The Arts, They Ennoble

Performance artist Millie Brown creates a new work, Nexus Vomitus, accompanied by singers Patricia Hammond and Zita Syme.

Thanks to Anna, who stumbled across this milestone in cultural enrichment, the full 34-minute performance can be endured experienced here. In it, Ms Brown “explores the relationship between music and performance art via self-induced vomiting.” The word explores is of course obligatory and, given the context, entirely devoid of meaning. Unless we’re to believe that the fruits of this alleged mental activity will redefine human knowledge and shake the world when finally, dramatically revealed to the public. On her regurgitation of coloured milk, Ms Brown says this:

The use of canvas is a natural progression from my early performances. I started puking down myself in various outfits, but wanted more longevity from the end result. Canvas allows me the room to experiment with pattern and colour. I have learnt to manipulate the process to produce artwork that I consider separate from the performance that produced it, both are equally important to me.

Aesthetes among you may detect the influence of Professor Keith Boadwee, whose colonic evacuations and “explorations of identity politics” are seared into the art world’s collective memory. And doubtless that of his students. Likewise, there’s a whiff of Jubal Brown, who gained fleeting notoriety by vomiting dye onto Mondrian’s Composition in Red, White and Blue, supposedly in an act of righteous artistic criticism. Others may be reminded of Albert Reyes, whose dribbling on the road requires at least some degree of precision. 

Now may be a good time to revisit Pwll’s rules of art appreciation. There is, after all, a difference between shock and awe, and a difference between wonderment and tedious disgust. Those who don’t know the difference, or who’ve chosen to forget in the name of transgression, are left with little to do besides screaming at passers-by and begging for attention.

Hard liquor and ammunition are, as usual, available at the bar.