Chewing chewing chewing social space

for the shy is a multimedia installation based on a partially built, partially dismantled re-creation of the artist’s kitchen. It examines the desire to understand care and decay in social space, and to reckon with shared agency: given that sociality always occurs between agents, how can one locate an individual ethic of care? The paper begins by examining theories of sociality and interconnectivity based on eating. It examines sculptural action as “chewing” social space – as separating desire-as-lack (Lacan) from desiring-production (Deleuze and Guattari), and separating the “thing-ness” from the “sign-ness” of objects (Peirce). It considers the work within the contexts of architectural ornamentation and immersive installation art, and finally explores the problematic of communicating about the non-communicative state of shyness. The work locates care as an intermediary force between creation and destruction of subjectivities and social structures, both breaking and maintaining the bonds of socialization.