My Performance Art

For my performance art project I chose to do an activity in a public place so that the reactions of other people could be used as part of the art. I felt that a public bathroom on campus that gets a lot of use would be a prime setting to be able to use the reactions of spectators as part of the performance. I thought there would be ironic humor in having a romantic date in the bathroom and would tie in perfectly with our discussions of decontextualization. I set up a table and chairs complete with a waiter and flowers and filmed our date as people entered and reacted, with mostly laughs or confused looks. We ate food and drank wine and engaged in as much conversation as we could amidst the interruptions from people entering and exiting. There were a couple of toilet flushes too which was especially humorous. Once people caught on, they would run get their friends or even faculty to come see what we were doing.

Nam June Paik and The Residents

I'm glad we talked about Nam June Paik the other day because I have often heard his name as influential in art, but never knew exactly what his influence was. Turns out he was one of the main pioneers of video art and electronic music. I found it interesting that he was classically trained in music, yet opted for a more non traditionalist approach to creating more abstract, atonal electronic music using synthesizers. My favorite piece of his was where he was dragging a violin along the ground by a string. It ties in perfectly with the decontextualization we have been talking about as well as the examples of performance art we have examined. It's saying, "Here I am, playing the violin. Why do I have to play it the expected way with a bow? This is creating a sound just in a different way." Like any great art, it forces people to think of things in a different way.
I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't know who the Residents were until this class because they seem to have been such pioneers in the realm of music videos. Coming from a generation who has grown up watching music videos, it seems important to be exposed to this group. Like the Gorillas who we watched last week, they concealed their identities from the public by using animation and costumes/masks to hide their faces. Even in public they wore the eyeball masks and top hats. It seems they are performance artists as well as avant garde experimental musicians. There music videos were definitely trippy and disturbing but it's interesting to finally be exposed to truly the first music videos.

Look but Don't Touch

The New York Times article about the performance art piece at MOMA was very interesting. It's truly an example of how simplistic the artist's concept can be and how the reactions and involvement of the viewers can contribute greatly to the art itself. The naked man and woman stood facing each other while visitors walked through the narrow passage way between them. I found it shocking that despite the warnings about improper contact and touching, people still violated the performers. It seems that the art piece proved to be very telling of human nature and allowed not only the audience to be participants, but it allowed the performers to be spectators of the audience members. It seems that the performers would need to very comfortable with their bodies and being violated in unexpected ways. It's especially interesting for me because the participants were regular performers outside of the performance art piece: dancers, choreographers etc. and it stretched them as performers to have this experience because the audience reaction is quite different than that of a regular performance; they are part of it and the performers learn something about the nature of the spectators.

What is Performance Art?

What is performance art? I still don't know. We spent the last week exploring it in class and I have to say I am a little nervous to have to create my own performance art piece. It seems that all are so starkly different that nothing can be wrong...or can it? Santiago has repeatedly told us that performance art is different from performing arts. It seems like unlike performing, it doesn't seek to be accepted or even understood by an audience. The audience brings its own thoughts and interpretations to the piece and that creates part of the art. Many seem to make some sort of political or societal statement of critique. I particularly liked Tom Geogenan's "Strange Fruit." At first glance, I thought it was something absurdly bizarre that had no context, but after listening to Billie Holiday's song of the same name about the lynching of slaves, it took on a new meaning. While it's message isn't clear, maybe it's just to make people think and develop their own interpretations, but the context definitely helps. Same goes for French performance artist Orlan's televised lyposuction performance art piece. Why she chose to film herself getting the surgery seems shocking and strange but one can only guess it can be interpreted as some statement about beauty. I was a little uncomfortable with the performance pieces where people used their own blood or mutilate their bodies as art. But they are saying they can do what they want with their body including using it as a canvas. It echoes Deuchamp who claimed that anything even the most mundane of objects (such as a urinal) could be deemed art by the artist declaring it so.

Xerox Project

This was my xerox project. It ended up being fun to do even though I think I missed the point of the assignment a little bit. After seeing the rest of the class' project, mine lacked detail and a real creative concept. Mine was not outside of the box enough. I was afraid mine would be a bit too literal, afterall it was the only collage that actually used the parts to create the structure of a person of sorts. I played it "safe" but it was still fun. And I felt like a badass laying on the xerox machine in the library :)