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elizacatherinemoore18-blog · 6 years ago

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Project Evaluation

Throughout my Final Major Project, I explored the ideas of time, movement and perception within my work. The process of performance drawing has allowed me to experiment and play with these concepts. I set out to experiment with listening to different kinds of music a range of pitches, beats and tempos in order to investigate how different songs would manifest themselves to me, and see how this effected what sorts of marks I made. Whilst listening to songs with a heavier bass and a faster beat, my heart rate would increase and I would move my hand faster, and would make grain-like marks. Whereas, in songs with longer and drawn out notes, my marks would become more flowing. There is an energetic quality in my marks that I don’t believe I could have achieved if I was not listening to music. I experimented with different combinations of surface sizes, and materials, and looked at how this changed the marks I made, as well as the movement of my body. I became fascinated by the question: what is in the distance between the artist and the work? The idea that the marks I made could be influenced by certain sounds began to interest me. I began to think about the idea that my mark making could be influenced by anything, and my perception of the sounds would create many different marks. It is clear to me now, that performance art is one of the purest forms of creativity, and the drawings I made were dependent what was happening to me in the moment, such as if I was listening to music or not, how I was feeling, and if I was consuming music through my headphones or playing out loud. During the project I discovered the importance of filming myself drawing, and after considering the best way to present my work, I have learnt that the process of creating my work is of equal importance to the outcome. These films and recordings have allowed me to look at what sort of sounds, materials, surfaces, and other variables make my body move in certain ways. Looking at the movement and energy in both my mark making and my films have solidified that my work, at its’ core, explores the concept of movement. Throughout my project my drawings have been mostly made with black acrylic paint, charcoal or Indian ink. I did not set out to make my work monotone, but I felt that using other colours would distract from the most important part of my work, which to me, is the mark making.

I researched the work of many artists, and while looking at the videos of performance artists that took part in the Draw to Perform symposium over the years, opened my eyes to the dramatic and highly choreographed performances, to the lower energy pieces. I loved looking at the range of performances, and the physicality that existed in all of them. Some artists appeared to be led by the drawing instrument they were using and some led the drawing. I loved looking at this contrast, and wanted to experiment with this concept within my own work. Seeing the Four Tet X Anna Liber Lewis, Muscle Memoryexhibition at the Elephant Gallery showed me that I wanted to continue to explore the links between music and art in my own work. The exhibition was put together after months of collaborations between DJ Kiren Hebden, better known as Four Tet, and artist Anna Liber Lewis. They created work in tandem, song responding to art, and art responding to song. Walking around the gallery listening to the tracks through headphones, while looking at the large and colourful, almost psychedelic paintings, led me to question if my own marks would look different depending on if I was listening to music through headphones or out loud? Similarly, being exposed to John Cage’s 4’33 seconds of silence, allowed me to consider the idea that every noise is music. Subsequently the direction of my project was altered and I recorded sound bytes of interesting sounds such as running water, chopping vegetables and the sound of rain, in order to see how my mark making would change when I listened to them while I drew. This led me to question what sort of marks I would make when I experimented with listening to noises that evoke emotion while I drew, such as the sounds of old family videos, the sound of the sea or a doctor’s waiting room.

To me, the most successful part of my project, which I plan on exploring further, is the use of text and words in my mark making. Listening to Sylvia Plath read her own poems while I drew created an interesting effect in which I wrote down the most significant words and phrases that resonated with me, and watched them become less and less clear, until they became completely illegible. I took this further, and used text conversations with my Mother to make marks. If I had time to push my project further, I would do more work with this process, as I feel the use of text in creates an interesting effect when I can understand what I am writing, but will be impossible to understand to other people.

My work always seemed to return to the concept of time. The longer I worked into a piece, and the more time I spent on it, the darker and more ominous it became. I would also find myself feeling a loss of time as I produced my work. An hour could feel like ten minutes. The Final Major Project has formed my interest in performance drawing, and I have become fascinated by the unpredictable and transient nature of the process. I never know what sort of work I will make in the moment, and because of this, my work will always return to the concept of time, and it will never be finished.

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elizacatherinemoore18-blog · 6 years ago

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Are there any limits to what can be described as Performance Art?

The Oxford Dictionary definition of Performance Art is; ‘an art form that combines visual art with dramatic performance’. The connotations of the word ‘performance’ suggest an audience. After reading Grayson Perry’s book: Playing in the Gallery.I became fascinated by his statement ‘how do we tell if something is good? What are the criteria by which we judge art made today, and who tells us it is good?’. This allowed me to question myself and I realised, it is difficult to say that something is notart. Taking a shower, drinking water, applying my makeup. Are these performances? Are they performances even though no one but myself is witnessing them? In a world where we are obsessed with self-documentation, and all rely on the use of social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Is it possible that we are all performance artists, as we express ourselves in any way we can in day-to-day life. We are able to record every second of our lives if we wish to. In this essay I hope to explore what qualifies as performance art, and consider the idea that we are all performance artists.

The origin of the Performance art movement began with peaceful rebellion against the violence and hate of World War One, headed by the Dadaist and Futurism movements in the 1910s. Performance art challenged the more traditional methods of creating art such as painting or sculpture. ‘In the post-war period performance became aligned with conceptual art, because of its often immaterial nature’. The horror of the First World War, grew equally powerful and dynamic movements of art, with the Dadaist movement (founded in Zurich) producing poetry, art, and performances all displaying a satirical and negative reactions to War. Hans Arp, a French-German sculptor, painter and poet stated: ‘revolted by the butchery of the 1914 World War, we in Zurich devoted ourselves to the arts. While guns rumbled in the distance, we sang, painted, made collages, and wrote poems with all our might’. The movement questioned and challenged the social climate in the sense that if we as humans could cause so much pain, what was the value of creating art? The movement set out to destroy tradition, and create art with new functions. The Futurism movement ‘celebrated the modern world of industry and technology’, headed by Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909. The crux of the movement was separation from the past, specifically Italy’s oppressive one. The Performance art movement began to gain momentum and ‘stricter rules’[1]during the late 1970s, and transformed into a more time-based process, typically art would be made in live performances with people observing it. It is generally seen as an ‘ephemeral event’[2], rather than a stand-alone object, and is often filmed on a camera, or photographed as the event is happening. To me, ephemeral performance art imitates the unpredictability of real life, and the two are interchangeable.

This shows that the function of performance art has always been politically engaging, and has been utilised largely to respond to political events and has been ‘fuelled by many of the activist movements’[3]. The politically turbulent era of the mid 1960s, with the nuclear Cuban Missile Crisis and anti-war protests against the Vietnam War had a soundtrack of ‘folk-inspired protest songs’[4]by the likes of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. David Wojnarowicz’s 1990 film, Silence = Death, made in 1990, the artist can be seen sewing up his mouth. This dark and horrifying imagery was protesting against the underfunding of AIDs research and treatment, which at the time was taking many lives. The lack of awareness was dangerous for many gay men at the time. In Yoko Ono’s 1964 work ‘Cut Piece’was first performed in Japan, in New York in 1965 and then in London. The artist gave the audience a pair of scissors and were encouraged to cut away pieces of her clothing, bit by bit, one by one, until she was in front of them in her underwear. Some members of the audience would cut small items of her clothing away, whereas others would cut away her blouse or bra strap. Yoko Ono remained quiet, still and expressionless throughout the performance. This poignant performance was to challenge the ‘passive role women often played in public spectacles’[5].Conceptually, this work relies on the audience’s willingness to participate in the performance and can be describes as a ‘Instruction Piece’. The blame is passed onto the audience and will reiterate the idea that the female body has been historically and presently viewed as an object. Similarly, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1985, an exhibition called ‘An International Survey of Painting and Sculpture’ was put on which would display some of the most influential work of the time. Despite the misleading name of the exhibition, all thirteen out of the one hundred and sixty nine artists with work featured in the exhibition were white females. This lack of diversity upset many people, and in response to this exhibition, a group of anonymous female artists, calling themselves the Guerilla Girls stood outside the gallery holding placards with slogans on them such as ‘Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?’. These slogans questioned female rights and visibility, even in the art world, and posed questions about the importance of the Male gaze. They could be distinguished easily by the gorilla masks they wore to keep their identity a secret. Feminist artist Judy Chicago said ‘Performance can be fuelled by rage in a way that painting and sculpture cannot.’[6]This suggests to me, that performance art takes many forms, and anything can be performance art if it is objecting to an aspect of the political and social climate. However, this poses the question. Is performance art still relevant, even if it is not in response to anything socially or politically? Can we all be performance artists even if we ourselves are not rebelling against anything?

Yves Klein’s live presentations of anthropometries took place on the 9thof March 1960. The artist asked women to be covered in blue paint (Klein Blue). ‘In his anthropometries Klein used models as living brushes. They smeared themselves with blue paint and pressed against a canvas piece of paper to make an imprint, according to his instructions’[7]. This dramatic event is seen as early performance and body art, and does not seem to have any political functions, and in fact in my opinion seems to unnecessarily sexualise the female body. This performance is not protesting against anything, and is generally only showcasing the Klein blue that the artist was so obsessed with. This allows me to consider if this is performance art, also because he instructed the models where to go, it takes away the ephemeral element of performance art and controls the way they move. This performance is solely about the marks made, and the colour of the marks. This causes me to reconsider my view that, perhaps, performance art does not always have to have a political function, and can alternatively be completely concentrated on drawing.

Perceptions of what constitutes performance art will obviously differ from person to person. To me, performance art feels like one of the purest forms of expression, just as dancing is. One’s own performative actions will influence this. For example, perhaps, a dancer could identify a piece of performance art with movement involved, or a chef could argue that cooking is a piece of performance art. For me, someone who studies art, I feel that my time over the past Foundation year has allowed me to reconsider and examine what I think performance art is. For me now, it is the artistic intention behind an action and the desire to be performative in the process of creating the art. To me, the process is equally important to the outcome within my own art, I have been recording each performance on a camera, looking at the way my body moves to different types of music with a range of different sounds within them. The way the music affects the marks I made fascinates me, which lead me to draw while listening to do more abstract sounds with emotional connotations, such as the sound of a waiting room at a Doctor’s surgery or the sound of my Mother’s laugh. This led me to see what marks I would make when there is silence. Similarly, the performative art I have been making seems to be about the concept of the loss of time and nothingness. While I am performing, I sometimes feel as if time moves very fast, and an hour can feel like ten minutes. I am interested by the fact that the more time I put into the performance, the darker and more interesting the image becomes. Currently, the process and what it teaches me is more important than the end result in this year of exploration that I’ve had. Presently, my work does not hold any political function, and is not revolting against anything. It is largely focusing on different types of mark making. Does this lack of protest limit it as protest art?

When reading Viktor Shkolvsky’s work[8], and considering how it related to the artistic process I found myself disagreeing with his fundamental points that art must have artistic intention. I believe that an actress warming up her voice, a private ritual in preparation for her performance, is as valid as the performance with an audience. Additionally, I believe the interpretation of the audience is just as important as the interpretation for the artist. Someone can consider someone else’s actions, as art.

Serbian performance artist writer and art filmmaker, Marina Abramović, in a video created by The Museum of Modern Art specified the difference between theatre and performance. Her work is largely body, endurance and feminist art. She states in the video ‘this is not a theatre. A theatre will repeat’[9]. She also states that ‘Performance is real. In a theatre you can cut with a knife and there is blood. The knife is not real and blood is not real.In performance the blood and the knife and the body of the performer is real.’ She explains that to her, performance is real life and makes reference to the white box of gallery space. I disagree with her argument, that for performance art to occur, there must be a ‘white box’ or ‘gallery space’, and I believe that performance art can occur anywhere. Performance art is an imitation, and perhaps heightened and purer version of the emotions we experience in real life. Marina Abramović states that,‘performance is the kind of unique form of art and is very temporary and comes and goes.’ Our actions in real life are similarly temporary, unpredictable, and all depend on a range of things that inform our choices. In more recent years, the Draw to Perform: An International Community for Drawing Performance, headed by Ram Samocha, holds an annual International Symposium for the world’s most influential and important Performance drawers. This Symposium looks at the links between performance art and drawing.

In addressing the question considered, the range of ways that performative art presents itself shows the limits of what can be described as performance art are not very strong. Although performance art was originally a process that was in response to times of political turbulence, it is clear from both the Draw to Perform International Symposium and Yves Klein’s anthropometries that the idea that politics and rebellion need to be at the heart of all performances, has been challenged. My own work, can be considered performance art, and there are no political intentions behind it at this moment. This has allowed me to see what are the limitations on my own work, and that the limitations exist, but they are flexible.

The idea that performance art is real life, a point which Marina Abramovićmade, and is not like theatre because it cannot be repeated, makes it clear to me this is another limit to what can be described as performance art. Although I previously believed that anything can be performance art. From a dancer stretching their muscles, to a drag queen applying their makeup before a performance, I now see that although I don’t think there needs to be artistic intention behind a performance, I believe someone has to have an audience for it to be perceived as performance art. I believe there has to be an ephemeral quality to all performance art.

[1]https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-performance-art

[2]Bratu Hansen, Miriam. Benjamin and Cinema: Not a One-Way Street. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 25, No. 2, "Angelus Novus": Perspectives on Walter Benjamin (Winter, 1999), pp. 306-343.

[3]https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/performance-art/angry-space-politics-and-activism

[4]https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/performance-art/angry-space-politics-and-activism

[5]https://www.sleek-mag.com/article/feminist-performance-art/

[6]https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/performance-art/angry-space-politics-and-activism

[7]Thames & Hudson, Art the Whole Story, London, Thames and Hudson,pp.498-499, 2010

[8]Shklovsky, Victor,‘Art, as Device’(1917) and Ferdinand de Saussure “excerpts” Course in General Linguistics (1916)

[9]https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/global-culture/conceptual-performance/v/moma-abramovic-what-is-performance-art

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