Project Spotlights

This project was an expansion upon my Knowledge Transference artwork, which was also a video performance. I wanted to see how I can make it bigger and how personal I am willing to make it. Being absurd and uncomfortable was another point I was wanting to make. The project did end up being very personal because I was the one filming, being filmed, cooking, serving, eating, editing, and the only one standing up to present my videos. These accumulated into the videos being very uncomfortable to watch and turning it into an private experience. This was prevalent while I was eating and just staring at the camera with dead silence filling the dark showing room. Filming was also very intimate even though everybody eats and shares meals. I was alone in my apartment just  staring back at myself on my computer sharing this meal with myself.

I thought about the topics we covered in class and which ones felt the most personable to me. Origin Stories and Knowledge Transference being the ones that stuck out. In this work I ‘shared’ my recipes with the audience and shared my meals as well. I also shared my relationship with food which is complicated and has not been shared with many people in my life. Being anemic and the symptoms that come with it have been the main problems I've had to deal with. Now I am also living away from home and the set meals my mom would have ready for after school. This independence is really nice but challenging to adapt to sometimes; especially regarding food. One of the symptoms I get from low iron is that I will lose my appetite and not get the hunger cues that I should eat. Dealing with this when I already have a scattered schedule with school has been challenging and this project really brought this challenge to life. Even knowing the signs and symptoms for 10+ years, I still sometimes don’t realize the signs that my iron is getting low. This whole project ended up being very cathartic and helped me think about some other ideas within my life.

A different challenge that I faced with this project was the filming. I was the only one apart of the project so how was I to start, stop, and pause without having weird cuts and edits. How am I supposed to serve myself the meal if I am the one getting served? This added to the project since I do this by myself everyday anyways, so why would I start getting served now. The start and end, as well as any pauses in the middle were easy to fix as I found a video editor already installed on my computer. 

My hope is that while the audience is watching the collection they question why this performance makes them feel uncomfortable. Is it because they relate or do not relate and feel they should? Is it because eating feels like a private act and they should look away when eating even though a meal is usually shared?

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