Untitled

Babies, men in suits, faces of all sorts of people who land on the bread like slices of sausage. These figures fall from the sky. People who drop down onto bread and then get covered in sauce. There's a lot going on in this work. 

The British flag can be regarded as a political symbol. A flag is always linked to a country and thus to a population. Might Ed have chosen the British flag due to Brexit? The United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union is an important event. Displaying a flag can also be a more general signal. A nationalistic notion? After all, Ed does come from England.

In the natural world, either you eat or something else eats you. As people living in a Western country, we might have lost sight of that fact. When you cycle to the supermarket to buy coffee, you're not thinking, "I could be killed at any moment." We have tamed nature and used it for our own purposes. But for many animals, it's very different. They are primarily occupied with their basic needs: hunting, eating, pooping and sleeping. Humans have evolved to such a level that they are very far removed from nature. This is perhaps even more true of people who live in the city and hardly ever leave it. Some children don't even know that milk comes from cows!

Ed's first solo exhibition in the Netherlands was in 2015 when the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam presented Recent Ouija. His enormous video images, sound works, collages and drawings could be seen – and heard of course – in the lower-level gallery in the museum's new wing. With a huge 1,100 square metres, the exhibition room is nothing to sneeze at.

Regardless of the piece, everyone views an artwork in a different way. This is partly because we each have our own personal history. For instance, one person might read the Bible a lot, another possibly visits the theatre regularly, while yet another may spend long periods on the factory floor. Our experiences lead us to make specific associations when we look at art. To an extent, these differences in background determine how we view something. You might think that this work of Ed's is terrible. A mountain of babies tumbling over each other. But you could also view the going up and going down as a dance or choreography. Who knows, you might also see a commercial in it. Or an ode, or even a warning.

The people who are tipped onto the bread in a sort of mechanical way are reminiscent of livestock farming. But we're fairly used to that. When we see people being served up in a sandwich, we assume that they're going to be eaten. It's disturbing. We eat all sorts of things, but we'd prefer not to eat each other… there's still a taboo around cannibalism.

The food and the people, everything in this work bounces up and down. It’s like they're on a theme park ride. Sometimes everything floats for a moment; time stands still. Then they start to move again. It's dynamic and full of unexpected turns.

You can hear the sauce being sprayed over the people in this video work. At times, you can even hear the sound that someone makes when eating. There are people who really don't like that. Perhaps you're one of them. But there are also people who absolutely cannot stand it. They have a condition known as misophonia, which means 'hatred of sound'. Someone with misophonia experiences a feeling of disgust when they hear a person smacking their lips, swallowing or biting off a mouthful of food. They have intense feelings when exposed to these types of eating noises. There might not only be disgust but also irritation or anger.

The origins of misophonia are unclear. The condition usually begins between the ages of eight and twelve. Misophonia can have a major impact on a person's life. Without wanting it, the person’s attention is drawn to the eating noises. They try to avoid the intense emotions that this brings up. Those with misophonia can be emotionally triggered by particular situations and people. In this case, the trigger is a sound caused by someone eating. People with misophonia sometimes shut themselves away, avoiding meals with others and other appointments that involve eating and drinking. Sufferers can even end up socially isolated, completely lonely.

There's an enormous amount to see and to say about this work, don't you agree? Babies, men in suits, jeans, lettuce and books, sauces spraying, movement up and down. As the LAM shows, there are many different ways of making art, from painting, drawing and sculpting to creating videos and making sound recordings. There are also hybrid forms, such as a painting that has been embroidered, whereby the artist uses paint and fabric. Imagine that Ed – or another artist – uses the elements from this video but creates another type of artwork rather than a video. What would that work look like?

Now and then, you hear a lift bell pinging in this video artwork. Or is it a microwave?

Take a look at Ed's studio. Click here to see where he made this artwork.