Self-reflection of eating hot peppers performance

The concept of my presentation arose when I thought about what I would like to do as a performance. The first thing that came to mind was the idea of testing myself physically, to put myself in a stressful, strenuous or maybe even temporarily painful situation. I felt inhibited to do a performance and so putting myself in this kind of situation would force me to express myself against my own will. I would be the subject of whatever activity I decided to do. The activity would do the performance for me; I would simply be the reaction to whatever it is I decided to do.

The idea to eat spicy peppers eventually came about. My next question was to find a way to make this a more dynamic performance. How could I involve the audience or use other media formats to enhance the performance. I thought about getting a member of the audience to get me a drink and from this evolved the idea to have live video footage projected in front of the class of that person. This required some kind of wireless camera that could connect to the classroom somehow. Eventually I realised that the most practical solution was to use the internet to connect the filmed image with the projected image. This would be possible through the website Ustream. From an Ipad, Iphone or laptop I would have an audience member signed in to my Ustream account and stream a live feed with the help of their integrated webcam. On a second computer connected to the class projector I would go on Ustream and search my account where I could view that live feed.

My concerns prior to my presentation were that there would be technical difficulties or that the peppers may not be spicy enough to create the intended effect. I was nervous also because of the imminent pain I was about to encounter. I wanted the effect to be created of someone that is suffering and the tension created by the anticipation for the audience members to return with my drink. It was hard to tell if it turned out how I expected it to because during my performance my attention was completely focused on coping with the pain. I was not completely aware of my behaviour but considering that everything went pretty much according to planned, I was satisfied.

Overall it was an interesting experience. Now I know what it feels like to eat two jalapenos and one hot summer pepper in a span of five minutes. The feeling was more painful than expected and if it were not for the need to do a performance I probably would not have done it and will probably never do it again.