Tra Bouscaren: Lunch
For the "Lunch" project, I propose to cut off a piece of my own ass and have it grown in a laboratory until it reaches some kind of meal-like proportions, and then eat it as a performance. In addition, I would like to to make an audio-visual documentation of the process which would serve as complimentary components to the performance, which would also of course be videotaped, all of which could all then stand as a whole after the performance as an exhibition/documentation of the project.
By way of explaining 'why' I think this is a good or relevant idea, I will offer a conversation that I had with my aunt Beatrice recently concerning my project.
(B is aunt Beatrice, T is Tra--me)
B: What is this new project you are trying to realize?
T: It's called, 'Lunch'. It's about auto-cannibalism.
B: Auto-cannibalism?
T: Yes, I want to cut off a pice of my own ass and eat it.
B: Auto-cannibalism?! Eating your own butt?! Why!? That's disgusting.
T: Auto-Cannibalism. Think about the concept. It's great. It's a great and somehow all-too literal metaphor for what we're doing today. Culturally, politcally, and environmentally.
B: Your 'I want to eat my butt' concept does that?
T: Yes, I think so. Just take it as a concept: Auto-cannibalism. Think about it.
a minute or two passes in contemplation...
B: Well Ok. I don't know if I've heard it described in that way before, but I guess I can see how a kind of auto-cannibalism has dominated the arts and popular culture for the past 40 years or so. It's getting disgusting, if you asked me. T: Yes, I think so too sometimes, and that's why a disgusting method is required to illustrate this point. B: OK, so let's say I get it culturally, but what does eating your own butt have to do with politics or the environment? T: Auto-cannibalism speaks (in a very tounge-in-cheek way) to notions of a self-sustained economy, to the management of limited natural resources (I'm not eating my whole body, just a small part of it that can grow again), it's recycling, it's sustainable development. It speaks to non-violence in a time of war over natural resources. i am harming no one besides myself, not even a plant.
below some discarded bits that could still be useful for a more formal, more final proposal.
T. "As a metaphor for contemporary culture, eating myself has many resonances, especially once you allow that culture is a kind of body."
B: "Culture is a kind of body?!"
T: "Yes. Culture feeds and digests and excretes, just like a body. Culture moves around. Culture is moody. Culture will focus it's attention here and then there, lose interest in something and find it again in something else. Culture is very much a kind of body with different moving parts in different places, but all relating back to one another through a kind of central nervous system which is made up out of all of us and the communication we have.
B: "Ok. I can follow that."
Tra Bouscaren: Lunch
For the "Lunch" project, I propose to cut off a piece of my own ass and have it grown in a laboratory until it reaches some kind of meal-like proportions, and then eat it as a performance. In addition, I would like to to make an audio-visual documentation of the process which would serve as complimentary components to the performance, which would also of course be videotaped, all of which could all then stand as a whole after the performance as an exhibition/documentation of the project.
By way of explaining 'why' I think this is a good or relevant idea, I will offer a conversation that I had with my aunt Beatrice recently concerning my project.
(B is aunt Beatrice, T is Tra--me)
B: What is this new project you are trying to realize?
T: It's called, 'Lunch'. It's about auto-cannibalism.
B: Auto-cannibalism?
T: Yes, I want to cut off a pice of my own ass and eat it.
B: Auto-cannibalism?! Eating your own butt?! Why!? That's disgusting.
T: Auto-Cannibalism. Think about the concept. It's great. It's a great and somehow all-too literal metaphor for what we're doing today. Culturally, politcally, and environmentally.
B: Your 'I want to eat my butt' concept does that?
T: Yes, I think so. Just take it as a concept: Auto-cannibalism. Think about it.
a minute or two passes in contemplation...
B: Well Ok. I don't know if I've heard it described in that way before, but I guess I can see how a kind of auto-cannibalism has dominated the arts and popular culture for the past 40 years or so. It's getting disgusting, if you asked me. T: Yes, I think so too sometimes, and that's why a disgusting method is required to illustrate this point. B: OK, so let's say I get it culturally, but what does eating your own butt have to do with politics or the environment? T: Auto-cannibalism speaks (in a very tounge-in-cheek way) to notions of a self-sustained economy, to the management of limited natural resources (I'm not eating my whole body, just a small part of it that can grow again), it's recycling, it's sustainable development. It speaks to non-violence in a time of war over natural resources. i am harming no one besides myself, not even a plant.
below some discarded bits that could still be useful for a more formal, more final proposal.
T. "As a metaphor for contemporary culture, eating myself has many resonances, especially once you allow that culture is a kind of body."
B: "Culture is a kind of body?!"
T: "Yes. Culture feeds and digests and excretes, just like a body. Culture moves around. Culture is moody. Culture will focus it's attention here and then there, lose interest in something and find it again in something else. Culture is very much a kind of body with different moving parts in different places, but all relating back to one another through a kind of central nervous system which is made up out of all of us and the communication we have.
B: "Ok. I can follow that."