Becoming a child or a lamb? By Alex Eisenberg

La Nourrice (come drink from me my darling)

by Samantha Sweeting
Part of Visions of Excess

Shunt Vaults

12 April 2009

Photo: Richard Andersen

Exploring Shunt Vaults during Visions of Excess, I round a corner where there is this small arch - not enough room to stand up in. It makes you crouch and so you get smaller (or shrink). It feels like a safe place, antithetical to the expanse of the rest of the vaults, a haven or a womb. Outside the arch is a video showing a woman bent over on all fours with her breasts out whilst a small lamb attempts to suckle on them. There is an obvious moment of confusion but also intrigue – how does the lamb know to suckle on this woman’s nipples? Is it real (breast) milk? Is there any milk at all or is this just some form of stimulation for the woman? But most of all, I wonder how it feels, not only for the woman but also for the lamb. And already, I know I want to find out – how does this feel?

Inside the arch is Samantha Sweeting, wearing a virginal white dress (‘her performance gear’). It’s almost a nightdress, but also a farm girls’ dress (she is ready for action). The setting of the brick arch begins to evoke a sense of fantasy; it is dreamy, dimly lit and calm. Samantha is sitting on a milking stool, smiling and gentle. There is raw sheep’s wool on the floor, perhaps there was also a spinning wheel in the corner? I can’t be sure…as I was there less to observe or watch the ‘scene’ but rather to place myself firmly within it, to become part of it and, by default, to become the work (and the lamb), with Samantha.

My mother breastfed me for a relatively long time. I can remember breastfeeding. I can remember suckling on my mother’s nipple. I can remember this as comfort. I can remember this as warmth. I can remember this care. I can remember this love.

Thanks Mum.

And now, 25 years old, a gay man, I sit on the floor, getting ready to suckle (again).

BUT

How to sit?

How to suckle?

How to be in this space?

There is not much conversation. Samantha asks me to make myself comfortable but I already am – the wool is soft and her knee provides a gentle rest for my head. She strokes my hair. She is wearing some sort of mechanical breastfeeding system (I think it’s called a nursing system) though I barley notice what is in fact this prosthetic extension to her chest, since a sense of regression is already present. She reveals one breast and, of course, even though I thought I didn’t, I know what to do:

The first moment I notice that there is no sign of milk. (I am not sure how much to expect). The man-made mechanics of the nursing system rupture the moment as she has to adjust the flow rate of the milk. Breastfeeding is a delicate business and the conditions have to be right.

Then, this memory creeps in about how it tasted back then - like orange juice or chocolate milk or whatever flavour you want it to be? This milk is apparently almond flavour – only the faintest hint though – this milky almond flavour. Then, this quick idea about the size of her nipple and the subsequent comparison to my mother’s nipple. There is a difference – I think? Perhaps it has something to do with my grown mouth but there is the idea, at least, of a different size. And in some small way I am yearning for that original size. Through this active and intimate engagement with Samantha’s body and particularly her nipple, I am I am finding myself almost unavoidably going back to what I know, to what I knew – it seems almost innate. The act itself sets the stakes high by being so intimate, by making a physical connection and thereby inducing an undeniable presence in the audience of one – in this case me. The suckling goes on for a while, but I end too early. I end before I allow myself to regress too deep into memories of childhood, memories of nipples and all that that entails. The process of becoming a child (or a lamb) only lasts for as long as I allow it to - for as long as I suckle. I am in control here. I leave the arch and emerge.

There is a small break before the next person goes in.

Stood there, outside the arch, the act of suckling appears to me to be evocative, generous and beautiful, however as I leave its disappearance yields a further journey, since it is in the comparison between the memory of being a child and being present during the suckling event itself, that La Nourrice... operates. This comparison can only happen afterwards, as there is little room to process whilst suckling. So, walking away from the arch, I compare the potentially erotic act of suckling on a women’s nipple with a situation that evokes the purity and innocence of childhood - breastfeeding. I compare the innocence of the lamb with the idea of bestiality and amidst all of this I find Oedipal echoes unsettling me, as I compare me now, to me then and all in relation to a mother figure/Samantha. I ask again, how does it feel?

As I look back to see the next person going into the arch, the work continues to expose itself and in the process it exposes me. Only now does La Nourrice... begin to raise its ethics. I am left with the burden of having placed myself in this situation in the first place, of having made the decision to play, to take part in this ‘out of the ordinary’ act. How does it feel? Now, rather than some sort of fantasy journey motivated by curiosity, into childhood or into my relationship with my mother, the work evokes feelings of embarrassment, trauma even. A small but complex interplay is present between my complicity in the act of suckling and the politics of engagement with this work. I find myself asking questions about the objectification of women, the notion of motherhood and my own relationship to all of this. This is lingering work, which doesn’t and cannot ever entirely satisfy. I continue to ask myself - how does it feel?

Thanks Sam…

Alex Eisenberg is an artist making performance. He is helping to coordinate SPILL: Overspill over the course of the festival.

Overspill – Visions of Excess – Part 1 – 21:00 – 00:00, April 12th and 13th 2009

Visions of Excess was curated by Ron Athey and Lee Adams. The event, at Shunt Vaults, stages 12 hours of intense gestures, images and performances on the subject of death, eroticism and the forbidden. There are two preludes to the event: Prelude #1 Porosity and Prelude #2: The performance contract.

Overspill: Visions of Excess was a collaborative writing event initiated by SPILL: Overspill writers Alex Eisenberg and Rachel Lois Clapham. The project involved both writers setting up a public writing station in Shunt Vaults, working over the course of the 12 hour event to produce live critical responses to the work experienced. This writing, which included dialogue from audience members and artists, was simultaneously projected into the space for the duration of the event. The 12 hours was full of fun frolics, close encounters and highly charged moments, and lots of people participated in our live writing performance. Below is an edited transcript of what happened between 9pm and midnight.

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21:30

Alex - Things started about half an hour ago (officially). Before that, there was this moment when the fluorescent lights went off, when you could no longer see where the cavernous vault ceiling began or ended, when the space suddenly seemed to become cleaner OR that you could no longer see the dirt and blemishes on the floor. Perhaps that was the moment that things begun?

21:38

Conversation with artist ‘R’ and Rachel Lois.

R- I came in the back way, I was with a group of friends and just swooshed in by mistake. I did not even really know what was going on.

Rachel Lois- Why are you here then?

R - I just heard there was this crazy 12 hour thing going on and that Franko B was in it. Now I’m here underground with all these people. What if we all die in here, and no-one notices for weeks? On the other hand, there could be a nuclear explosion and the only people who survive will be us in here. Then we will be responsible for creating a new race.

Rachel Lois- That would be a very distinct breed of people.

R –Yes, all live artists - art would be life. People would come to Shunt just to do regular office work, to be radical and try and get away from the art outside. ….I think some of my issues are going to be resolved here tonight. I’ll come out with piss, shit and vomit all over me but pure and clean inside…

21:58

Samantha Sweeting

Rachel Lois - Samantha Sweeting’s La Nourrice (Come drink from me my darling) is a one to one performance inviting audience members to suckle. She will be open for suckling in two minutes. I just visited but she had no milk….

You might be interested to know that men can lactate. Samantha is sure of this. Has she known of any men that do it? I forgot to ask. But the salient point is that our bodies can be fooled, tricked into thinking they are pregnant. It takes time. Effort. Commitment. Not a little bit of discomfort too. Who is being tricked when the body produces milk with no baby ensuing? Which ‘I’ is tricking who? Not mind over matter, not a matter of deceit per se. Who lies when the body lies to itself? I am struck how Samantha’s space smells like a farm, it’s the oil on the fleece- the sheep’s natural secretions. Her performance space conjures images of health, hay- rolling in it. Is what Samantha is doing healthy in the same way? She is giving life, she looks rosy-cheeked….but I think something else is going on down at the farm.

What is at stake breastfeeding a stranger? In John Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of Wrath’ the final chapter of the family’s desperate exodus across the great American plains ends in a barnyard. The daughter of the farmer gives life- literally- to a starving family. She lets members of the family suck her dead baby’s milk from her breast. Milk overflowing, the body not aware of its own baby’s demise. The hungry family take over, eager to suckle. Is Samantha’s an act of charity? What is being given and what taken? Her body’s excess is being embroiled in a transaction of desire, fantasy. Milk takes on new meaning here, becomes exorbitant, something unreasonable, over and above its assumed value.

22:10

Julie Tolentino

Alex - Along the ‘long corridor’ and making your way past the small crowds watching Dominic Johnson or people swinging on a large aluminium swing as piano music plays, I find a moment of quiet with Julie Tolentino, who has been slow dancing blindfolded with strangers and since 9am this morning. She will do this until 9am tomorrow morning. Partially obscured Julie is standing, alone (now). She is standing on grass and she is wearing a black dress, a black shawl and a black blindfold. She is standing inside a glass walled box. I see her standing, alone (now), and I want to join her, I want to have a dance OR to be closer to her (now). Stepping inside the box you wonder how to begin? A self-conscious moment, reminding you of your ‘first’ slow dance creeps in but I go willingly and say ‘hello’. And then, without trying too hard - we are dancing – together. The music is hard to make out – there is the sound of crickets, as if you are, despite the confines of the box, in some natural landscape. I ask Julie if I can take off my socks so as to feel the grass on my feet. There is a break in the dancing as I sit on the stool, take my socks off and re-enter the box ready to resume but this time – a bit more natural?

The slowness of the dance gives you some time. This is both time ‘out’, (almost) out of the event but also time ‘with’ – time with Julie, time with yourself…as I begin to notice my reflection, multiplied, in the one way mirrors that surround us as we dance together. I am drawn further into this act through my multiple reflections, unable to see out, to see if anyone is looking, I find myself undisturbed, focused.

22:45

Conversation between Suckler A in Samantha Sweeting’s one to one performance and Rachel Lois.

Rachel Lois- So how was the suckling?

Suckler A - Weird. But good (wiping his mouth). She is a nice person, gentle, makes you feel comfortable.

Rachel Lois- Was desire was a part of your experience?

Suckler A – yes. I think so. You do suck from the nipple, so there is an aspect of desire. Are you going to suckle?

Rachel Lois- I’m really not sure. I know Samantha, we have chatted online. But now I have this problem of whether I suckle, then introduce myself. Or do the introductions first-then go ahead and suckle. There does not seem to be any protocol for these situations. But it does not seem polite to go ahead and suckle without introducing myself first. Somehow not cricket?

Suckler A- I know what you mean

23:20

John Edge and Lee

Rachel Lois - Back now. I just refused to be in a live photoshoot with a large bear with his fuzzy genitals hanging out. He seemed hurt, the bear. I promised to come back later. Although I may not. Have to work up to these things. The guy before me in the photoshoot seemed to be having fun, cavorting with ‘Mouse’ in her cartoon, fetish-doll type get-up minus pants (which were round her ankles). Jon and Lee choreograph these photo-shoots, these casting couch moments, at fetish clubs and sex mania events normally. The camera acts as stimulus in these situations - attendees at fetish clubs have dressed up and are only too willing to have their frolicking caught on camera, their dress-up captured for prosperity. Me, not so much. I’m thinking about the deferred audience for these naughty but nice pictures. Not ones for the family album - not my family album anyway. Although I do get a kick out of which families, whether knowingly or not, would open up albums to find these pictures - your loved one’s face in a strange doll-lady’s arse, her hands on your crotch, both of you beaming with a fuzzy bear and his genitals stood behind grinning. Who knows what’s going on inside that bear suit.....

23:30

Bruce LaBruce

Rachel Lois- I just turned the corner into Bruce LaBruce’s live porno shoot. Irish flags, bunting and the colours of the union jack hang from the ceiling of the arch. A muscled man in nothing but big army boots and socks. Cock (real), blood (fake), a big gun too. Penis being coerced into a ready state for its starring role. Lights, camera, action. Muscle man and his younger, nubile and naked comrades, simulate scenes of fetishized torture, rape, pillage in a gay military burlesque. Bruce’s camera clicks away furiously. Each click a cum-shot or mini climax.

And we stand there watching.

I imagine these photos being sent to the front line of a war to cheer up troops, boost morale. A flagging one: that’s the bunting- reminiscent of a wartime ‘make do and mend’ ethos. Although what kind of troops these would be- I’m not sure. A bizarre barracks scenario pops into my mind. Army commandos with Bruce Labruce’s photographs of the bloodied, naked, hard man licking his gun stuck above their bunk beds. What kind of war is being fought here? One in which the extreme, extreme bodies, desires and footage, makes a difference, where wrongness is explored and pledged allegiance to - with big guns. Not for the faint hearted. The end of the line reached and breached under the national flag.

23:20

Conversation between audience member A (a theatre critic) and Rachel Lois.

Rachel Lois- What brings you here tonight?

A - Journalistic curiosity. I’m trying to push myself because I’m quite squeamish. It’s good for me to see things like this.

Rachel Lois- You are pushing yourself to the edge?

A - I hope it is not the edge…

Rachel Lois- How are you making it through the night?

A- I am self medicating with gin. I hope that will make the blood stuff easier to handle. Either that or I will pass out from too much drink and experience the work ‘in absentia’. It’s the blood that I can’t handle, the mix of fake blood and real in performances next to each other. Bruce LaBruce simulating gore, bloodspatter on naked bodies. Then Dominic Johnson right next door, piercing his own flesh. Something about the artificiality that is more disturbing than the real thing.

Photo: Richard Andersen

Click here to read the text from the next 6 hours of Overspill: Visions of Excess.