I believe Schneemann was challenging our view of what we consider sex through the same screen culture that we are bombarded with online. By doing this she creates another structure for us to learn from and appreciate. No one knows what way one should perform sex, and it is only through the Internet that young minds build their perception of what they believe to be sex. It creates this structural mind-set that it is a performative piece, as if one was watching. It builds a space that doesn’t allow room for personal interactions. Although Schneemann created this piece in 1965, I believe it has come to challenge these aspects in today’s culture. It challenges the structures that has been so rigidly built upon in our society, our ideals of what …show more content…
In Schneemann’s piece ‘Meat Joy’ she tests similar boundaries regarding the body, intending the performance to be nude she had to alter the piece to fit the guidelines enforced by local authorities stating that if one performs nude they are subject to arrest. Seen in the image below, Schneemann had to “devise scanty feather-and-fur coverings”(Schneemann, 1991).
Meat Joy, as described in the New York Times, “took the form of a wild 3-D collage of human bodies, raw fish, chickens, sausages, wet paint and other stuff.” (Glueck, 1996). Schneemann creates this space where gender and boundaries are no longer, she challenges the structures of where one begins and another ends. Those performing are conscience of the audience, which I believe implicates this performance but also allows them to confront their performative self with their indulgent one. There is an evident line between the aspect of performance in the piece and her attempt to dismantle our boundaries so that we are nothing but primal creatures. This performance in play addresses this area that still needs to be explored, we never get the chance to see semi-naked adults playing and just having fun without it being