꿀컥 삼키는 시각의 맛(視味) : 먹는 대상으로서 바나나 이미지

Abstract

This essay takes Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian and David Datuna’s Hungry Artist as the opener for the following discourse. The two are put together to form an “event” that digs into the significance of “swallowing” and the crucial role of bananas. Here, the image of bananas not only serves as a visible image, but is also transformed into an invisible “visualgustation” nonequivalent to visualized taste, but rather a dialectic connection between the sense of vision and gustation. Through conducting research on the visual-gustation of bananas, this essay is intended to grasp the remarkable role banana images have played not only in the history of visual image, but also the history of colonial economy and international trade. On one hand, these images unveil the thoughtful modification and rearrangements colonizers had made to form the identity of the colonized. On the other hand, through the swallowing motions after each chew, the unseen perceptual issues within practical life experiences are revealed through these banana images.BR The essay then delves into About Bananas , a silent documentary sponsored by the United Fruit Company. The documentary along with its “self-peeling” special effect of the animated bananas demonstrates how economic colonizers presented their alibis. The tasteful flesh of banana was transformed into a self-productive (exploited) object restrained by its colonizer under the assistance of modern technology. With close-up shots of adorable children, the company rationalized the need for devoration through affectionate images. Furthermore, through examining the unique significance of banana images during Taiwan’s New Wave Cinema movement, this essay shall turn its attention to Taiwan, which too had once been among the colonized. In Wan Jen’s The Taste of Apples screened in 1983, the film demonstrated how people back then scrambled to have a bite of apple while bananas sat quietly at the sickbed of A-fa. Later in 1989, Wang Toon metaphorized the uneasiness of mainland soldiers through their sweet craving during troop movement in his film Banana Paradise. On-screen, the complex palate concerning such bitter-sweet sensation faded away as Men-Shuan (Latch), Zuo Fu-Gui, and Li Qi-Lin swallowed the fruit. Through this means, the multiple identities within the shattered subjectivity have been restructured and reborn. With its interpretations, Banana Paradise carries the will of restructuring the island’s political subjectivity during Taiwan’s New Cinema movement. The ethical insights of the film project a glaring anti-imperialism gaze that looks into the past from the nation’s not-so-distant future.