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Play, download and edit the free video FOOD Paul Birchall, Sell by Date, 2019, 1:10 min, sound.

Paul Birchall has always been interested in the surreal and ‘having a salad talking about internet dating seemed a fun thing to do’. (Paul Birchall to Michelle Sacher, 11.08.2020) The salad called Russel – which consists of Birchall's hand, some lettuce and a garnish of cherry tomatoes and spring onions, the technique of mirroring and a plastic eye – succinctly tells the viewer about his registration on the Internet portal ‘meat me.com’. Throughout the whole video Birchall works with such puns – the distinction between ‘meet’ and ‘meat’ is what can make a dating portal very unfavourable for a vegetarian salad.
Similarly, the title Sell by Date was an invitation for Russel to sell themself for a date. The salad talks very soberly about not being one ‘to sit on the shelf for very long’. On the one hand, this means that you can't keep it as a salad for very long, i.e. you can't leave it on the shelf for too long. On the other hand, ‘to sit on the shelf’ is a term meaning that you have slowly but surely passed the optimal age to get married and settle down – we are back to the expiry date!
Birchall's video compositions are reminiscent of Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s paintings in the 16th century. A mannerist who has long been considered a precursor of surrealism, his paintings show portraits, which consist of typical attributes of the sitter: spring is portrayed with flowers, the ‘Musica’ with musical instruments or the ‘Vertumnus’ with various vegetables, fruits and flowers. The latter is a portrait of Emperor Rudolf II, for whom Arcimboldo organised festivities as Maître d'Amusement and, among other things, composed the Emperor's cabinet of curiosities.
In a surrealistic way, Paul Birchall also touches on other cultural customs such as table manners or food waste in a humorous and witty way. In this way, the proverb ‘one does not play with food’ is mercilessly undermined, a taboo is broken. In Africa, India or the Arab countries, on the other hand, people traditionally eat with their hands. Then the literal use of hands in the production of the video itself can also be understood as a game and thus as a confrontation with cultural and social customs. The confrontation with food waste is also present. Even though food is no longer edible, it is given anthropomorphic characteristics, thus it is humanised and demands sympathy, compassion and, in this case, a laugh or two from the viewer.

Michelle Sacher

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