There is a component inherent in almost every person that responds to some sort of sexual or self-awakening. There is a delicious nature to how each one of us came to life. In this video, I used my mind and body to encompass a few themes; love, self indulgence, death, fertility, and the notion of being dirty and clean at the same time.
Often, especially in our current day there is a negative stigma that circles around “dirtying yourself” through the acts of sexual pleasure (especially relevant to women). I wanted to show an opposing side to this stigma by physically dirtying myself with the sticky and messy fruit, but through my facial expressions and body language displaying the sensual lustfulness of being a woman and being a part of a larger process such as birth, love, and death. The act of sex is one that can be underrated or misused, which ultimately decreases its power and true being.
The majority of the color of the fruits I used in this performance is the color of flesh. My acts throughout represent an undoing and giving of ones self over to the pleasures of nature. I bathed myself in the wonders that the natural world provides us and at the same time sucked the life out of them, taking in all the luscious juices which are analogous to fertility and the intuitive nature of a woman, and enjoying the act itself; leaving not only a huge mess; but tasteless, ugly fruit that no longer serves its once powerful and beautiful purpose.
There is a concept of time that follows throughout this narrative, which starts off with a subtle yet strong heart beat, reaches a climax in the middle (just like an orgasm does), and falls down to the raw form of ones self by calming to a pulse. This journey can be seen not only in life itself, but also in certain events and experiences one may attain in such a time frame, which can be considered as the themes I mentioned earlier.
The title of this piece is “La Petite Mort par les Fruits” in our modern day can be translated to the sensation of orgasm as likened to death, by fruits. “La petite mort” is a phrase in French, which describes the post-orgasmic state of unconsciousness and the spiritual release that arrives with having an orgasm that can often be followed by a short period of melancholy or transcendence as a result of such expenditure. French is a sensual, romantic language, which I believe fits perfectly into the mold of such a story as this.
Lastly, Pink Floyd has a sort of sensual and beautiful nature that at the same time brings with it melancholy and darkness. In the studio that I filmed this performance, I started Dark Side of the Moon and let it play throughout the piece. I later used the original audio tracks to match it up with the exact time frame of the music in the footage itself, because my actions were also largely reliant on the sounds I was hearing and almost flowed with the melodic and lyrical being of the album.
