Below, I have attached the audio for an initial test performance for Stomach Cam. This scratchy four minute performance may give you a rough idea of what Stomach cam may sound like but please bare in mind that this is primarily an experiment and does not represent the final piece.
https://emmanuelsblog.myblog.arts.ac.uk/
(T.W. Medical Imagery)
In regards to my portfolio project, I would like to document my references and research material. These performances, books, films, and artists have been imperative to the creation of this project.
Stomach Cam Research and Resources
Stomach Cam (Youtube Channel)
Stomach Cam is a YouTube fetish channel where one anonymous user puts an endoscopic camera inside of themselves and silently captures video footage of their food digesting. Stomach Cam is a resource which informs the practice of using the endoscopic camera. The piece is also very informed by the people who watch Stomach Cam, their ideas, ideologies and behaviour.
Hyper-Annotation – Kenji Siratori
Hyper-Annotation is a collection of short-stories, poems, schematics, and glitch literature from multiple contributors published by Kenji Siratori. I have taken much inspiration from the experimental nature of the book, I have continued to use its intense prose and chaotic imagery as a corner stone for this piece. The book has heavily influenced the visual aesthetics for Stomach Cam, using both the writing and the artwork within the book as reference for the piece.
De Humani Corporis Fabrica – Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel
This film is responsible for the initial idea for the performative aspect of Stomach Cam. It is “An examination of the human body as an extraordinary landscape that is also otherworldly and harrowing, from five hospitals in northern Paris neighbourhoods.” The film made me confront the imagery and landscapes within my own body. I felt intimated by the seemingly uncontrollable and complex systems. I was inspired to confront these ideas, ejecting them outwards in a more comprehensible way. I will continue to use this film as a resource and reminder to be confrontational as the piece develops.
Slieve Dhu Research and Resources
Velvet Water – Chris Burden
Velvet Water, 1974 “Burden relentlessly dunked his head in a filled-up sink, trying to inhale the oxygen-rich water. We sat stupefied, paralyzed, until he seemed to pass out, and the monitor went dark, and that was it.” – Jerry Saltz, 2013. I have found this piece by Chris Burden to be invaluable in researching the performative aspect of Slieve Dhu. I have used and will continue to use Burden’s performances as a fundamental for the endurance aspect of Slieve Dhu.
The Gerogerigegege – Japanoise Group
The group was a vessel for the anomalous Juntaro Yamanouchi, who oddly stated that the outfit was birthed from a mutual love of noise music and The Ramones. One of the main proponents in The Gerogerigegege’s live performances was GERO 30’s exhibitionism, often leading to extremely intense and unsettling live scenes. The Gerogerigegege have heavily informed my interest in practicing and creating performance art. Their gloomy, misanthropic attitude has heavily informed the themes of this piece.
Hermann Nitsch
Nitsch believed that artwork should disgust the audience, and in order to achieve this he often incorporated animal carcasses alongside religious imagery, as well as more real blood. His work incorporated ritual in order to celebrate or chastise the human body. The work of Hermann Nitsch continues to inform the philosophies and ideas behind this piece, to me his work can inspire shame and disgust as well as celebration, I have been finding it incredibly useful working within this threshold.
During the course of my research into the Stomach Cam and endoscopic film-makers on Youtube, I came across ‘Endocam’. Endocam is one of the most popular Youtubers in this field with some of his videos breaking nearly 50k views. I thought that obviously they would have some insight into using an endoscopic camera for the Stomach Cam performance. In their Youtube bio, they had linked their Discord server, I logged in and sent a friend request.
I mostly wanted to know about the dangers of using the camera, how long you could use it for, which ones to use etc. Unfortunately, the Q&A got cut short one day when they stopped replying. I’m very interested in the ideas and reason for attraction the people within this scene have but, in my experience, they’re quite closed off and understandably uncomfortable talking about their fetish.
Currently I’m reaching out to more people within the scene to learn more, I’m hoping to get lucky and get the chance to ask more philosophical questions next time.
Below are the screenshots from the interview with Endocam along with a transcript of the conversation. (This conversation is from when I was planning on performing Stomach Cam with two people)
EM: hello! im a big fan of your youtube channel, as is my partner, and we are interested in doing something similar ourselves. I have a few questions about your methods, would you be ok with answering them? I understand that there are some medical risks with this, and we dont want to injure ourselves haha
EC: hey! sorry for the late response Yeah feel free to ask whatever!
EM: dont worry! thank you so much. Mainly, we were wondering what kind of equipment you use? ive heard that you can get lung damage etc from doing this and i dont want that as im sure u can imagine and, how long can you keep the camera inside of you? ive seen people in your comments asking you do to an entire day – which seems unrealistic, but what is the longest you think is possible/safe?
EC: I’ve never heard of someone getting lung damage, but I suppose it’s possible if ya just rammed it down your throat haha. The main endoscope I use is a cheap one from eBay, the higher quality type tend to have issues with the cable being semi rigid. It’ll take a bit to get used to constantly having something down your throat, it’ll definitely feel awkward at first. The longest I’ve had mine down was for maybe 1 and 1/2 hours but that was mainly due to time constraints.
EM: Does just any cheap one from ebay do? or there a specific model youd recommend? yeah i imagine it will be super uncomfortable at first but worth it, do you tend to do it alone or with someone supervising? me and my partner want to do it together, but i guess are a bit scared of the risks haha
EC: I can send you a link to the one I use. I do it by myself, there’s really not a whole lot of risk besides maybe throwing up. Just don’t force anything for sure
EM: amazing, yes i have some friends who are nurses who were a bit concerned but i trust you, you seem seasoned at this
Video = Garbage is a stitched-together fan made DIY style live music video documenting the bands most intense moments on stage, combining a mix of studio and live audio.
Dystopia have been a huge influence on how I’ve approached the themes and politics within the installations I’ve been working on. The music is so sludgy, crusty and gloomy. I’m particularly attracted to their DIY and tongue and cheek attitude; I find their work to be incredibly sincere.
I plan on make a short film using both Stomach Cam and Slieve Dhu – Video = Garbage has had a huge influence on how I imagine the aesthetics for the film.
In order to be able to perform Slieve Dhu and Stomach Cam, working out the requirements, visual design and logistics for the performances has been critical. When working on performance installations like this, having a very clear and achievable list of technical items is key to materialising the pieces. Below I have attached a list of technical requirements for both performances.
Due to the performances regarding my portfolio project being highly physical there are serious health factors to take into account, the research has to be meticulous to align with health and safety regulations in order to be performable.
The obvious mitigating factor is the health risks associated with the endoscopic camera, currently I’m talking to a Dr. Ted Finnegan (year two junior medical doctor working in Belfast) and an trained endoscopic technician working at Queens University.
The conversations with said people have been invaluable in understanding and mitigating the possible health risks of using an endoscopic camera. I understand the risk while using the camera is quite small but would still have to insist on a medical professional during the performance.
Another risk would be falling during the slieve dhu performance. To combat this risk, the sphere is padded, moving slowly and at an angle so that even if the performer were to fall, they wouldn’t hit the rim of the sphere.
Slieve Dhu is an Endurance art – audio visual performance that explores the emotional processes involved in personal confrontation.
Slieve dhu, or “Black Mountain” in Irish – is a piece that examines the humility and dysphoria associated with the aforementioned human self-discovery. This inspiration for this piece came whilst experiencing an intense bout of dysphoria and hypochondria. During this period, I found myself feeling constantly humiliated and exhausted. I felt embarrassed about the irrationality of my thoughts, constantly thinking I was on the brink of death or developing a cancerous tumour. To me, I usually find that it’s more common to associate the uncovering of your own body and emotions as a positive thing and the conversation ends there. It’s uncomfortable to talk about and experience the hardships associated with this process. In this piece I wanted to examine the humility and exhaustive, lengthy turmoil that usually comes with these discoveries in a more confrontational manner.
The performance concept is as follows, the large, hollow metal sphere is attached via chain-link to a rotating arm powered by an electrical motor. Sitting at the base of the motor is a sound mixer, a speaker and a sound manipulation board. Connected through the mixer, a contact microphone is placed inside the hollow part of the sphere. As the sphere rotates, it grinds across the floor, creating a harsh and unpredictable sound wall. The performer then gets on their hands and knees and follows the ball around with their head in the sphere’s chamber. The performer then crawls, following the ball until exhaustion. The piece ends when the performer can crawl no further due to exhaustion.
In Slieve Dhu I really wanted to emphasize the exhausting, humiliating and abrasive nature with these irrational health scares. I feel like this piece really demonstrates these thought loops in a way where the performer is in control of exercising them, again playing to the idea of ejecting physical and emotional turmoil.
Stomach cam, a 10 – 15 minute performative audio/visual installation.
To me, Stomach cam is a piece which exists within the idea of creating a desperate, corporeal re-composition – using post-human ideas to confront the inner landscapes of one’s physicality and impose these new compositions outwardly, using technology and sound.
The idea:
The idea for Stomach cam came to me while watching the Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, documentary – De Humani Corporis Fabrica. The film made me confront the imagery and landscapes within my own body. I felt intimated by the seemingly uncontrollable and complex systems. I was inspired to confront these ideas, ejecting them outwards in a more comprehensible way. I wanted to align my own viscera with my ideas and emotions. I then began working on my performance concept.
Performance concept:
The performer sits at the end of a long table, a finished plate of food sits on the right, a plate of sound manipulation devices on the left, tins of beer are littered around the table. On the opposite side, a computer monitor and laptop – these will be used to stream the live visuals from the endoscopic camera. At this point a contact microphone is placed on the performer’s stomach and the throat microphone around the neck. Under medical supervision, the camera slowly travels down the performer’s oesophagus and into their stomach. The mixer for the microphones is then turned up. The sounds of the stomach and throat are picked up and amplified by the microphones, the performer then proceeds to manipulate the audio whilst the camera is inside of them, using the live monitor feed as reference for how they manipulate sound. After a certain amount of time the performance concludes, the audio is turned down and the camera is retracted – completing the performance.
To me, this piece is about reclaiming your own physicality and forcing people to think differently about theirs. I feel that in this performance my physical and emotional body is aligned and I’m able to project this outwardly.
For this project, I wanted to experiment with new methods of collecting information and inspiration in order to prepare for these installations. I only started using mood boards for the first time with this project. They have become a crucial process in being able to visualise and begin to shape the aesthetics and themes for these installation pieces.
Below, I’ve attached the mood boards I’ve been using to draw inspiration from.
For this project, I wanted to further develop the ideas and themes from my previous installations last year. I was very much interested in using and developing the visual as well as sonic experiences within my performance.
I was heavily inspired by Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s De Humani Corporis Fabrica as well as a fetish channel called “Stomach Cam”. I was also finding myself incredibly drawn to the extreme performances and sculpture of Chris Burden and Wolf Vostell.
These influences, paired with the content I am working on for my audio dissertation have become useful resources to draw experimental performance ideas from. At this point I’m set on creating two sister installation performances. I want to create something that is self-aware and post-human. I want these performances to be Fluxus and Dadaist. To me, Dada especially, lends itself to a more mischievous quality which I’ve become very interested in.
I know that for these installations I wanted to examine the questions; “How does the use of technology and sound serve as a medium for people to confront these inner landscapes?” and “What emotions and processes are involved with such confrontations?”. I wanted to examine the convergence of technological bodily investigation, the emotional implications, and the projection of these processes. I want to comment on their essentiality and their extremity.
My previous work almost entirely commented on a form accelerationist hedonism. I want it to build upon the previously explored ‘zoomer’ anxiety complex in a more delicate and personal fashion. For example – in ‘The Latex Maid’ people disguised their anxieties with fake stories, name dropping etc. in order to shed them quickly, in Slieve Dhu one is meant to endure this turmoil.
‘The Latex Maid’ focused the communal aspects of post-human culture and theory more outwardly, using the social aspects of said culture as a source, I want to experiment with the opposite. I want to create a more personal introspection of the post-human ideas presented in ‘The Latex Maid’.
