ABSTRACT
Hunger artistry is a form of violence orchestrated by the subject against its self and offered as spectacle to the world. The performance of self-starvation pushes the notion of a captive audience to an extreme, multiplying the stress inherent to any self-destructive act by the anxiety felt by those constrained to witness the act and thus participate in its inscription of violence. Objectification through starvation by contrast involves a shedding of signifiers by the subject in favour of an over-emergence of the body. The hypertrophic corporeality of the faster can be a sign of subjective death. Literature provides many reference points in the consideration of monstrosity, hunger and resistance and suggests the critical hypothesis that the issue of hunger and its satisfaction is what divides the human from the monster. Hunger is a totalitarian experience, hence the moral and dramatic force of the hunger strike as political protest.
