How to Bake a Cake in the Digital Age

Christina Catherine Martinez stages a cooking show that refuses to begin, performing stand-up in an empty Los Angeles gallery to an audience of only her film crew. Part performance art and part clowning, the half-hour special subverts the standard stand-up format by playing with the boundaries between performer, character, and director. Martinez puts on an apron and sets up her workspace, but actual baking remains a constantly receding horizon while she walks the line of an on-camera breakdown.

Filmed in November 2020 at the Human Resources Gallery in Los Angeles, the project spent years in festival and TV development purgatory before dropping on YouTube in 2024. Martinez, an established art critic who also trained at the Philippe Gaulier clown school in France, brings a highbrow, physical sensibility to the screen. The special was named a standout release by New York Magazine, reflecting her reputation in the Los Angeles alternative scene as a writer for The Eric Andre Show.