The ‘kiss-in’ is a live kissing performance – with a mission to examine and record every type and shape of kiss both as a sculpture and as a digital portrait.
This cheeky and accessible live event invites all combinations of couples and groups of people to contribute a cast of their kiss.
Dressed in dental outfits, Miss Murphy and her assistants invite, proposition and charm any combination of pairs or groups of the audience to contribute their unique expression of desire to the project.
A dental casting material is spooned into their mouths and they are asked to hold their pose for 90 seconds until it sets.
Each mouth and way of kissing creates a unique expression of desire whose wet; writhing forms are delivered like a birth from their mouths.
The event’s aim is to collect as wide a cross section of kisses and participants as possible to amass a comprehensive survey of desire. The casts are subsequently transformed into erotic glass sculptures. Each unique kiss contributed may be created as sculpture and /or a digital video portrait.
The ‘kiss-in’ and its related events were developed with the kind assistance and collaboration of many different artists and friends including :
Giuseppe Frusteri, Katie Murphy, Thomas Graham, Steve Nice, Abbey Davey, Maria Phelan, Bettina Von Zwehl, Anne Hardy, Hannah Miller and Emma Caplin who kindly assisted with all the persuading, cajoling, mixing, bucket emptying, drinks fetching, filming and photographic documentation.
We would all like to thank all the hundreds of fantastic and very generous kissers we met along the way – and all the promoters, curators and festival staff that assisted us on our mission. We hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did!
This gallery shows images from the ‘kiss-in’ tour which has included the following events:
2012 Special one off casting event at the Wellcome Collection for Jo Brand’s ‘On Kissing’ documentary for BBC4, (broadcast Valentines Day)
2010 ‘Love Lab’ live kissing and body casting performance, The Science Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
2009 ‘An Experiment in Kissing’, Dana Centre, The Science Museum, London
2007 kiss-in-between’ for ‘In Between Time Festival, Arnolfini, Bristol
2006 ‘kiss-in-burgh’, festival event staged on Dr Roberts Magic Bus for Escalator / East to Edinburgh (Supported by ACE & Colchester Arts Centre)
‘kiss-in-form’, DNA, FORM, London Art and Design Fair, Olympia,London
2005 ‘La Kiss-innale’, CZ95, Giudecca (in assoc. with Nuova Icona Gallery and ArtSway)
2002 :’kiss-in-Essex’, Colchester Arts Centre, ‘BIG-kiss-in’, Big Chill Festival, Larma Tree Gardens, Dorset, ‘Holy kiss-in-291’ staged for Channel 4 Television, 291 Gallery, London,‘kiss-in-NL’, Motel Mozaique Festival, Rotterdamse Schouwburg, Netherlands,‘kiss-in-Live’, National Live Art Performance Platform, The Arches, Glasgow
2001 : ‘kiss-in-fluid’ , Wolverhampton City Art Gallery, ‘kiss-in’, Expo / Now Festival, Nottingham, ‘kiss-in-Lift’, LIFT Festival, HMS President,London, ‘kiss-in-East’, East End Collaborations, Queen Mary’s College, London, ‘kiss-in-Valentine’, Shoreditch Gallery / The Juggler, London
2000 Valentines ‘kiss-in’ event, HOAX Gallery, London