Consuming passions: the edible body parts of Kittiwat Unarrom

Inevitably, the interest in biosociality in all of its varieties would at some point have to allude to the cultural significance of cannibalism in the modern imaginary. I'm only just starting to gather material on this topic (and I'm further distracted by a burgeoning interest in genocide, and related terms such urbicide etc), a task which is complicated by its obvious intersection with postcolonial critique. Suffice to say, I don't currently have at my disposal the necessary means to attempt any thorough evaluation of this Thai body artist.

My initial thought is that it would be necessary to begin with the concept of glocalisation (i.e. how globalising logics are adapted in accordance with local conditions). To be sure, these works spark memories of the naturalist logic featured in works such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and also the "bone house" of Joel Peter Witkin (or even George A. Romero, as featured in my previous post), but is there any other crosscutting logic of commodification at stake? I'm hoping to visit Bangkok's Museum of Forensic Medicine next month in search of some answers, and, time permitting, post them here. It will necessitate more than a splicing of quotes from, say, Baurdrillard's Symbolic Exchange and Death....but until then, here is a brief introduction to Kittiwat Unarrom:
Sculpted entirely from bread, these severed human heads are the work of Kittiwat Unarrom, proprietor of Thailand’s gruesome “body bakery”. The ceiling of his Ratchaburi bakery/studio is festooned with dismembered hands, feet and internal organs dangling from hooks. The Fine Art student says that his macabre creations were inspired by visits to Bangkok’s Museum of Forensic Medicine. He uses anatomy books to get the details right.

"Employer of the year, grandmaster of fear / My blood flows satanical, mechanical, masonical and chemical / habitual ritual "

"I deal in the market, every man, woman and child is a target / A closet full of faceless, nameless pay more for less empitness /I’ll make you scrounge, in my executive lounge / you pay less tax, but I’ll gain more back"

Corporate Cannibal ~ Grace Jones



"Writing in 1930, Keynes was most interested in the process of deflation and in countering the dangerous advice of conventional finance. Orthodoxy put the pound back on gold at a punishingly high rate in 1925, torturing British industry and pushing up unemployment in the name of sound money. Central banks, Keynes feared, were being too timid about bringing down interest rates. Against orthodoxy’s austerity nostrums, Keynes celebrated booms in a manner that would do a Texas populist proud. Shakespeare, said Keynes, died rich, and his days were 'the palmy days of profit — one of the greatest "bull" movements ever known until modern days in the United States…. [B]y far the greater proportion of the world’s greatest writers and artists have flourished in the atmosphere of buoyancy, exhilaration and the freedom from economic cares felt by the governing class, which is engendered by profit inflations' (CW VI, p. 137). The Shakespeares of the era of junk finance have yet to be discovered, unless Bret Easton Ellis qualifies."

Wall Street (1997) by Doug Henwood