and at ease. Later on in the experiment, I heard wrenching and my control started to go a little, I wanted to see who it was behind me, knowing that one Gainer was being sick was testing my emotional intelligence completely, I could feel my control slipping. The smell over powered the room and I was nearly sick myself, I just wanted to say something, to see if everything was ok. Then I finally got some control back and I was mentally encouraging my Gainer, making sure that she wasn’t going to be sick, this proven to be difficult, as before you knew it I was walking to fetch a sick bag, pushing my Gainer this far, I could only think of one thing to resolve this… water! Water was going to help my Gainer. But because I already created a emotional attachment to the curry I went back to that particular dish. When I knew my Gainer was feeling sick from this, I went back for more. The words in my head screamed, why? I knew at this point my Gainer is going to be sick, having forced my Gainer to eat this, I kept getting other pieces on my folk and hovering it front of her mouth. Control is something I do not like, this role tests your emotional intelligence completely, and the task was to keep going until the 2 hours is up. I had to complete it. Once we were stopped for ethical reasons by our lecturer, 1 hour and 40 minutes, a huge sigh and relief came from my body and I couldn’t control my emotions and I just cried to my Gainer. It was a horrible experience to witness and be involved in and it tested my control, patience and emotional abilities and without a doubt the most challenging performance/task I have been involved in. Although we did not explore the relationship between Feeder and Gainer sexually, we experimented with the control of food and the relationships we get from food.

The image below is a picture of me (Feeder) and Kirsty Jakins (Gainer) before the performative experiment. The use of having the hand on the shoulder suggest power and control.

 

(Feeder and Gainer Partner One. Taken by Kirsty Taylor : 11.12.13)

This experiment has helped me understand the levels of performance within the body and mind, our experimental has allowed me to think beyond the Feeder/Gainer frame and understand that a performance can be pushed beyond the traditional elements of theatre, for it to become  ‘ a distinct place in contemporary arts practice and has a history of exceeding traditional theatrical boundaries.’. (Govan, Nicolson and Normington, 2007, pg3)

When we first developed this idea of Feeder/Gainer, I questioned whether it was a
performance, who is the performer? Can food be seen as a performance? However I found this quote which underlines and gives an overall statement, that our experiment was indeed a performance.

‘Performing is an interaction between mind and body, and between the private mind (individual) and the public mind at large (arena). As a psychological process, it makes bridges between one kind of thought and another (in the case music, through sound) and between different people’s ideas and experiences. As in all human relationships, a number of emotions come into play (e.g. like, dislike, love, hate, respect, depend, dominate, sympathize, etc.). Its aim is not necessary to express unconscious thoughts (though they may well play a part ) but certainly to connect different levels of mind.’   Gibson (2001, pg 14)

Works cited

Lupton. D. (1996) Food, the Body and the self . London, SAGE publications ltd.

Govan. E, Nicolson. H, Normington.K (2007) Making a performance devising histories and contemporary practices.

Gibson. B (2001) Performing matters. Heinemann: Oxford

The World is our Stage

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What is performance? This can be seen as a bit of silly question as there is no right or wrong answer. Everything could be justified as a performance; to do something to a certain level is seen as performing. So what happens when we put it into the context of food? This is something we do in our day to day lives, who’s to say it is a performance?

Although food is something that is in cooperated frequently in my daily routine, I’ve never questioned it as a performance, I don’t do it to perform I merely do it because my body needs it. Although put into social situation, usually food related, I will be influenced as to what I should eat, whether that is because of where I am or who I am with, this could potentially mean I am thinking of the audience, the other person, the reaction as to what I eat, allowing me to think through my actions and become something that I am not, this self-control is lost, which is something we are looking to explore thoroughly in our performance task.

Our performance is a performative task in which the Feeder has to feed the Gainer the food for two hours without losing self-control and becoming dis-orientated. The Gainers task is to eat the food given to by their feeders, pushing themselves physically.  Although this isn’t the traditional aspect of performance it is still a performance for people to watch and interact with.

‘A “performance” may be defined as all the activity of a given participant on a given occasion which serves to influence in any way of the other participants. Taking a particular participant and his performances as a basic point of reference, we may refer to those who contribute to the other performances as the audience, observers, or co-participants. The pre-established pattern of action which is unfolded during a performance and which may be presented or played through on other occasions may be called ‘a part’ or a ‘routine’…a social relationship is likely to arise.’   (Goffman,1959, 15-16)

The above quote will help people to understand the concept of our performance; our piece explores the role the audience plays within our experimental. Not only are we setting out to achieve relationship between the Feeders and Gainers, but naturally do to the nature of our piece, we will create a relationship with the audience members, pushing the emotional intelligence of some audience members.  The audiences contribution listening and being able to see one another will help other audience members act in a certain way, making them perform in a certain way. This is one of our reasons why we want our lights to be on the audience too, making them a participant in our experiment.

Work Cited

Goffman.E (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

One Word: Fetish

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Feeder Fetish: What is it? Who has it? Where does it come from? What’s the difference in liking food or becoming an obsession? Where’s the transition?  These questions are being explored through on going research and allowing me to create my own opinion on the matter.

Fetishes is something that I am not personally come across before, neither am I obsessed with anything for it to become a sexual desire of mine. This experiment is helping me understand the urgencies in which some people have with food. So what does the word fetish mean? You may get a different response to this question depending who you ask this to. However the dictionary states:-

a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body,  (Oxford University Press,2013)

With recent documentation from Channel 4, Big Fat Fetish in May 2012, which was an documentation on food fetish’s discussing their relationship with foods. Many people questioned their sexual desire towards food and is this seen as ‘normal?’ However this is something in which they saw as ‘normal’ and the fetish was a necessary sexual desire for them.  But do we know what the word ‘normal’ really means? Who makes the decision to define what normal is? This could lead into a debate of is the word fetish valid? The next step is to record a conversation between us and discuss the relevance of fetishes in todays context and how we connect differently to objects not necessary in a sexual desire but emotionally. When I first heard about Food fetish’s I automatically judged, I saw it as something weird, strange and not something I would ever understand, but through this process and research I am coming to a understanding everyone has different relationships with food.

Work Cited

Oxford University Press (2013) Fetish. [Online] Available from: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fetish [Accessed 4/12/13]

 

The Making Of Food

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Nutrition plays a vital part with our bodies, which keeps us growing, this educates and develops our knowledge with taste, smells and experience with foods.  Process of food changes within the social context that I am in, for instance, I relate food as a pleasurable and social situation making the process of food something I enjoy doing.  When making a homemade dinner I tend to add spices and different flavours to create a tasteful dinner which I appreciate it.

‘Cooking is a moral process, transferring raw matter from ‘nature’ to the state of ‘culture’, and thereby taming and domesticating it. This act may be as simple as plucking a piece of fruit from a tree and washing it, or cutting it with a knife, or it may be as complex as the greatest creations of haute cuisine, requiring hours of preparation. Food is therefore ‘civilized’ by cooking, not simply at the level of practice, but at the level of the imagination.’ (Lupton.D, 1996, 2)

Cooking is a process which is something I enjoy doing, for some people it can be seen as a hobby. It’s a way of learning, interacting, being creative and experimental with food.  The control is in your hands.

Do you find yourself appreciating a homemade dinner better than you would if some else makes it? Personally I find when making your own food you do appreciate the hard work which you put into the process of making it, to seeing the finished product, it’s a sense of achievement. What happens to when you switch the roles round? When someone else makes your food? Do you freak out and tend to question everything that is put into the recipe or do you naturally leave that person to it? These questions may just raise a few open discussions about how people process their food and the control they have, choosing to eat particular foods. With cooking your own food you have the choice to choose certain foods we like, our calories intake and portions sizes, having that control over the choices we make creates a balanced relationship with food. ‘We say “we know what we like”, but it would be more accurate to say “we like what we know”.’ (Fisher, Bender, 1979,113) With experience, we create judgement from presentation, to smells, creating an overall opinion before tasting the food.

     ‘from earliest infancy, the experience of easting is intertwined with their experience of close human contact with the provider of the food-the bodily warmth, the touch of the other’s flesh, their smell, the sounds they make- and the emotions and sensations aroused by this experience….enjoying filling the stomach…emotional and sensual responses to the person or people who provide the food’ (Lupton, 1996,7,8)

Our experimental explores the relationship between the Feeder and Gainer and how the control is completely in the feeders hand, this allows the feeder to produce the foods, adding a high calorie intake into each product.  Not only does this explore the relationship between the food and the Gainer, the Feeder develops an intimate relationship with the food. This is clear due to the overall control of the Feeder, due to them knowing the ingredients within the finished recipes, which may create an emotional attachment to certain recipes, making the Gainer eat more of what the Feeder likes, due to their personal experience with that particular dish.

Work Cited

Lupton,D. (1996) Food, the body and the self. London: SAGE Publications ltd

Fisher,P. Bender,A. (1979) The Value of Food. Third edition. London: Oxford University Press.

Man vs Food

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Food is the main energy supply for growth, movement and repairing the body. From birth, living things start growing, gaining weight and changing.  (BBC, 2013)

But what happens when we challenge our bodies into eating large quantities of food or even the food that our bodies/taste-buds disagree with? This experiment is not only physically demanding its experimenting with the concept of ‘mind over matter’. Pushing our bodies until we physically cannot eat anymore, this may be shown through gagging, being sick or to the point where we cannot physically eat anymore.

Our initial was to experiment with was foods we didn’t like. This involved foods such as sardines, soup, tomatoes, bananas (these things were things which each individual brought to the experiment)  We started with putting foods out on a table, non of the foods weren’t particularly presented in the way you would usually eat them, this made me question the effect in which the presentation of the food effects us individually.  A item of food I brought to the experimental was soup which was in a tin this was then poured into a bowl in front of us and the sound which it made being poured in a bowl, was quite deafening, which  heightened the effect of the experimental  making it an intimate experience for myself. The use of hearing the food, crunching, slopping, popping, chewing draws people to watch and engage with that particular food, which is something we are looking at to explore in our future experimental.

Once we had established the different types of food, all of us waited nervously awaiting to see if we would get the food which we didn’t like. This particular part of the experimental was challenging as we were anticipating what was to come, not knowing the unknown was a big part of this experimental. A member of third year drama assisted us in our experimental, who made the decision to what each of us should eat, and this was to experiment with the audience and our interaction with one another. The use of having assistance allowed us to not have any influence in picking foods that people like or dislike.  The highlight of this experimental for all of us was to challenge our bodies to eat sardines. This personally was very challenging as I was nearly sick, this concept of pushing my body to eat something that I do not enjoy and necessary created a response. Although the concept of this experimental was not to be sick, but to push ourselves the awfulness of this experimental creates impact when something bad is happening. Most people associate food as pleasure, something we enjoy doing and when someone is not enjoying or reacting in a way that doesn’t seem the ‘norm’ people tend to be interested and engage with the content, how much is too much?

Work Cited

-BBC – Learning Zone Class Clips – Why do we need to eat? – Science Video. 2013. BBC – Learning Zone Class Clips – Why do we need to eat? – Science Video. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/why-do-we-need-to-eat/2288.html. [Accessed 22 October 2013].