Talk

How would you anticipate ? #4

Thursday 29 Nov 2018 from 6:30pm to 8:30pm

Free admission

© Marc Domage

"Resentment", a performance with sound, food and animation by Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau, with Daniel Oliver

Resentment comes from the body, a terrible indigestion of reactionary feelings. The 'well meaning liberal' Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau anticipates change and is overwhelmed by bad feelings of shame, anger, envy and disgust. He wants to feel clean again, and spends the performance being guided though various cleansing rituals by a shadowy figure with a high pitched voice on a cherry picker (played by Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau).

Taking place in a multi-screen installation of animations featuring a creepy naked man eating, digesting and defecating words made out of worms, and animated versions of medieval religious paintings, Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau performs to the audience and to the animations, telling stories, taking his clothes off, singing songs, and attempting to remove all impurities from his cultural diet through a #cleaneating ritual involving French cheese and non-dairy milk alternatives. Could all these bad vibes just be the product of an undiagnosed lactose intolerance?

"Resentment" explores the personal and political resonance of bad feelings in contemporary culture, liberal prejudice and the reactionary undertones of progressive positions.

Daniel Oliver is a performance artist and theatre academic, currently teaching in the drama department at Queen Mary University of London. He has an ongoing interest in awkwardness, social interaction, pretending, and dyspraxia, and has published various articles, book chapters and other works on these topics.




Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau creates sculptures, drawings, performances and films.
His work addresses abject materials, negative affective states, and the ambiguities of language and objects. Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau was an Associate of Open School East, 2014. He founded The Bad Vibes Club, which is a forum for research into negative states, runs Radio Anti with Ross Jardine, and collaborates with Ben Jeans Houghton as the ARKA group. He lives and works in London.