Notes on A Natural History of the Senses

Taste:

• the powerful social component associated with eating
• foods eaten symbolically:
• Catholic communion
• rice as the inspirational center of lives
• Jewish horseradish dish to symbolize tears of ancestors
• the intimacy of taste
• the meaning of taste as "trial" or "test"; food as thrill-seeking
• food and sex, food as pleasurable
• the delicacies of other cultures:
• Masai drink cow's blood

• Italians eat deep-fried songbirds
• Aztecs eat roasted dog
• "diversity is our delight" and the privilege of an array of foods
• the history and taboo of cannibalism pages 136-138
• New Guinea cannibalism/sex ritual
• "the tongue is like a kingdom divided into principalities according to sensory talent."
• salt, sour, sweet, bitter, others?
• negative effects on taste buds
• toothpaste breaks down phospholipids on taste buds, causing orange juice to taste bitter
• heredity of taste; mood and diet in relation to taste
• the relation of smell and taste
• "...in England during the eighteenth century... the idea arose that torturing an animal made its meat healthier and better tasting"
• eating the goose while it's still alive :( :( :( :( page 147
• cravings and emotional balance
• carbohydrates for Seasonal Affective Disorder
• sweets as rewards
• drifting from "real" taste and preferring artificiality
• discussion of specific tastes
• chocolate, vanilla, truffles, ginger
• taste makes the horror of killing to live palatable

Restrictions I-V book

Restrictions I-V video

Restrictions I-V

Restrictions I-V

Restrictions I-V is a performative exploration of physical and psychological restrictions. Using the concept of self-as-subject, I created and borrowed tools to deprive myself of these functions: use of teeth, warmth, use of thumbs, vision, and privacy. 

The video document shows either use or result of use of these five physical or metaphorical tools. 

Aside from the last restriction entitled Privacy, the aspect of privacy was unintentionally everywhere in this project: the photos and videos offer insight into my life that I didn't necessarily choose to share. 

The accompanying book exhibiting both "object" and "use" is a tactile item that creates an intimate experience between the single viewer and the artwork. The unedited Polaroid photographs parallel the loss of control discovered through the use of the tools. 

I specifically titled it I-V to imply that these are only five of an infinite number of possibilities. In other words, this project is designed to be explored further. 

Privacy

"He lives without privacy in a lidless room." - Sylvia Plath

I think the most compelling restriction I've placed on myself is lack of privacy. When considering things I took for granted it was towards the top of the list - something that's just understood as a right in our society, yet something that we like to think we have control over.

Aside from the obvious last restriction entitled "Privacy", the aspect of privacy is unintentionally everywhere in this project: the photos and videos offer insight into my life that I didn't necessarily choose to share. 

I'm intrigued by the idea of "audience" for banal occurrences. For this project, my exposure threshold was exceeded. Why would anyone care to watch me eat? Sleep? Put on makeup? Take off my clothes and get in a river? (Well that last one is quite unusual, actually). 

I think I became interested in the idea of privacy when I started thinking of it in terms of alienation and control - something I take way or restrict. I hope this comes across in my videos and photos. It was my choice to live without privacy in my own lidless room. 

Francis Alys

Francis Alys is an artist I learned about somewhat accidentally during the course of this assignment. I had been researching his paintings for another class when I came across his work in book arts and performance!

His books (none of which I've read yet) are narratives of performances but utilize a wide range of media, which I'm immensely interested in doing in my own art.

I've researched him quite a bit and there are some specific pieces that I found fascinating:

•  he stopped in a crowded area and stared at the sky until a crowd gathered around him, wondering what he was looking at
• he traveled around the world looking for his "doppelgangers" or people that reminded him of himself (physically, I think) and photographed them usually from behind
• he has used a fox, a mouse, and a peacock, all in different art "installations"

I find his documentation technique really interesting and will be reconsidering some aspects of my documentation. 

image from Alys' Doppelganger series

video of him pushing a block of ice around

Question for consideration:
What is the difference between making art and just doing something kind of strange?

Joseph Beuys - Multiples

This is another book I checked out from the library on an artist whose work I found directly inspirational to my project.

The format of the "catalogue raisonne" (comprehensive list of artworks and their images) was something I had hoped to emulate in my book. I might be interested in adding a short description of each object? I am pretty interested in these in general even though I sometimes find them confusing and incomprehensive because I always find myself wanting to know more than what is provided.

Beuys talked about objects in terms of multiples and his reasoning behind creations.
I found this quote particularly relevant:

"But if the concept of art becomes anthropological it is totalized and really does refer to human creativity, to human work and not simply the work of artists. Why anyway should the term art refer to the work of painters and sculptors? That is simply a restriction that never existed before."

This fits perfectly with my overarching questions "what is art?" and "why is this considered art?" which I'm hoping to explore more thoroughly in the future.

(this is not from Multiples but it is an experiment with a coyote in a room which I think is cool and reminds me of an animal behavior class I took once)

more updates

I'm using the 24 hour lab video capturing equipment tomorrow to upload and hopefully edit my videos.

For the book, I ended up using spray adhesive on thicker paper that I ordered from Talas. It works if I let it dry for a minute before adhering.

I bound it using a non-adhesive binding technique from Keith Smith.

updates

I was talking about "masochism" over the weekend and realized I'd been incorrectly using it as a synonym with exhibitionism.

Then I started questioning these experiments I'm doing. I had been comparing my work to other famed performance artists (not comparing in an on-their-level way, but more of an influential/research-based way), but it technically can't be classified as masochism because there is no pleasure involved? Is pleasure derived from art? From the audience or the performer?

I suppose it doesn't matter because the outcome is the same but I was just interested to learn the true meaning of the word.

Contract with the Skin: Masochism, Performance Art, and the 1970s

This book was excessively descriptive of the specific performances illustrated within. It mentions the calm demeanor in the artists' statements, which was probably most influential (since I had already become familiar with most of the art works by this point: Acconci, Abramovic, Burden). I want to convey this in my work, too, which is why I'm leaving my book very simple.

I want the viewer to incur meaning behind the images and videos without being told too much initially. I don't want to have long journal entries or anything, but I'm really excited about expanding all of these experiments in the future.

Here is a video link as a reminder for me to watch it later

Artworks: Perform

This is another book I checked out from the library about performance art. I specifically focused on the chapter entitled Performing the Object but was surprised to find inspiration in a chapter entitled The Performer is in All of Us, giving examples of works in which the audience or public is the performer. This is of interest to me considering my last project was left in the hands of the public. I think other people are so fascinating to study.

Specific artists from this book whose works I found useful to my research included Chris Burden and Jeppe Hein. In similar ways to Vito Acconci, these artists had me questioning how some of these performances could be considered art, which was something I struggled with in my own assignment.

Neato Acconci

Vito Acconci: Writings, Works, Projects by Gloria Moure is my favorite inspirational book that I've checked out from the library. Vito Acconci does weird things - even weirder than I could have imagined. The most useful chapters were about bodies and the use of his own body in his art.

Here are some particularly enjoyable pages that I thought were helpful in terms of research for my own experiments:

This is a video of Vito moving his arm in front of his face until it presses up against his skin; explores space and boundaries, containment

In this piece Vito puts his face in a bowl of soap. explores discomfort, control

Vito has his mail forwarded to a museum display. Kind of cool and weird voyeuristic.

Other experiments not pictured but still notable are ones in which he is blindfolded and has balls thrown at him and ones in which he leaves deep bite marks on his skin.

Vito Acconci, to me, is a contemporary artist creating works at the forefront of the question of what can and can't be considered art, which I am immensely interested in exploring as a student.