Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Inducing Endurance Piece

Am thinking of upping the ante with the induced lactation project, and see how far I can push it. Its hard to find time to pump and drink milk thistle and take meds on time when working on other things- always having to sneak into toilets in your lunchbreakwith your pump in your backpack is difficult and irritating to manage. So, I am proposing that I undertake the following endurance piece. Here's a very rough sketch:

Two weeks locked in a gallery space. The first week will mostly be about the inducing itself, but hopefully by the second week I will be producing enough milk to start using the time inbetween inducing acts to make other objects and interactions.

Inducing
Pump every four hours 24/7, for 30 minutes at a time.
Take maximum amounts of motillium (2 x10mg) at six-hourly intervals. Plus fenugreek tablets.
Drink one pot of fennel tea a day.
Drink one pot of milk thistle tea a day.
Consume at least 2 litres of water a day, on top of the tea intake.
Change to SuperLacto Diet, including large amounts of foods believed to be beneficial to milk production. Such as porridge, and beer.
Public can watch at any point during opening hours.

Other possible acts
Invisible Ink- see if breastmilk can be used as invisible ink. Write with quill/brush: Jeanette Winterson quote re milk-ink, Helene Cixous' 'white ink', or thoughts that have occurred to me during project. Let dry. Iron to reveal text. Record all of this in a series of black and white photographs.
Audience participation- Not sure how this will work. Can't actually feed it to them because of hygeine issues. Perhaps I can make a series of 'milk blots' to give people, or seal it in small glass capsules, like some sort of religious relic? Refer to the medieval (?) milk relics, especially the cave where folk would scrape the chalk from the walls and mix with water and claim it to be The Virgin's Milk.
Random milk art- eg Milk Graffitti (When released on last day, run around back streets and spray 'tags' on walls etc) and Milk Mirror (Using milk to trace my features on to a mirror).

Documenting
Measure and weigh breasts daily at same time. Photograph?
Make a chart of amount of milk produced.
Photograph any colour changes or unusual occurences.
Freeze milk specimens for analysis (if can find someone to analysise it): end of first week, colustrum- if produced again, end of project.
Keep diary- mood changes, physical changes etc.

Other points
Should I be costumed, or just in everyday clothes?
Will I be 'on stage' all of the time, or just at the points where I am pumping or doing something specific? Would prefer as much time as possible, want to highlight the banal moments as well as the obvioulsy interesting ones.

Requirements
Suitable gallery space- access to water, electricity, toilet, shower, space to sleep.
Futon/air mattress and blankies.
Tape measure and kitchen scales.
Comfy chair for pumping, preferably a rocking chair.
Digital camera.
Motillium, fenugreek, milk thistle and fennel teas, kettle, teapot and teacup.
Beer, porridge, and other 'milk making' foods.
Art supplies, as projects dictate eg iron and iron board, blotting paper, mirror.

Presentation
Scrapbook of journal entries, photographs, ink blots, invisible ink texts, milk chart, chart of breast measurements and weight, milk analysis reports, motillium prescriptions etc.

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