JO HO

BLOODY MUKBANG was a live stream where Jo performed a popular type of streaming show ‘mukbang’, which is known as an audiovisual broadcast of a person eating food live on stream while interacting with their audience.

What started in 2020 as a tribute to those who couldn’t spend the holidays with their loved ones, Jo’s stream on Twitch on the 25th of December has become a yearly ritual with the visual theme of being covered in fake blood. The strong image caused by blood is a visual channeling of ‘pain’ or of feelings that otherwise cannot be put into words.

In this year’s particular stream, Jo eats a cooked turkey while listening to a recorded text-to-speech audio of words exchanged between Jo and ChatGPT. In this chat, she asks ChatGPT about Mukbang and acts of devouring. She proceeds to aid ChatGPT in ‘glitching’ or ‘devouring its own words’ by performing a series of operations on the words it recites back to Jo.

These streams are a continual investigation for Jo in understanding the performative aspects of live streams and also creating a space for audiences to know that these streams are an act of self-awareness in performing live online.

Materials: Live digital stream, one cooked turkey, and words exchanged between Jo and ChatGPT