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Elle a tout mangé
The starting point for the video performance "Elle a tout mangé" is the practice of fetishizing the gesture of eating that can be observed in social media. On the one hand, this fetishization follows familiar objectification regimes that are linked to bodies that are conceived as feminine. On the other hand, it presupposes a shift in perspective in which the essential, life-sustaining function of human food intake takes a back seat to the effect of decadent luxury consumption. Overemphasized meals and sexualizing body images are mixed and multiplied in a media-effective way on the basis of a privileged lifestyle. Ella Mangetout, a fictional character, resists this form of staging by filming herself eating a cake whose icing consists of a projection of her own eating self. Ella Mangetout's facial expression alternates between pleasure and disgust as the cake is picked apart with the help of a fork and finally her own hands. Mangetout becomes the object of her own excessive consumption until she is completely mangled. While the supposedly pleasurable consumption of cake is reminiscent of the autodestructive act of an eating disorder, the face perfected by the beauty filter as well as the luxurious cream cake defy any projection of pleasure and leave the viewer in a state of voyeurism and disgust.
Work details:
Video documentation of live performance,
Archivio Performante, Leipzig, livestreamed on Instagram, 2021
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