Food as performance of digital & diasporic intimacies

mukbang roller features 3–4 unpasteurized performance artists

from the asian diaspora staging a virtual dinner party.

they seek to satiate their ravenous appetites, ripe with

hunger/desire for companionship, cultural connection, “home”

and “homeland,” and queer identity-making amidst a global

pandemic. in this makeshift digital commensality, diasporic

neitzens experience a temporary relief from their own

loneliness, isolation, and yearning– finding being, becoming,

and belonging through what Christensen and Jansson call a

“mediatized lifeworld,” as well as a re-membering of body

and embodiment online through the sensory act of eating. the

recognizable narrative of sharing a meal recreates a sense of

security and home in a time of global precarity.