A performative lecture on the causes and effects of embarrassment, Embarrassment: a bare-buttocked lecture is the second in a series of bare-buttocked lectures. The first bare-buttocked lecture was given at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, in celebration of its 50th Anniversary, and it explored the fact that Prince Charles was conceived on Valentine’s Day 1948, which coincided to the day with the first exhibition of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, in what is now a high-street store in central London.
These lectures have no connection with each other, except for the fact that they are performed by a guy in a bare-buttocked suit.
The employment of the word 'embarrassment’ as the title and subject of a presentation, makes vulnerable the protagonist for the word to be turned against them. In 1896 when the American author Henry James published a volume of stories titled Embarrassments, the Spectator magazine retorted: "Really these stories are often Embarrassments in a sense other than that intended by their author." Indeed, is it not often the case, when we attend a cultural occasion, be it performance, exhibition or screening - that if we find the experience less than satisfactory, we might say "...it was so embarrassing". While the audience is dissuaded from such an easy form of assassination, it is in part, the aim of this piece for the performer to become embarrassed live.
The lecture is divided into five sections which will systematically work through a discussion of various aspects of embarrassment. Underlying this discussion, is the continual aim to illustrate the thesis by a practical physical exemplification of embarrassment.