Humor smears down the serious and suddenly no more control

Is soap really the true scent of cleanliness?  

Some of us think: away with disgusting shit and out with the mop! While others (artists) make the decision to immortalize the uncontrolled instead.

I am in the latter group (artists)

Why use this uncontrolled sludge in art?

you easy q, to symbolize disgust towards or distance from the self

abjection your honour!

Have artists used vomit in their art?

why would I (the artist) even photograph my vomit?

The act of vomiting is not the body’s proudest moment. Not something you usually share with others. Something I was happy to share, on the other hand, was giving birth. And yes it was documented. The fluids and loss of control didn’t stop me from happily showing the film to my family.

check out my wrinkled baby whose face is barely visible for all the fluids, and yes there is some blood, poop, and mucus

I’m so distant from my body now, my superwoman baby-bearing strong, incredible elastic-vaginabody!

(a tip: nothing can stop fragile meat when wearing absorbent item)

The euphoria of giving birth took over the shame of my body and its fluids. The video showed no obvious loss of control. Perhaps if there had been twice the amount of fluids and squirting – perhaps then it would have been shocking, or unsatisfying.

okay, I lied before, I’ve documented vomit

In my photo series It’s Good to Be You, No. 1, I posed in front of a projection depicting the cover of a “women’s magazine”. From my mouth, vomit ran down my chest.

I, who was not really me, looking happily into the camera

like a happy baby who had just burped

My intention with using vomit…

which was not really vomit, but if I had eaten the mass of oatmeal, flour, water, oil, food coloring it could have been

… was to visualize abjection. At the time, my thoughts were focused on being for and against my body. I didn’t like my body but I was expected to.

you see, if you are intelligent enough, your focus should be elsewhere than on your body think like this: be happy that your body is working!

my body didn’t work, (it did workout) it didn’t menstruate and I had strange palpitations, but now everything is fine as you understand (I am a mother)

In It’s Good to Be You, No. 2 vomit ran down from my flat screen TV, oh no, from my flat belly. In the next clip, an animated character work out intensely to the pumping music. Are you happy with your body?”said the lazy voice between the beats. And yes, that was exactly what the work was about.

some visitors was like: ha ha fun, and some others was like: oh no yuk bad, and I remember a local “celebrity” saying: this is a bit sensual, if you know what I mean, wink wink

The works have received a variety of interpretations, such as eating disorders, sex, irony and Hubba Bubba.

score!

At this point, I found that bodily fluids and the uncontrolled can provoke laughter. I noticed that I was driven to have a laugh with my artistry.

To laugh together with others, or maybe seeing someone else laugh on a distance or maybe someone that’s sending a smiley in a text message mmm… what a nice confirmation

One fluid I rarely try to mimic is blood. Someone who does is the artist Ana Mendieta. She has; smeared blood on the wall, had blood on her face, poured blood on the street, and staged a rape containing blood.

she really likes blood, but it’s not fun

well it’s kind of fun that she’s smearing blood so dramatically on the wall nah, I don’t get this tickling feeling of:

damn this is

fun

The serious topics Mendieta treats can never be humorous, even if it’s excessive or obviously made up. Medieta shows trauma, as an image free from humorous elements.

like smearing butter on toast, I let humor smear down the seriousness (a tip: butter gives a really good glide)

In my work The Grave my siblings and I dig a pit, in which I happily let myself be buried. We had fun in the process.

it was such a sick activity to do on a holiday

Mendieta’s works are reactions to violence and actual murder. The Grave was a reaction to being an insecure middle child.

hello! what about me? I might feel bad! I might be able to say something, although we don’t talk about emotions, we can play a digging-grave game!

It was a distress call from an anxious 29-year-old child. To laugh helped me to de-dramatize and “regulate” my anxiety.

maybe I can write anxiety one more time, anxiety, or maybe twice anxiety anxiety

The thought of anxiety brings me to the chaos of Anna Karin Rasmussen’s work. Where bloody, clumsy figures try to take care of their closeness. In her video work Mater Nostra, a person drags another human up a staircase. The person constantly loses their fellow and the benevolent empathy becomes bloodier and bloodier.

ah stop it! growing panic knocking on my bladder on my chest on my eyeballs

I can’t go I can smile

I’m not the only one who thinks this is fun, am I?

my smile is sweating

It’s fascinating to watch this stubborn struggle to get the person up the stairs at some damn time. The walls that surround the struggle goes from fresh white to bloody red. And the only thing humans want is to help, to be liked and to succeed. I recognize myself in Rasmusson’s work.

I have dragged myself up a staircase my body has felt heavy with misery, where the feeling of failure switches place with everything inside me

all my inner flesh turns into minced meat that no one wants, especially not me (vegan)

I laugh at Mater Nostra because the quest for success is pathetic and at the same time familiar. I also recognize myself in her work OCD / Pandemic where a person washes their hands frantically. A brilliant visual for our time, where during the pandemic we washed our hands like never before while singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We have stockpiled the most important things to have at home; toilet paper while the toilet paper factory is burning. ^[1]

yes it’s related to the body fluids pee and poop

I save myself from poop until my child will nag holes in my head about how fun it is

There is one of my works where the hint of blood is made. A cast of my own elbow has been cuddled in a large bread covered in my own blood, no I mean ketchup. As in The Grave, part of “me” is covered, yet in this case my work once again deals with shame and abjection. During the pandemic, many of us have stared at a screen containing our normallycoffee-fragrant colleagues. It has been a change that has meant a loss of control for many.

for a worried lawyer behind a cat filter: I’m here live, I’m not a cat ^[2]

It’s fun to laugh at the failure of others because it reminds oneself how crazy it feels to lose control. The humor soaks up the dry seriousness where it’s needed. Liquids, fluids and dirt may be ”essentially disorder… offends against order …” ^[3]Yet I admire the chaos since it’s make me aware  that we are alive and thus dying. 

everything is just made up I have to distance myself by masks and jumping into graves and sausage bread like the lady with vomit on her chest, I’m not in control I have to joke because otherwise it will be sad and quirky

^[1] https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/fullt-ut vecklad-brand-pa-lilla-edets-bruk