Eating with Emily: Main Course video documentation
Emily Faryna
September 12, 1990
Creative Access Description
Colour analogue video of a work of performance art. The video opens to a dimly lit stage with two performers, a tall and slim white man and a shorter slim white woman. Both wear high stockings, short skirts, bustier tops, dark eye shadow, and short but big curly wigs. Behind them is a table with a rectangular object covered by a white cloth. A projection on the wall behind the performers shows the table shot from above. A droning industrial electronic track plays, then quickly fades. The performers speak, introducing their performance as a campy and grotesque cooking show, "Now You're Cooking", listing alliterative dishes with humorous and provocative names and evoking laughter from the audience. The man removes the white cloth, revealing a large meaty dish resembling a boxy human torso and head. Reading from cue cards, the performers introduce and perform a series of visceral recipe steps: drinking "blood" through a protruding tube, reaching inside the torso to removing the "heart" and "intestines", tenderizing the meat with a small hammer, complete with squishing and slurping sounds that elicit cringing and laughter from the audience and ecstatic moans from the performers. At one point, after soliciting an audience member's help opening a jar, the man pours sauce into a pot of spaghetti, which the woman hand mixes suggestively before stuffing the pasta back into the torso. She cleans off her hand and arm while the man inspects the meat, declaring "Voila". The performers remove their wigs, both revealing shaved heads beneath, before locking eyes in an intense moment. After a brief pause, the woman hands a small plate with a stack of eggroll like morsels to the man who offers it to the audience. Audience members clamour for a taste and then man dramatically distributes the food as the droning electronic track picks up again. Silhouettes of audience members rise, ferociously devouring the food at the front of the front of the stage as the man resorts to throwing pieces of food into the audience before returning to the stage and sinking into a seated position by the wall. Meanwhile the woman retreats to a standing synthesizer at the back of the stage and begins performing an echoing and looping vocal track over the electronic music. The stage darkens as the woman sings, her haunting vocals washing over the audience before the track abruptly cuts as her final lyrics echo and the lights come up. The audience applauds and the performers exit the stage.Description
Video documentation of Emily Faryna's performance, Eating with Emily: Main Course, featuring Jonathan Wells.Identifier
1990.0912 EAT V001Extent
1 Hi-8 tape, 00:12:14Tape Number
90-024Language
Videographer
Mike MacDonaldArtist
Emily FarynaPerformer
Jonathan WellsRelated program
Eating with Emily: Main Course (Related)In copyright. For uses beyond Fair Dealing, research requests, corrections, takedown requests, or other inquiries, please contact grunt gallery: archives@grunt.ca