Brainwashing Cocktail, 1996, performance, Mrs. Brainwash, Gallery Interglotzvisionen Berlin
Brainwashing Cocktail (1996) stands as a provocative and viscerally charged performance by the enigmatic figure known as Mrs. Brainwash. Staged at Gallery Interglotzvisionen in Berlin, the work exemplifies the confrontational ethos of 1990s performance art, where bodily materials, ritualistic gestures, and institutional critique intersected in disquieting ways.
Performance at the Gallery Interglotzvisionen Berlin
The audience, denied immediate access to the gallery, was positioned outside, their view partially obstructed but their curiosity piqued by the unusual array of equipment visible through the windows. This initial distancing established an atmosphere of speculation and tension—an intentional device used by the artist to heighten anticipation and to draw attention to the act of spectatorship itself.
The performer’s entrance was deliberately theatrical. Dressed entirely in sterile white—cap, mask, jacket, skirt, tights, and shoes—she evoked the clinical authority of a medical professional. This costume aligned her with figures of institutional power and hygiene, sharply contrasting with the visceral, abject materials she was about to handle. The donning of white hygienic gloves further ritualized the moment, signaling a transition from mere presence to purposeful action.
From a black bag, the performer methodically removed two transparent plastic bags. The first contained a brain and the second, several pieces of feces. One by one, the materials were placed into a glass vessel half-filled with water. The juxtaposition of cerebral matter and bodily waste formed a stark metaphor for intellectual degradation, contamination, or perhaps the collapse of rational discourse under the weight of ideological manipulation.
The pivotal moment arrived when the performer introduced a handheld mixer into the vessel. The mechanical sound of the whirring blades echoed beyond the gallery walls, drawing the crowd into the performance through auditory stimulus. The brain and excrement, once distinct, were rapidly homogenized into a thick, brown froth—a literal and symbolic enactment of “brainwashing.”
Once the mixture reached the desired consistency, it was poured into a sealed cup and placed prominently on display in the gallery window. This final gesture recontextualized the grotesque concoction as a ready-made object: “The Brainwashing Cocktail.” It stood simultaneously as a product of the performance and a critique of commodified ideology, media consumption, and the sanitization of violence in institutional contexts.
The aftermath of the event extended beyond its immediate duration. According to the gallery, the smell emitted by the cocktail was so potent that it rendered the space temporarily uninhabitable. Even after its removal, the lingering odor became part of the work’s legacy—its olfactory trace serving as an unintentional but poignant metaphor for the residual effects of ideological indoctrination.In retrospect, Brainwashing Cocktail can be read as a visceral allegory of cognitive manipulation, media saturation, and cultural decay.
It aligns with traditions of abject art and feminist performance while also challenging the viewer to confront the boundaries of taste, ethics, and sensory tolerance in contemporary art.
The Mixture of Brain and Excrement: Symbolic and Material Significance
At the heart of Mrs. Brainwash’s Brainwashing Cocktail performance lies the unsettling combination of two materials loaded with metaphorical weight: a brain and human excrement. Their union, violently homogenized into a thick brown froth, forms the central gesture of the performance. This mixture is not merely sensational; it operates on several levels—symbolic, psychological, political, and aesthetic.
The Brain as a Site of Reason and Control
The brain, as an object, traditionally symbolizes intellect, cognition, identity, and the locus of consciousness. In Western philosophical and scientific traditions, it stands for rationality, control, and the higher faculties of the human being. To remove the brain from the body and subject it to physical manipulation already constitutes a violation—a gesture of defilement that undermines notions of human dignity and autonomy.
By placing the brain in water—a substance often associated with purification or preservation—the performer initially evokes a sense of clinical or scientific procedure. However, this sterile expectation is immediately disrupted when the brain is not studied or preserved, but dirtied, corrupted, and ultimately destroyed.
Excrement as Abjection and Waste
In contrast, feces occupy the opposite end of the symbolic spectrum. In art and theory, especially following Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abject (from her 1980 book Powers of Horror), excrement is the epitome of what society seeks to cast out: bodily waste, contamination, the breakdown of order. It triggers disgust because it blurs the line between self and non-self, cleanliness and pollution, life and decay.
Excrement is also politically potent. In the context of performance art—especially the post-Fluxus, Viennese Actionist, and feminist traditions—it has been used to critique systems of repression, moral hypocrisy, and the sanitized illusions of high culture. Artists like Paul McCarthy, Otto Muehl, and Karen Finley have similarly deployed fecal matter as a tool of confrontation and demystification.
The Violent Synthesis: A Metaphor for Brainwashing
When the brain and feces are combined, the performance reaches its most conceptually charged moment. The materials, which respectively symbolize the mind and the waste of the body, are violently emulsified into one indistinguishable substance. This act becomes a direct metaphor for brainwashing: the corruption of thought by exposure to filth, lies, propaganda, or ideological waste.
In this sense, the mixer itself is an agent of transformation, or more precisely, of destruction and control. It mechanizes the process of contamination, suggesting that the erosion of thought is not accidental but systemic—an industrialized or institutionalized process. The result is no longer thought, nor waste, but a hybrid: a cocktail, deceptively packaged, sealed, and displayed for consumption.
A Critique of Contemporary Media and Cultural Indoctrination
Seen through a socio-political lens, the work critiques how contemporary media, political discourse, or cultural institutions can distort rational thinking by overwhelming it with sensationalism, misinformation, or “intellectual waste.” In this reading, the brainwashing cocktail becomes a product of modern life—offered to the public as something palatable, even though it is toxic at its core.
The sealed cup, left in the gallery until its stench became unbearable, is a final provocation: the mind, once corrupted, continues to contaminate its environment. Even when removed, the residue lingers—much like ideological influence or historical trauma.
Art Historical Parallels
This gesture resonates with several key movements in art history:
Dada and Surrealism: The irrational and grotesque combination of materials recalls Dadaist anti-art strategies and Surrealist interest in the unconscious and taboo.
Viennese Actionism: The visceral use of bodily materials, and the confrontation with abjection, echoes artists like Günter Brus and Hermann Nitsch.
Feminist Performance Art: The body as a site of symbolic resistance is central to works by artists such as Carolee Schneemann or Ana Mendieta.
Institutional Critique: The white clinical costume and laboratory-like setup ironically mimic scientific authority, exposing how such structures can mask acts of violence or control.
In sum, the mixture of brain and excrement is not simply a shocking visual device, but a dense, layered symbol. It reflects the degradation of thought, the intrusion of the abject into the rational, and the uneasy entanglement of body, mind, and power. Mrs. Brainwash’s performance forces us to confront what happens when reason is contaminated—intellect, debased—and yet still offered back to us, sealed and labeled, as something consumable.