Critic Stephan Koch has written of the Warhol film "Nude Restaurant", 1967, and its star, Viva, in particular:
"""It is absolutely impossible to imagine how anyone could conceivably give a damn... I cannot think of a single inch of footage in Nude Restaurant that seems to me worth looking at. Watching it is rather like being present at the most boring party of one's entire life... Oh yes, the superstars. They get on one's nerves."
I became fascinated with Viva's monologue in this movie. I always think I talk too much especially when I am nervous. It is one of the things I dislike most about myself. I was thinking a lot about the art world and how nervous it makes me. I was thinking about my old videos, where I never said anything and how much people like those. So I decided to talk in a video. I'm not an actress and I wasn't sure what to say so I decided to say what Viva had said. I read somewhere that Warhol said her voice was the most mesmerizing and the most grating he had ever heard- he should have known, he was a connoisseur of great talkers, although he didn't say too much himself.
So I cast myself as Viva and my 9 year old son as Taylor Mead - Beauty and the Beast reversed. Vintage headphones and a Nintendo DS keep us in our zones. The more I talked - trivial, breathless, at a breakneck pace - the more it reminded me of me getting on my own nerves. The relentless voice hooked up to a nervous system of images, everyday jolts. It's just Mom in the kitchen, serving up a hot dish of cool leftovers.
This title is available for exhibitions, screenings, and institutional use through Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), NY. Please visit the EAI Online Catalogue for further information about this artist and work. The EAI site offers extensive resources for curators, students, artists and educators, including: an in-depth guide to exhibiting, collecting, and preserving media art; A Kinetic History: The EAI Archives Online, a collection of essays, primary documents, and media charting EAI's 40-year history and the early years of the emergent video art scene; and expanded contextual and educational materials.