Stomach

video
11:58
2009

Stomach is about the desperate search for beauty in moments of despair. It began with building an artificial stomach out of a basketball, during a residency at SymbioticA in Perth, Australia. I then filled the “stomach” with digestive acids, and dissolved many of the substances – from the everyday to the illegal – that are regularly ingested by people during states of despair, hoping change their state of being, or to end it.

Using an endoscopic camera, I searched this landscape of chemical fireworks, looking for hope, looking for something beautiful in the stomach's point-of-view. It’s a fool’s errand, a diversionary tactic for avoiding unhappy endings.

For the soundtrack, I remixed The Germs’ cover of Sugar Sugar from 1977, featuring vocals by Darby Crash. Many thanks to SymbioticA, to Guy Ben-Ary for his assistance, and to Maggie Cowie, Chief Technician at the Clinical Training and Education Center in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia. Rest in peace, Mr. Crash.

Stomach on vimeo