Resting on a Sharp Point

Resting on a Sharp Point is the video documentation of a 47-minute performance staged on the 11th of March 2013. The work was set in a dark, un-serviced basement and involved performing three gestures. Physical objects I performed with included a bucket, a spear, and five plastic bags of balloons filled with condiments. The sauces filling these balloons were made up of two hundred gallons of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, and brown sauce.

This performance began with me spearing a plastic bag hung from the ceiling; the bucket collected the condiments from the bag, until all the condiments had been released from the balloons. The contents of the bucket were then ingested, and forcefully drunk until this bucket was fully depleted. My body reacted with various signs of sickness from my attempt to consume the saline and repelling mixture. These condiments and gestures were chosen to prompt an emotional response and to create a surreal experience.

I replaced the bag each time after consumption via a pulley system mounted to the ceiling. My gestures of spearing, ingesting, and hoisting were completed five times. This event was paced with vigorous spearing actions, long pauses and blank gazes into the bucket, a strenuous action of pulling the weighted plastic bags, and ended with me resting on the bucket I drank from.

By committing myself to ingest beyond my tolerance, the danger and risk of this work was intended to prompt my psychological resilience when facing an extreme situation. This performance is an experience of reactions and behaviour confronted by abjection.