Degree Project: Digital Sketchbook

We started a new module: print workshop on Wednesday 10/03/21 with Srin. This sounds so exciting and will be a really good new way to boost my work in different directions. See initial notes below – I had so may ideas flying around my head to play with for this module.

IDEAS: images to use Are You Watching?, To Bite, Just a Nibble or Two – could create a series of works from the Riso e.g. stills from different films I have created. Line drawings from Level 5 would make interesting layers!

Reflection 21/04/21: As I have began to create, I now know to use clear imagery – I used Sweet Tooth B&W photo which was very dark (printed almost all pink). I feel too many layers would loose the identity/imagery and currently working with text from Andrea Dworkin’s Pornography: Men Possessing Women and don’t want too much confusion of text/imagery.

The Riso print machine is a printer that prints like screen print except it only prints in pink, blue, yellow and black – the pink and black would create striking images in relation to my work!! Srin suggests to work from light to dark e.g. yellow, pink to black. There are no rules to layering images or patterns, as busy or as simple as I like. Placement of the image of the paper can change the appearance/outcome, I wish to work with miss-placement/out of line images when layering. Coloured paper comes into play with how vibrant the colours will be.

Firstly you edit the colours out and into black and white, the same way you would for screen printing, see below. I began to prepare my own images for next Wednesday’s session. From my notes above, I followed the step by steps given by Srin in order to prepare for the Riso. It was fairly straight forward, firstly you choose your image/s you would like to use and put them into photoshop. I trialed the image I used to project for Are You Watching? first because there’s some great shadows there that would work brilliantly when bitmapping. Edited it to grayscale and then adjust the levels of intensity, I went fairly intense so it creates block like colours from the Riso.

Then you select image – mode – bitmap and edit the intensity/how many dots you wish to have. This effects the detail of the image – either being abstract or in-depth. This was hard to know how intense or soft to go until I place the image through the Riso. I trialed another image from Are You Watching? which I set less intense levels/dots. I can’t wait to trial printing and experiment with paper and colours!

I then wanted to try some different images e.g. 3 stills from Just a Nibble or Two, I followed the same process but played with different intensity of frequency of dots. The aim is for 2 to come out more dark/intense than 1 and 3. Could make an interesting graduation of images if I wish to layer them off set them from each other. I chose not to create them as a Bitmaps, I am interested to see how they will come as black and white images.

Reflection 21/04/21: Bitmap works well as one layer for example, but not all 3, the images becomes very textures and you lose the detail. I prefer the outcome of original images.

1

2

3

I chose to also trial a bitmap from this series to see how different will it appear when it is printed through the Riso and if bitmap does have an impact on just B&W images. See screenshots of process below. It would be really good to play with black on top of pink for this image to really bring out the shadow and darkness in the picture – may make it feel almost grotesque?

Final outcome:

These images will be great to trial with printing for Wednesday’s session. I also attempted some shapes/background patterns in the same process as the images above! See below, I wish to use these among the images above to experiment with layering & see what works! I used different brushes on Photoshop as well and techniques when creating these. – Could create a line drawing on there & import to bitmap?

As Laura Mulvey created her term of the male gaze, she exploits this through the female gaze; a female POV. She introduced this way of looking through her essay “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema”. Mulvey didn’t address the female gaze terminology but “she did speak out against what she called the “male gaze” in Hitchcock’s Rear Mirror: a pervy, objectifying lens that turns women into sex objects to be dominated and consumed.” (Lopatko, 2019). It becomes about the way women are depicted to be seen/viewed, especially “with the magic of  Hollywood style” (Mulvey, 1973, p 58). Mulvey writes, how the screen is “subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze” (Mulvey, 1973, p 59), enrooting a fixation upon women and the way they are presented as though that is how they should be continually treated outside of the cinema. Mulvey’s essay allowed all genders to be fronted with the issues of sexual objectification of women.

This quotation from TheArtGorgeous made me reevaluate my work and see that through the female gaze is the way I work. It’s giving viewers the insight to how we as women perceive things that happen to us. As Mulvey also wrote “she is isolated, glamorous, on display, sexualised” (Mulvey, 1973, p 64) – this brought up thoughts within my practice, again relating to Consuming and Consuming 2 which was recently mentioned in my 1-1. I aim to continue projection and installation with interesting films below to exploit this ‘display’.

I want to play with this idea that we as women are still effected by the male gaze and patriarchy and may always will be. As I said previously my 1-1 with Jane it made me reflect on my L6 work, it’s continually related back to Consuming and I wanted to address this and revisit it by creating a new one. Last year I had in mind to create life like breasts (with food colouring) that would be eaten instead of white icing and to try different angles, but due to lockdown 2020 I was unable to do this with the model my boyfriend. So now I have decided to recreate these ideas in preparation for some projection and installation experimentation. See the documentation of making icing breasts below: (it was a challenge to get the correct range of tones with colouring instead of paint!)

Reflection 21/04/21: After my 1-1 with Catinca, we discussed the impact the film has once you know the relationship to artists/model, the male in the films below is my boyfriend and then with this comes this comfortable element that seems to be lost as soon as the film becomes black and white in Sweet Tooth B&W, aggressive/destructive, looses its familiarity.

Reflection 26/05/21: Following my 1-1 with Jane today we discussed the fact I have directed the male to put and bite down on the breast in his mouth. If this was a males instruction/direction the outcome/appearance/feel of the film would be completely different. With this idea in mind the work feels female dominant in the sense of myself having control over the male in the film and essentially the breast. With this take, it feel female empowering by then exploiting the consumption of a female (breast) by a male, showing the issues withal control. But then I have to question, does it also encourage sexual objectification? Based off of feedback from 1-1s and group crits with my peers/tutors, the men said they felt disgusted – so, does the imagery/act of male control/sexual objectification disgust the men? Or is it just the film, and that is all?

Within this film above, I really wanted to focus in on the teeth biting into the icing breast, colouring the icing to represent a realistic breast to add depth of disturbance.

The small bite directly down into the breast and nipple plays with the title and the imagery – this was my favourite part, it feels tense. This emotion is then continued through the whole film as you then watch the male chew continually and you can slightly hear this in the background. Adds disgust to the uncomfortable setting already there. The still image from this film is very aggressive.

I edited Just a Nibble further, focusing on the action of biting, zooming in slowly – this is only a 10 second clip but will be a continual looped projection. I focused on the close up frame of the eating mouth, see below in Just a Nibble or Two, the forced visual of a repeating bite into the icing breast. There is the play off of the material too, icing = desirable material/food, a treat/topper that is added to desserts, it plays with the display of women being desirables objects for men to consume. I aimed to represent this by working with the space. I aim edit these films to play off the uncomfortable element, to force this visual through the female gaze to all viewers.

Reflection 19/04/21: Currently I am projecting Sweet Tooth B&W as a loop, reflecting from previous group cries, they have said there’s this captivating quality where you become unsure if the film will change, if you leave you might miss something.

See my initial notes/ideas below while I was creating the films and reflecting:

With To Bite below, I wanted to zone into the biting down of the breast. Placed it in between the teeth to visualise the slow destruction of the breast. “she is isolated, glamorised, on display, sexualised” (Mulvey, 1973, p64) resembles with the one breast is sat between the males teeth, alone, on display and sexualised in its position with moisture. As the breast is being bitten into, the lips almost swallow the breast as though it is trapped. Suggests ideas of women being trapped under the male gaze/patriarchy? Like Mulvey explores the “traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed” (Mulvey, 1973, p 62). The mouth of the man almost swallowing the breasts suggests… Will women always trapped and tied to sexual objectification? And only seen for the intimate areas of the body?

Reflection 21/04/21: To Bite has become a very successful piece, it’s face on, more daunting/personal, as though you shouldn’t be looking directly at the mouth. I have used To Bite within Sweet Tooth B&W projections using cellophane to glorify this image of women being consumed by men as a desirable, like the cinema exploits. 

Reflection 15/03/21: I am using To Bite within the print workshop – the pink and yellow inks project this glamorisation of female consumption in a new way to the use of cellophane.

To take this film further I edited it similarly to how Just a Nibble or Two was done. In To Bite Again and Again zones into the chomps and the lips encapsulating the breasts to see what effect it has. Mouths are unique and personal, similar to how I explored hands in Only Touch With CLEAN Hands, everyones mouth has its way of moving. See below in To Bite Again and Again:

Reflection 21/04/21: Following my 1-1 with Gary 15/04/21 of Sweet Tooth B&W, from To Bite, there’s this weird feeling of watching someone eat – Freudian approach which feels visceral as mouths are sexualised and fetishised. The film becomes compact with questions and theories.

I slowed this piece down – you notice the mouth movements as well as the skin and the face trying to capture the breast, followed by the wet from the mouth covering the breast creating a peculiar glisten. It adds to the effort of biting into it and also suggests a glamourised visual of the act and breast? – I think this film would make a successful installation as a projection. Immersive/filling the space for the viewer, especially with two surrounding projectors and a large size of this film – slightly off centre these films will create this repetition and peculiar infinity like feel. Make the viewer feel small, that they have to watch. As repetition is a strong theme present, suggests ideas as Yayoi Kasuma Infinity Mirror series.

• Fabrics/paper (Kieran experimented with this during the Congruous exhibition and I’d like to try)/board in the space use to distort the projection of the film, could make it even more unsettling?

In Biting I took To Bite Again and Again further to work with different ways to capture the act of biting e.g. zooming within the film, key burns, slow motion to intrigue the viewer, to see what is really happening, like Are You Watching?. I liked the exploration of different angles within the film frame, get to see more of the face, mouth and angle of how the icing breasts are eaten.

Reflection 26/05/21: Last year in level 5 I explored the natural female forms representation and the empowerment it has. I celebrated different body shapes/breast shapes in reflection to how we both see ourselves as well as each other using mirrors, coloured light in regards to the natural elements of the body. With this it slowly developed into the ‘grotesque’ and the side of the form we don’t often see/celebrate. Growing into level 6, I aimed to take this grotesque element further by accentuating it and especially recently within my b&w film, it has explored the flip side/dark side to the female form that naturally follows = sexual objectification when it comes to the male gaze/cinema/control. 

I wanted to include the act ‘To Squeeze’ (December reflection of To Squeeze), reminded me of my Richard Serra research. I wanted to capture the squeeze and the chomping for an extra impact on the viewers and the icing breast. I left this breasts colour slightly unmixed, you can see in Chomp Chomp below, that when its squeezed it helps add to the realism and skin like texture. It almost changes material – what is it? There’s something quite aggressive about this film that isn’t as such in the others. The hand grip and the tension in the jaw, it all feels very male dominated which is the male gaze and patriarchy which are of course important themes. Sexual connotations present life like breast being bitten into. Very clear visual of women being food for consumption/desirables – larger icing breast makes it less sweet like in To Bite.

Reflection 12/03/21: From my 1-1 with Jane, we discussed how the laughing in-between Chomp Chomp is off putting, too weird/too much? The act of biting and squeezing is enough.

Reflection 17/03/21: However, this also has a peculiar impact rewatching after hearing the news of Sarah Everard, it feels even darker, sad and scary all at the same time. Imagery of men happily indulging into women. Does it become offensive? Yes, I don’t like it now. I agree with Jane, the biting and squeezing is enough.

Exploring the male control that is over women and their bodies? Feels strange when there is a lot of edited slowed/repetition/reversed pieces in the film, you’re forced to look and observe similar to the way Kruger’s Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face attracts viewers to consider the gazes’ impact.

• Intensifying the sound when I project to hear the chewing
• Edit the colouration – more intense/in the viewers face?
• Think about the space – fabric, objects in the way, sculptures of breasts in place?

Reflection 30/03/21: I am currently working with no sound, no distraction and it’s feels more impactful, the focus in on the mouth/the act of chewing.

Reflection 15/04/21: My 1-1 with Gary 15/04/21 explored how you imagine the sound of chewing, even though it’s silent, becomes a phycological impact as though you should be hearing the noise.

Reflection 30/04/21: This 1-1 has been a turning point for my projection in response to the space/installation. The double projections have been received well by my peers, 1-1’s with Matt and Gary. Especially 29/04/21 1-1 with matt we discussed the use of reception and mirrored reflection with these projections. I am exercising all aspects of projection within the studios and soon the installation room.

I had a 1-1 with Jane 05/03/21 and discussed where to go next for my end of year project as I felt slightly stuck after Congruous. See notes below – discussing ideas and how to achieve them with COVID. We have also all been given a studio space at uni to work in to create our installations.

Reflection 18/04/21: Daisy chaining the projection has transformed Sweet Tooth B&W to involve the space and the corners of the room/walls, more than the projection just being there. – Appears even more aggressive.

Upon reflection of my L6 work, I have reflected on this in my previous blogs but, the pieces that weren’t so successful this year were, The Haze of Social Media – even though I really enjoyed this work, what I was trying to get across wasn’t working. Baking – I am torn with this piece, it was fun to do but visually doesn’t appear how I wanted it too. There are strong references to Rosler as well as the documentation of the process but I felt something wasn’t right. Cookin’ Up Beauty – this piece and the piece above were moments where I wasn’t sure what I was doing/wanting to do and it shows within these works. Up Close – I felt the message was lacking. This was the experimentation with projection prior to Congruous which in respects helped me explore projection in a confined space.

But the main pieces that have been successful this year are Are You Watching? the installation for the Congruous exhibition. My performative film Only Touch With CLEAN Hands – the need to be clean e.g. current times with COVID and this idea that women are delicate objects that cannot be dirtied. To Squeeze – more performance. CUBED exhibition. Bath projections. From this I have realised projection has been very successful for me and installation spaces. For the rest of my L6 I want to focus in on projection and work with how far I change adapt the environment and create a strange immersive installation in preparation for the end of year show. E.g. Yayoi Kasuma, Pipilotti Risk.

• Consuming – this piece was created in L5 and has always seemed to pop up in my reflection. It seems to share a relation to whatever I am doing within my practice. I don’t want to ignore this as I created this film towards the end of L5 and I didn’t get a chance to work further with it – project/adapt it for L6.

Reflection 21/04/21: I am so glad I had this 1-1 with Jane, it’s transformed my practice and I feel the exploration is endless. I have surprised myself and turned to a monochrome pallette for Sweet Tooth B&W (a spin off of Consuming) which has been just as successful – I have learnt colour can intensify or glorify the visual message too as well as the feel for the space/work.

With my 1-1 Jane it also helped me visualise different ways to adapt old works like Consuming – retake it. Create relatable edible icing breasts, change the way they’re eaten quickly/slowly/aggressively/seductive. The male image works well with the relation to the female representation of the breast and adds this level of discomfort. Once the films are taken, think more about the way I edit it in Premier Pro e.g. snappy/slowed down/speeded up/looped. These will all work well in relation to projection and adapting that space.

Artists that will help with this work/research are:

• Susan Hiller
• Jane and Louise Wilson
• Bruce Nauman
• Revisit – Pipilotti Risk and Yayoi Kasuma

Reflection 29/03/21: Bruce Nauman was a very useful focus point, he works with disturbance. From this research, I used the approach – as a child you’re told to close your mouth when you eat yet, in Sweet Tooth B&W, the male munches aggressively with the mouth open wide. It is actions like this we’re not used to seeing and suggests disgust and un comfort. Nauman’s research really helped me work with more of a direct focus on the mouth and this uncomfortable element.

Up Close & Pink But Up Close – I wanted to redirect my practice back to these pieces see below. These were something I started to work on before Congruous exhibition and kept on hold while I completed the exhibition. However, I did decided to enter a few pieces into the virtual exhibition Lockdown and Light.

Reflection 03/02/21: Congruous Exhibition has made me want to continue this immersive installation outcome for this work – like Risk and Maclean’s installations, visually sensory?

For Lockdown and Light I decided to take the images further by projecting them into the bath. Previously in Just a Ripple – a photograph from a series from December – was so effective with not only the impact it had on the imagery in the water, but the image on the wall of the shower too, it gave layers and texture to the image. I wanted to explore it more. See previously photography below:

This environment of this imagery is what spurred on thoughts for Lockdown and Light submission. Also as previously mentioned there’s this appeal with women being presented by Hollywood cinema, as Mulvey directs, for their “to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey, 1973, p66), women are often placed by/in a pool to be sexualised to direct the gaze of the male. With this comes, skimpy bikinis, wet skin and idealised forms in the realms of the cinema. So, I wanted to challenge this by placing these photographs of the natural form out of clay, a raw/real visual of the female form, and put it into an unusual and often ‘sexualised’ setting.

Why use pink? The pink lighting, as commented on in my Are You Watching? as part of the Congruous exhibition, created a feminine and seductive yet beautiful environment for the form to be placed in. – I have continued this with the projection, it changes the whole aura of the bath/space. Almost making it a welcoming environment – does it welcome the gaze? The self-gaze or the male gaze?

See images below from the projection of Pink But Up Close and Up Close in bath. I really enjoyed this! I felt excited to get capturing these. I began with Up Close – I filled the bath up half way to project into, I liked that the water began to disrupt the image very slightly, as well as stretch the image across and around the bath. The bubbles on the bottom of the bath, added to the visual of the stomach of form as well as the wetness of the body. Added texture and accentuated the peculiar angles of the figure.

• The yellow/green colour made the body feel slightly grotesque/weird. Completely different perception to all the pink colour bouncing off the bath.

I then photographed Pink But Up Close, the vibrant pink surrounding the environment, made it burst out of the bath. Does the colour pink romanticise the form? There’s also positioning the figure in the imagery appearing bigger than you – often its the male holding the hierarchy of power. Below, I disturbed the water and it caused the a ripple effect on the body – like Saville’s work except she uses her hands to disrupt the form.

• I like that the water does this to the projection of the image and not the originality of the image – the image almost remains untouched…?

The ripples captured through photography were also captured through film. They begin to introduce an abstraction of the projection. Water/pools accentuate insecurities in women that we may place on ourselves when we are under the realms of the gaze. Whether that is the gaze of our own, or the male gaze.

Pink But Up Close [bath projection]

Pink But Up Close [bath projection 2]

Details of Pink But Up Close [bath projection 3]

Bubbles/Details of Pink But up Close [bath projection 4]

Slow motion is something I have never worked with before. The slow film focuses in on the disruption of the body to where the water is falling, below. Also Hollywood films use slow motion as a way to sexualise the women, e.g. Baywatch – they make women run, wet and in bikinis, the slow motion captures the natural movement of the female form as you move. “Baywatch” is riddled with sexism” (Giarrusso, 2017) and the male gaze. The fact this was a 2017 remake of the famous series Baywatch, it’s still so outdate “The female lifeguards wear incredibly revealing swimsuits that aren’t at all realistic, are very objectifying, and in fact seem quite impractical for someone of that profession” (Giarrusso, 2017).

Pink Burst [slow motion]

NOTE: It does welcome thoughts from Maisie Cousins practice of grass, peony, bum see below, where she highlights the natural aspects of women. As I have also said previously, Cousins work is questioned to be abjection which I believe it is in some way. As she explores the female form in its natural grotesque glory with body hair it shows the normality of the form, from an unusual angle of the form.

I think there is this relation to the way I show the female form, even tho the form isn’t scrawling with slugs or actually wetting my work – the lighting makes it appear visually wet and juxtaposed with the pink lighting, makes this intensified, creating it own forms of abjection. Is it uncomfortable to look at? Is it weird? Or, is it pretty? Glorifying of the form?

Thoughts of a repulsive side to the work arose from group crit 23/02/21. Reflection 18/04/21: And even more so from my 1-1 with Matt on the 15/04/21 – violence, destruction and abjection. The imagery of individual breasts being in a place where food is prepared/consumed/cooked, suggests what is done to food may be done to breasts. There’s this tone where they’re desirables/consumption for men, but with this comes the dark tone of the clay breasts creating this imagery of being real, raw flesh being eaten by men. In my opinion there’s some mode of abjection present.

Reflection 20/05/21: After my final group crit 19/05/21, Srin mentioned Moving in and around To Bite B&W Repeat in the studio has the ‘affect and abject’ come together. I liked this. It’s been apparent my work has aspects of abject in but it falls more thoroughly with causing an affect through the abject of the mouth eating the breast. Artist such as Dali and Brunel’s Un Chien Andalou were mentioned addressing the uncomfortable.

18/04/21: Consumption, mouth and breast become a rather uneasy approach to the female form, especially when the consumption is done by male. Currently I am projecting these to trial for the exhibition proposal and creating unusual spaces which make you feel surrounded.

Rachel Maclean, Make Me Up, 2018.

Within my dissertation I am currently analysing how there is a range of modes of abjection in artists work like Maclean’s Make Me Up there’s more this mode of abjection where watching too much of the film it disgusts you, see above, and with Cousins Finger, see below, the visual of a menstrual blooded flower suggesting a vagina shows the ‘real’ of what comes with a female body. It brings the ‘grotesque’ and the natural into the picture which is often forgotten about when we imagine the ‘idealised’ female form.

Maisie Cousins, Finger, 2017.

Abjection = “threaten our sense of cleanliness and propriety particularly referencing the body and bodily functions” (Tate, n.d.) , an actual breast shouldn’t be eaten and the fact the imagery/placement of the space conveys this weird thought it suggests within my work there is a mode of abjection is at play. However, even though this mode in my work isn’t as visually horrifying and bodily fluid covered like Sherman’s Grotesque series, the imagery and thought is enough to create these disturbed reactions that were present with my peers.

Reflection 10/05/21: Upon reflection of my formative assessment with Jane, I have mentioned Hal Foster many times within my blogs but haven’t gone further as I felt I wasn’t ready to understand, however now I am and above I mention Sherman’s grotesque series. It was Foster who acknowledges her swift changes from Untitled Film Still #2, to where “deidealization is pushed to the point of desublimation: with scarred sacks for breasts and funky carbuncles for noses, these bodies break down the upright lines of proper representation, indeed of proper subjecthood” (Foster, 1996, p 111), in “Obscene, Abject and Traumatic”, Sherman appears “the maternal body made strange, even repulsive, in repression” (Foster, 1996, p111), exploiting the true natural elements of the body to the viewers in a way we don’t like or often see. “This body is the primary site of the abject as well, a category of (non)being defined by Julia Kristeva” (Foster, 1996, p 111), I have discussed Kristeva further below where she suggests the abject with the natural being a terror as artists like “Sherman evokes these extreme conditions in some disaster scenes suffused with signifiers of menstrual blood and sexual discharge, vomit and shit, decay and death.” (Foster, 1996, p 111) to accentuate these visuals in Untitled #190 which she used civil war and sex images as her inspiration, see below.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #190, 1989.

Foster talks about the obviousness of these images, they are extreme and “where it is invaded by the gaze, to the recent work, where it is obliterated by the gaze” (Foster, 1996, p 112), it becomes so hard to look at. “Sometimes the screen seems so torn that the object-gaze not only invades the subject-as-picture but overwhelms it.” (Foster, 1996, p113), they become almost too much to look at. I have this similar approach within To Bite B&W Repeat to the extent of different abjection, more of a disturbance and this unusual pairing of the body food and the body.

In Are You Watching?, is it becomes quite scary and uneasy as my film Consuming 2 was put as a food for thought for this exhibition, as you watch you see where my work has become more sculptural and less performative in the kitchen space. I think Consuming 2 has more peculiar qualities as you actually see the male biting into the breast, yet it is a white icing breast, no tonality and no realism to it. Whereas with the clay breasts displayed in the kitchen appear life like and this deeps this thought of them being eaten as real flesh breasts. Cousins and Maclean bring back this reality where the real effects of the body can be lost by its appearance – this is what I have done by forcing the viewers to see the male gazes’ approach to the form and how it’s so wrong.

The pink pretty light/party like feel in Are You Watching? could be a way of glamorising what is actually happening to women in society/male gaze – women being consumed.

06/04/21: Recently I have contrasted the glamorisation of abjection. Women being consumed has been redirected through Sweet Tooth B&W, I have taken to this new approach by eliminating the colour, using cellophane to almost show this desirable like ideal of consumption in a treat/sweet way with the aggressive chomping of a soft breast. Explores this uncomfortable grotesque act of abjection.

!!!!!! Reflection 10/05/21: Upon reflection from my formative assessment 06/05/21, Jane suggested to refer to the primary text of “Powers of horror; an essay on abjection” by Julia Kristeva. Kristeva suggests we first experience abjection when we separate with our mothers. She includes Freud and Lacan’s research but writes “It is thus not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order” (Kristeva, 1980, p 4), abjection is oddly unnatural, even though it is all about showing the ugly side of the natural we all don’t want to see. It’s the unusual/grotesque which is present within my recent works for the exhibition proposal. Especially in relation to the female form and the male mouth under the ideas of pornography. There enters sexual control, to a point we don’t want to visually see.

“Abjection, on the other hand, is im- moral, sinister, scheming, and shady: a terror that dissembles,* a hatred that smiles, a passion that uses the body for barter instead of inflaming it, a debtor who sells you up, a friend who stabs you.” (Kristeva, 1980, p 5), Kristeva talks about abjection being a terror that dismembers, this made me think immediately of Sweet Tooth B&W and To Bite B&W Repeat, to see a breast dismembered sitting on its own in the males mouth. There is already this dismembered feeling before the breast is viciously chewed, it becomes worse and worse and the film develops. Interesting to see this relation to which the abjection, which is the terror in this instance, taking place as the male mouth. From this, Kristeva mentions that “from the start, fear and object are linked” (Kristeva, 1980, p 33), especially with To Bite B&W Repeat, the breast shares the objectification and the fear of what is happening next.

“There is fear and fascination. The body (of the ego) and the (sexual) object are completely absorbed in it. Abjection—at the crossroads of phobia, obsession, and perversion—shares in the same arrangement.” (Kristeva, 1980, p 45) these are contrasting words placed together to explore the meaning of abjection and the fascination is that is suggested speaks to the sexual objectification present in the film, of the breast being the main show, where the viewers are forced to watch it become chewed and destroyed over and over. Many have described the film to have this fascination quality where you can’t look away. This invites the abjection  into the film – the being disturbed/unsettled/disgusted but continue to watch.

Lastly Kristeva writes “Freud discusses it at length in connection with taboo, totemism, and more specifically with food and sex prohibitions.” (Kristeva, 1980, p 57) regarding the way food and sex is spoken about immediately invites this disturbance when they are placed together. Kristeva talks about how food is “surrounded with a series of taboos” (Kristeva, 1980, p 75) prior to being paired with sex/body. I pieced an icing breast as food, with the mouth of a male prior to thinking of their pairing in this regards which has allowed for lots of different outlooks, research and approaches.