EPDP assignment 3

You are having a chill weekend in a museum, slowly making your way around the interesting exhibits. At this point, you are in the contemporary art sector. You start reading about the history of performance art as you near a room of footage documenting some famous performance works. Suddenly, you are approached by a museum guard. He tells you that they will monetarily fund you to make a performance artwork for their insitution, right now. The parameters of this work, he says, can be endless, and you will be reimbursed for the duration of it. You panic and say "sure, why not!" at the strange request. But you don't even know what performance art really is. Why did you agree? [[I thought some momentary fame would be nice]] [[I will get paid by the museum for the duration of the performance! Count me in!]]

You continue to the room you were approaching and read the wall label, it reads: "Performance art is created through spontaneous or planned actions by an artist or other participants. The timeframe of the event can range from seconds to years. Performances have been enacted within museums but also in situations outside of the museum space." The guard looks at you expectedly. The most obvious decision to you right now is to: [[Leave the museum and hide for a while]] [[Stay within the museum and embrace your momentary fame]]

Great, you have decided to leave the confines of the white cube (as museums are often referred to) and integrate your work with society! The most transformative performance artworks are usually those that can permeate the walls of the museum and involve a wider public that may not necessarily be interested in going to museums. You leave the museum and are confronted with a crowded public enjoying their Saturday afternoon at the museum park. You would like to do this performance artwork, but how much work are you willing to put in? [[I'm quite lost, can't I just get spectators to do the work for me?]] [[I can put in some work for fun]]

Great, this is an opportunity for you to bring up a topic that is relevant to you. Performance art is one of the most politically-loaded art mediums. Historically, performance art has dealt mainly with topics such as capitalism, feminism and the body in society. Performance art has often been misunderstood to be synonymous with performance or theatre. However, there lies a big difference as performance artists always play themselves; they never act as someone else. With this in mind, choose an approach that feels relevant to you: [[I would like to engage with the people around me]] [[I am interested in using my body for the performance]]

Yes, you totally can. The approach that favours the spontaneous invovlement of the general public in performance art is called 'happenings'. In fact, this is the form through which peformance art emerged. 'Happenings' consist of a loose set of pointers or a scenario from which more actions emerge, often supplemented by a larger public which reacts unknowingly. This practice was most common in the beginning of performance art, namely the 1960s. You are still outside the museum, it is full of people. You have the agency to make a performance artwork out of their presence. What would you like to do? [[place some instructions on a piece of paper and wait for people to discover it]] [[wander around to get some inspiration]]

That's great to hear. There's little that one can do without objects though. Although performance is all about the body and self, it usually involves some sort of relationship with an object. [[I don't need an object, I can do something by myself]] [[I could find some random objects?]]

On the piaza of the museum are all sorts of people, tourists, children and some street performers. Street performers are quite similar to your new identity - as a performance artist. Often, performance art has been misunderstood as being synonymous with performance or theatre as an art form. However, there lies a big difference as performance artists always play themselves; they never act as someone else. You take inspiration from the street performers around you; they seem to have everyone's attention. How can you also engage people into a performance artwork? You are empty handed, there seems to be only a few things you can do without anything on you in order to prompt some attention. [[I can sing]] [[I can dance]] [[I can imitate an artwork?]]

Congrats! You are Allan Kaprow's 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (1959, New York). In this performance, the public was invited to interact with this piece by completing tasks outlined with instructions in a score. These events were interdisciplinary, with Kaprow incorporating music, theatre and dance. This performance work put the audience at an unconventional intersection with the artwork by making them responsible for the product work.

That's great, but you don't want people throwing coins at your feet. As a performance artist, you must think of how to engage with the space around you artistically. Performance artists are artists before they are performers. You hum a tune, but no one bats an eye, the piaza is full and kids are running everywhere. [[You gather some people and urge them to come listen to you]] [[You continue to sing and start to walk around the space to ensure you are heard]]

How skilled are you at dancing? [[I can do the robot dance]] [[I can come up with a whole choreography right now]]

You are Singing Sculptures by Gilbert and George (1969, London). In this piece, both artists coated themselves in metallic makeup and walked around London, mimicking sculptures as well as singing and dancing. In 1970, they repeated this performance in the Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London.

Uh oh, a small crowd of people has now attracted a whole wave of people coming to watch you perform. Performance art is a very unpredictable medium! [[You panic and swallow your voice. You stare at your audience in silence for a minute and people start to get awkward and disperse]] [[You walk away and don't look back]]

Great, you are an abstract performance artist. You have just pulled a John Cage 4'33" (1952, New York). 4'33" is a three-movement composition in which the score instructs performers to NOT play their instruments. The piece itself is simply the sounds of the environment heard by the listeners during the period of silence. Just like John Cage's work, your awkward moment of silence challenged classical music and performance by fore-fronting absence. [[Uh oh, small issue]]

Uh oh, you end up having to walk very long and very far. You have become One Year Performance by Tehching Hsieh (1981, New York City). Tehching Hsieh is well known as the 'endurance' artist; his projects go for a very long time and often involve dramatic lifestyle restrictions. In One Year Performance, Hsieh lived for a whole year without entering any interior, be it a building or a vehicle.

That's ok. Performance art can be intimidating. But the guards is now following you! How do you get rid of him? [[Walk for as long as you physically can]] [[Assert yourself to him and start walking in an exaggerated manly way]] [[Start walking in a circle with a weird gait to confuse everyone]] [[Start ardently following a random stranger]]

Good one. You are Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square by the artist Bruce Nauman (1968). In this film, Nauman walked back and forth with a weird swing in the hips around the perimeter of a square marked on the floor of his artist studio. While it may seem quite boring, Nauman broke the conventions of art, film and television by breaking free from narrative. He explained that letting people see into his studio was signficant because his art studio had become synonymous with creation, thus everything within it must inherently be art.

In that case, there seems to be only three things you could with your own body: [[I can sing]] [[I can dance]] [[I can imitate an artwork?]]

Ok, this will be an interesting task. Sounds like you are a Dadaist, perhaps you would like Duchamp, who was a Dadaist. Duchamp is famous for his artworks called "readymades" which involved putting together random objects with no purpose and exhibiting them. For example, his famous urinal placed upside down. Duchamp and the Dadaists, and their 'play' with art, was overall a heavy inspiration to performance art historically. Yet you look around you, and there is little to work with. [[You pick up some random pebbles below you. Then a flower. A dog toy. Some kids are playing with a ball, you snatch it off them and dribble away with it]] [[You go further into the park in front of the museum and continue searching]]

The kids come back to take their ball, in the meantime they throw some rocks and pebbles at you and their parents curse at you. It seems you have become Marina Abramovic's Rhythm 0 (1974, Naples). This was a 6-hour performance in which Abramović stood still and invited the audience to do anything to her, using one of the 72 objects laid out in front of her. This performance put the artist in a passive position and questioned her agency within the space.

Interesting choice. A critique of capitalism perhaps? You are the performance artwork Bliz-aard Ball Sale by David Hammons (1983, New York). On a winter day, Hammons made snowballs of various sizes. He laid them out neatly according to size and sold them for a small price, taking on the role of a salesman for the day. Hammons takes on the role of an illogical street hustler, trying to make money from nothing. He critiques the capitalist system in its ability to monetise everything and to leave people unhoused and on the streets.

Ha, cool. You are Singing Sculptures by Gilbert and George (1969, London). In this piece, both artists coated themselves in metallic makeup and walked around London, mimicking sculptures as well as singing and doing robot-style dancing. In 1970, they repeated this performance in the Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London.

You are a flash mob. But, can you dance right now or would you freeze in panic? [[DANCE!]] [[freeze..]]

That's creepy. You are Vito Acconci's 'Following Piece' (1969, New York). In this performance, Vito Acconci chose and followed a random stranger every day for a month. He walked behind them for as long as he could until they entered a private space. Afterwards, he typed accounts of the pursuits and sent them to different arts people around town.

You are Walking in the Way by Frances Mezzetti and Pauline Cummins (2009, Dublin). The artists explore the control of space, movement, masculinities and stereotyping. The performance involves two women walking around the city and assimilating to the masculine culture within it, taking direct inspiration from the male population by studying and imitating them. 10 performances have taken place in 9 different cities around Europe.

But what are you to do with all these objects? You sit on the floor to think, encircled by the weird selection. [[You simply sit there with your objects, waiting for inspiration from the crowd]] [[You decide to sell these newfound objects to the crowd]]

The park is full of flowers and rocks. Natural objects are quite underexplored in performance art and are often not used as props. You have chosen interestingly! [[You pick some flowers, lay down on the grass, and scatter them all over you]] [[You pick up some pretty stones and scatter them all over yourself]]

This is a nice one- you are The Silhuetas Series by Ana Mendieta (1973-1980). In her Silhuetas, Ana Mendieta created silhouettes of her body using raw materials and elements such as mud, fire. She also covered herself with flowers and camouflaged herself into nature. The Silhuetas were created in various locations across the US and Mexico. This series of photographs communicated the notion of belonging of Mendieta's body as a person in exile and as a woman. The Silhuetas instead returned her to the maternal ground that is nature, where she always belongs.

Okay, do you have sufficient knowledge of art to engage with your fellow cultural enthusiasts? [[Yes, I can pretend to be a professional art guide and talk to people]] [[No, I would rather walk around the museum and chat to random people with no objective]]

Around you are the museum's gardens. There are large sculptures, fountains with naked figures and flower arrangements. [[You undress and imitate the naked figures in the fountain]] [[You pick some flowers and cover yourself with them, imitating a flower arrangement]]

You are Yayoi Kusama's 'Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead at MoMA' (1969, New York). This unauthorised performance took place similar to the form of a 'happening'. For this, the artist instructed the stark naked performers to embrace each other while also engaging the sculptures around them in a playful manner. Through this interaction with the historical sculptures, Kusama critiqued the Museum of Modern Art, New York as a repository for 'dead' art in need of more living artists’ activations, such as this one.

This is a nice one- you are The Silhuetas Series by Ana Mendieta (1973-1980). In her Silhuetas, Ana Mendieta created silhouettes of her body using raw materials and elements such as mud and fire. She also covered herself with flowers and camouflaged herself into nature. The Silhuetas were created in various locations across the US and Mexico. This series of photographs communicated the notion of belonging of Mendieta's body as a person in exile and as a woman. The Silhuetas instead returned her to the maternal ground that is nature, where she always belongs.

Interesting. The tumultuous 1960s was a time in which many artists began to literally live their art, whether on other's skin or their own. Therefore, gesture came to constitute an artwork. Simultaneously, ordinary activities were elevated to a status of art. The artists became a dual role as object and subject. Would you prefer to subject the audience to your body or subject your body to the audience? [[subject your body to the audience]] [[subject the audience to your body]]

Nice, you have chosen to commit to chance. How would you like to subject your body at the hands of someone else? Give them: [[A pair of scissors]] [[A gun and a blindfold]] [[A bunch of random objects]]

That is bold! What would you like to subject your audience to? [[A bodily process that should otherwise be private]] [[A nude body]]

You are Yoko Ono's Cut Piece (1964, Tokyo and New York). In this performance, Ono sat on a stage alone with a pair of scissors, inviting visitors to come up on stage and cut up her clothes. It raised questions about the role of the artist as well as sexual violence.

Radical. You are Chris Burden's 'Shoot' (1971, California). In this performance, a friend of Burden raised a .22-caliber rifle to his left arm and shot him. This was reproduced in photographs and video to a wider audience. The piece tackles the common motif of getting shot in America.

You are Marina Abramovic's Rhythm 0 (1974, Naples). This was a 6-hour performance in which Abramović stood still and invited the audience to do anything to her, using one of the 72 objects laid out in front of her. This performance put the artist in a passive position and questioned her agency within the space.

Interesting choice. Performance art is one of the most radical art mediums precisely for this ability to bring every day normal stuff into the 'wrong' context of the museum. What would you like to do? [[Take a shit in the museum]] [[Pull out a tampon in the museum]] [[Masturbate in the museum]]

You are Marina Abramović’s Imponderabilia (1977, London). This is a performance a work in which visitors are invited to pass between two nude performers positioned in a narrow doorway. The original was performed by Abramovic and her former partner, Ulay.

The fine line between performance and real life, and actor and artist, means that some artists have decided to commit their life to performances. How appealing does this sound to you? [[Yes! Let me escape society and my every-day life through an engulfing performance]] [[I wouldn't commit my life, but I could do something life-changing for myself!]]

That's great, but unfortunately this will be quite a boring outcome. [[Rethink my life by performing a monotonous task every day for 100 days]] [[Lock myself in a room and take a photo of myself every day for a year]]

You are Marilyn Arsem's 100 Ways to Consider Time (2015, Boston). This performance took place over 100 days, in which the artist inquires on the nature of time through different actions. Some of these were more scientific and some were poetic, others were practical, some were playful, and some were meditative. Many of the performances involved conversations with the audience or asked for their assistance. None of these performances were planned in advance and each day's action grew out of the events of the previous day.

You are Tehching Hsieh's Time-Clock Piece (1980-1981, New York) This performance consisted of Hsieh punching time cards into an industrial time-clock everyday on the hour for one year, questioning the durational limits of performance art and our cultural perception of time. He would document this by taking a photo of himself in the room every day.

Many performance artists have been very radical with the extent to which they become one with their art, sometimes literally becoming one with certain objects. Such radical approaches have often been used to comment on the irreversible damages and the threats that we face in today's society, such as climate change, machinisation, and the invisible growing power of people at the top of society. [[I am ready to become one with an object]] [[I will subject my body to the visitors ->subject your body to the audience]]

Now that's a commitment. What are you more interested in? [[Plants]] [[Machines]]

You are Ana Maria Gomez Lopez, Inoculate (c. 2020) In this work, Lopez inserted a begonia seed into her own tear duct to see if it will germinate. It did not. But Inoculate raises critical questions on the anthropocentric mediation of plants in colonial and contemporary contexts.

You are Yang Zhichao's 'Iron, Hide' (2004, China). Zhichao, with the help of fellow artist and surgeon Ai Weiwei, sat in Beijing’s art district for a public operation – the insertion of an unspecified metal object into his leg, which healed up normally. Later, Zhichao would insert natural foreign objects, such as grass, into his body, however they would cause infections, showing that our bodies may be more comfortable with technology than nature.

You are Elastic City by Todd Shalom (2012, New York). Elastic City is a service and collection of observational walking tours given by commissioned artists. You sign up, pay and then set out on a curated conceptual adventure. A lot of these tours employed some small rituals that would break the ordinary everyday experience of the city.

You are Tino Sehgal's "This is Progress" (2010, New York). Tino Sehgal makes what he calls “constructed situations.” He uses the raw materials of voice, language, and movement to build pieces of art. In This is Progress, which Sehgal has refused to divulge information on, consisted of several 'guides' who would walk around the Guggenheim Museum in New York and ask visitors random questions, usually pertaining to the notion of 'progress'. The guides would range in age from teenagers to elderly people and were recruited through emails and interviews.

You are Angel Delgado's Hope Is The Last Thing We Have (1990, Havana). In this performance, Delgado squatted in a room full of people and defecated on a copy of the newspaper Granma, a Cuban Communist newspaper. As a result, he was incarcerated for six months in 1990 due to a public scandal.

You are Carolee Schneemann's Interior Scroll (1975, New York). Standing naked on a table, Schneeman drew a narrow scroll of paper from her vagina, reading aloud from it. The text was addressed to an anti-feminist critic of Schneeman's work. This piece introduced the female body as the source of creative energy, inspiring radical feminist performance art.

You are Vito Acconci's Seedbed (1972, New York). Acconci hid under a wooden ramp on the floor of the museum space, masturbating and narrating fantasies based on the movements of visitors above him. These fantasies were played through speakers within the museum, creating an intimate connection between the artist and the audience despite their anonymity.

You are Tony Cragg's Stone Circle (1972, UK). A performance in which the artist arranged his body as a canvas for the assemblage of pebbles. He sought to create new sculptural languages that involve the body, while drawing on the natural world and industrial systems.

You are literally any dance-invovled flash mob. I do not like flash mobs so I will not research or provide an example. While flash mobs are not necessarily seen as art or even performance art, their characteristics show a lot in common with the nature of performance art.

You are Improv Everywhere's Frozen Grand Central (2001, New York). This flash mob involved 200 people standing still in the middle of the terminal for 5 minutes and then walking away. This created the group's most viral video on YouTube. While flash mobs are not necessarily seen as art or even performance art, their characteristics show a lot in common with the nature of performance art. [[Uh oh, small issue]]

The guard has decided that since you have not acted out anything, your efforts do not count as a performance artwork. You are led back into the museum, where another guard will assess you. [[Back to start ->Which performance artwork are you?]]