Well, I suppose I can see it may cause joy to some examiners, but these are serious music students?  Aiming to get a degree in self-harming is it?  MA(Hons)Mutilation

 

Not sure about self-harm "elevated" to an academic/artistic discipline.  Is this a dissertation or a cry for help?

Could open up a whole new realm of possibilities though - bulemics could vomit to the strains of Andrew Lloyd Webber (not that non-bulemics don't already, I suppose), epileptics could induce their own fits with a strobe display replicating the effects of synesthesia, migraine sufferers could bring on headaches in the hope of seeing visions ...

  

***Ah, I see Antheil has already commented on this.  Sorry for a duplication of concern.

Well Ian, we know about pre-history of mortification of the body but this is about global feminism and all that is it not?, but I feel self-harming and flagellation (unless you are Catholic in Which Case It is A Good Thing for Miserable Sinners) does not empower women but demeans them and reduces their stature.

Well, I did phrase my "cry for help" query as a question.  And it's a question I think it's responsible to ask.  Not knowing more about what the performance was actually like, it's not unreasonable for us to wonder at a cursory description.

As for rites of passage, I wouldn't automatically accept that a practice is fine just because XYZ culture has been doing it for centuries.  By that argument, hanging drawing and quartering would still be a normal punishment for stealing a chicken.

And as for global feminism, it still has so far to go - has slipped backwards in the last couple decades - that it's difficult not to wonder why women might (possibly) abuse themselves in light of this backlash.

But the Happy Room is no place for further discussion of how depressingly far women still have to go in the quest for control over their sexuality/bodies/destinies.

I did


Safe and consensuel, the old male cry of old, heard too oft.


So that makes it alright does it?  As Strina has commented.


No comment. A mutilation is strangely beautiful I guess, when you don't have to endure the pain because someone enjoys the pain for you.  Sort of second hand Masochism?  The pleasure without the pain?  Faded pleasure, dealt at best third hand.  But it brought you off, evidently.

A piece of empty rhetoric in order to glorify your own singular Daily Mail-like take on the matter - do you realise quite how arrogant and audacious it is to claim to speak for the interests, wishes and desires of half the world's population, and dictate what they should or shouldn't do (as well as claim to know the motivations)?

In this case I was not one of the supervisors - the primary supervisor was a woman who was adamant about the importance of this piece of work, and who would defend to the last the right of this woman to carry it out in the manner she chose. I know the two performers more informally, however, and have discussed with one of them the nature of the project from its early inception (it has been modified significantly since then - the early draft for the scenario that she came up with was considerably more extreme). It was initially conceived as a type of erotic spectacle, focused upon the body and pain as sensation/stimulation; personally I felt back then that the use of cutting might not communicate this adequately, because of its other associations. However, in terms of the wider theatre, the manner in which it was carried out, and  the changing nature of the project itself, it does seem to have been the optimum strategy. Other forms of action designed to cause pain (using a whip, cane, etc.) tend to involve much more dramatic physical motions, which would have been entirely out of keeping with the type of theatre involved here - slick, subtle, smooth, measured. In the end it came across more as a critical take on certain forms of erotic spectacle rather than simply some form of 'art porn'. These types of performance art works often fall into one of two categories: either a simple refined form of erotic theatre, or something more strident and confrontational, aimed at forcing the spectator to confront voyeuristic impulses. This work managed to resist easy interpretation as either of these two things (whilst also existing on the outskirts of both), in large measure because of the carefully-judged theatre of it all, the choreography of the motions, and so on; to me it seemed more aesthetic than erotic (not that the two categories are mutually exclusive, though).

There's a long tradition at Dartington of various bodily-related art in this type of general vein, and a fair amount of interest in more radical traditions (such as the Viennese Actionists, for example). Such projects give Health and Safety many headaches! But there's also a wider international tradition of feminist performance art exploring similar concerns and strategies (especially in the work of Valie Export). And, moreover, there are many people, men and women, who conceive of, interpret, and feel pain quite differently from how one might expect. Why should they not be allowed to express these subjective concerns in art? Because some people would rather they be impersonal, anonymous 'role models' for their gender?

The rest of Antheil's kneejerk post does not deserve a response, though it is rather to be expected.

But I just want to ask why the freedom to make the choice to present this type of work/spectacle is somehow more problematic than a censorious climate in which pressure would be put on a woman not to do so?

bbm, I suggest you put it in your diary.


This thread is for 'Hurrah, I got the job' type messages.


 

John W

Thanks MC. bbm my posting was toungue-in-cheek, roll eyes nearest we have, no in fact the wink would have been more appropriate, good luck! Looking forward to the next installment, as it were 

Ian, now bringing your M&S stuff into the happy room  I thought you had an M&S place for your M&S   


John W