ONION SOUP RESEARCH
05.2022
In collaboration with
Eva ten Have,
Joost van Doorn
,
Semmi Oudejans,
Sarah Zwerus, Flora Lamy
Onion soup is a performance score that by the process of following a soup recipe takes you on a journey of unfolding your true self. The exercise requires a group of 3-6 people, a pile of raw onions, and a lot of talking.
ABSTRACT
Humans tend to hide when feeling exposed. We cover ourselves in clothes, hide behind masks and hide our emotions by saying we're fine. For some reason exposure makes us feel vulnerable and ashamed. Why do we feel this shame? Things we consider to help us open up more easily, include; trust, feeling safe, and feeling comfortable. But is this necessary, or did we as a society decide that we feel uncomfortable while being exposed, creating a norm where physical and emotional vulnerability is something you have to hide and protect?For us, this raises the question of whether there even is something to protect. Humans are often portrayed as creatures with a core protected by their layers.
Taking off some layers makes you get closer to your core; your inner self. But what if there is no core? And instead, the layers are what make the self. In the world where we are born exposed, and gradually covered by layers of social norms, we need to relearn all the behavioral patterns to feel comfortable with our true selves.
Exposure is to be covered and has to have a certain purpose and audience. There is very little spontaneity in the act, plenty of overthinking, and measuring consequences. But what if the true self - the 'core' - only is a social construct that we aim for so passionately? Foucault suggests that the ideals and norms in society - and the need to prove that all this discomfort of uncovering is worth the struggle - are made up by ourselves. In his words, the authentic inner self is a construction by society, and is not technically authentic, since it is not inborn. Foucault states that science is brought to our bodies, from birth on, and is served as the truth. This science pulls us back to normality/the norm.
What if we try to expose ourselves in an obvious way without being able to distinguish or identify it as the exposure itself? Finding different ways of 'masking' could be a nice introduction to opening up, making the path, to openly feel and show yourself, easier to access. If you use a lightweight situation to form a bond with a group, including humor and distraction, there might even be a moment to feel comfortable with each other and possibly feel vulnerable together, without having to feel confronted with it.
In our example, we experiment with our comfort by peeling onions while talking about emotional things we often try to hide. The exposure is still present, yet the confrontational feeling of being seen crying is covered in the act of getting to the non-existent core of the onion. Do you cry because you feel emotional or do you cry because of the onions?
RESEARCH
NUDITY
Idea of nudity being a kind of exposure, makes you feel vulnerable
Other kinds of exposure: crying, revealing a secret, physical touch
These things make us feel uncomfortable, ashamed. Why?
How can we be vulnerable together, but still feel comfortable enough to open up?
Hiding it in different ways
The history of nudity in art told by nude models
Nude modelling is totally non sexual practice that has changed a lot over time
SHAME
Historically, nude models have been minorities, prostitutes...
Is nudity inherently erotic?
Can we appreciate the body for what it is without connecting it to so many outside factors?
The text of Genesis 3 suggests that they became ashamed because they realized that they were naked. But what realization was that they were not created literally blind, and so they weren’t seeing their own skin for the first time. INTRODUCING THE SHAME FACTOR
EXPERIMENTS
First experiment consisted of interaction with fruits, peeling off the skins and experiencing the thought process. Collectively contemplating on the identity, purpose of clothig and forced alterations.
We were peeling onions while answering deep questions about our relationships to our bodies, no one would be able to tell if we were crying from emotions or because of the onions
PERFORMANCE
As with many avant-garde movements that press against the art/life divide, fluxus and similar performance scores can profoundly change the way we understand our own relations to the kinds of banal instructions that make up our daily negotiations of text and behavior.
Whether or not we might think of driving directions or to-do lists or instructions for putting together an Ikea bookshelf as performance scores, there are ways in which we do perform tasks, shape our bodies, work within and against constraints, in response to written ‘scores’ that we often do not think of as aesthetic in nature (much less in the spirit of Fluxus).
Of course, we generally don’t think of such tasks as art/ful unless we are ‘breaking the rules’ (think the derivé vs. mapquest), and many of our daily encounters with instructions are instrumentalized and governed by Taylorist notions of efficiency, purpose, and productivity (in Marxist terms, towards the production of value; for Foucault, towards the production of disciplined subjects).
“Following the letter of the law,” after all, is usually an exercise in privatized actuarialism and not something we’d call performance writing (unless taken to some kind of parodic extreme, like when I bring a child to carry on the escalator at the mall in order to adhere to the ‘carry children on escalator’ sign).
I’m most interested in those works that somehow contain (if that’s the word) the performance in the text itself — not as a document or as performative utterance per se, but in the way that poetic writing can make something happen in the world, even if that ‘in the world’ is only in the reader’s brief imagining of potential enactments.
(TEXT BY Kelly Writers House)
INSPIRATIONS
FLUXUS scores
Marina Abramowić - Rythm series
Michel Foucault
SOCRATIC QUESTIONING
(FIRST PART)
What is it to be nude?
What is nudity?
Who defines nudity?
Does it have to do with comfort?
Does it have to be physical nudity?
Why is nudity vulnerable?
Is it comfortable to be nude?
Is it similar for everyone?
Would nudity still be nudity if there were no clothes?
Is it natural to be nude?
Is nudity always comparable with wearing clothing?
Would we still feel nude if we had fur?
Does clothing limit us?
Does clothing limit our hairs/fur?
Or is clothing protecting us?
From what is it protecting us?
What is the role in clothing in our evolution?
When did we start wearing clothing?
What was it purpose in the beginning?
When was it necessary to be dressed?
Why is nudity sexualized?
What is the best thing to do when being naked?
Why are people ashamed to be naked?
Where does the shame come from?
Is it connected to attractiveness?
Should we be ideal?
What is ideal?
Would there be insecurities about the bodies when we are all naked all the time?
How would beauty norms change when we are all naked?
Would it be any different when it would be 50 years ago?
How does time influence our comfort with our naked self?
(SECOND PART)
How does time influence our comfort with our naked self?
What defines comfort?
Is mental comfort more important than physical comfort?
Are they different?
Is our society build up to be not naked?
Is there anything else stopping us from being naked other than societal norms and a law?
Why is it illegal to be naked?
Do we want to be naked?
Why is it worse to be naked from children?
Do we hide it from children?
Are we scared of their honesty?
Is being naked being honest?
What’s the truth behind nakedness?
Are we scared of our own truth our own honesty?
Why are some people uncomfortable with their own naked bodies, even when they’re alone?
When does the discomfort start of nudity?
Why does religion influence our feelings about being nude?
Is there a similar moment to adam and eve in evolutionary time?
Why were they ashamed of their bodies?
Why wasn’t it the shame on what they done instead of the naked body?
Why not hands?
Why not ankles?
Is there inside anyone the knowledge that it hasn’t always been like this?
Was there a time where we weren’t ashamed of our naked bodies?
Does the shame of nudity we experience nowadays come from adam and eve?
Why did our opinion on for example topless sun bathing change over time?
Did our society really get more prude or is it something we discus more now
How does mobile phones influence our nakedness?
Why is it worse to be captured naked then to be naked and not captured?
Do we feel a difference in being naked for one moment or being naked captured for the forever-lasting?
Or is it prudeness or fear?
Is it the same to be captured crying as to be captured naked?
Do we have the desire to go to the beach and cry on the beach?
Is it nice to swim while crying?
Is it nice to swim naked in your own tears?
Is it hard to cry in the shower?
Is nakedness often connected to water?
Like in a womb?
Or warmth?
Is it easier crying when its warm?
Are we feeling mopre confident being naked in the dark than the not-dark?
Why is it easier to be naked when it is around sex?
Is it because it is not the main prupose?
Why are not other living things wearing clothes?
Why are people offended by other peoples nudity?
Where did it come from that nudity can be provoking?
Can crying be provoking?
Can people be offended by crying?
Should we all stop crying and stop being naked?
Should we all be less human to become more normal in others peoples eyes?
Why are people so uncomfortable with these so natural things, like sweating crying hair scars?
What does it mean to open up?
Should we be more comfortable about these things?
Should we accept the discomfort?
Does the shame differ between men and women?
Does the shame around nudity also differ in age?
Why do people start accepting their body over time?
Why are older people more comfortable of their bodies?
What does puberty play of a role in this development?
If we all find this out in our life time, why don’t we pay more effort into teaching this to our kids?
Why are there norms in society?
How could you get rid of norms in society?
If we think that the comfort with being naked was more normal in the 70s/80s, will history repeat itself?
Is naturism or nudism healthy?
Can laughing also be seen as exposure?
When you laugh when you are not suppose to?
Is emotion connected to nakedness?
Is Uncontrolled emotion the same as nakedness?
Why do we say being vulnerable is being naked?
Why do we use it as a metaphor?
Does being naked have to be vulnareble?
Does the amount of acceptance of your own body influence the vulnerability you have when youre naked?
Is vulnerability a good or a bad thing?
Is it neutral?
Could we see it that wearing clothes is more vulnerable and being naked more empowering?
To who is it more empowering?
Would naturiost lifestyle make you more confident of your body?
Or does it lower the amount of ways to express yourself?
Why do we always need to express ourselves?
Why do we have to express ourselves through clothing
Does your clothing define you as a person?
Does your naked body define you as a person?
What defines you as a person?
What is a person?
What is the definition?
Do we need definition?
Do we need to be defined?
Do we need to be defined or to define ourselves?
Why do we always need to have answers?
Why do we not just ask questions?
Are we now talking?
What is talking?
