Eating paper
‘A few months before Salvador Dali died I was at a gallery in San Francisco, who featured him. They had a video playing continually of him, rolling paper up in a ball and eating it. True. I was for whatever reason intrigued by that. Questions in my mind mounted about him. It seemed desperate as far as art expression goes to find value in eating rolled up paper wads. Was he going mad or had he always been mad or was I somehow being short sighted and missing some extraordinary expression of artistic courage? Was I ‘not hip’, not in the inner circle of knowing what makes real art? I did not know much about Dali then and I confess I thought it odd and actually kinda coo coo?’
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2098127
I’ve kept this to myself for many, many years. Not out of shame for actually eating paper, but because I was embarrassed about having been so fat and desperate.
http://www.fatmanunleashed.com/eating-paper-to-los…
“the japanese say that your paper should be pure enough to eat”. so this boy says with a grin, “can i eat it?” the other kids are leaning in at this, and he’s got the devil in his eye. “sure”, i said. the pulp is a milky soup and in has a few plant bits, ferns. so now it’s up to him to save face, and hesitating only a tiny bit he scooped out a handful and popped it in his mouth. the cheer went up, he gulped it down. because i met his dare, we were buddies. and we continued to make paper and the kids all really joined in.
http://velmabolyard.blogspot.com/2010/01/eating-pa…
Last year during a residency in Estonia at Polymer Culture Factory I first disclosed my desire to eat paper. The process of making paper requires the material to be mascercated or chewed which is usually done by machine except in the case of wasps who originally invented paper from wood fibers. I make paper because it represents transformation and in doing it by hand make the human the instument of change. In eating the paper I become the wasp, independant of machine or tool.
I have been reading ‘Coded Messages’ by Mary Douglas from the book ‘Consuming Passions, Food in the age of anxiety’ who talks about the idea that food is a system of communication and as such it has a grammar. If I a to consume paper the act of eating will refer to our food conventions and to the myths around eating paper as being animalistic, ‘coo-coo’ and as a way to loose weight.
As a woman performing these acts it will communicate very specific messages about image, identity, hysteria, and also refer to logic verses nature. Therefore as I have have learned from my experience with re-enacting Loving Care that a great deal of attention should be paid to how an audience will interpret and respond to this and what messages I am sending to them. Of course as always I will consider documentation and with this I hope to use the eaten paper to print photographic images onto. I’ve tested the photograph process and it works so now on to the next step I guess.
