Audrey

Hi, I’m Audrey a second-year studio art major on the varsity fencing team. I love doing sports like swimming or skiing also I have two cats.

Why did you decide to take this program? What do you hope it helps you do or become?

The reason why I chose Guelph’s program is firstly because it was recommended to me to several people, one being my high school art teacher and an artist I know who went here and told me I would be a good fit for me. The program allows me to continue pursuing art along with other academic studies like history which I find is necessary to gain a more well-rounded education but also just because I like learning different things. Additionally, although there are programs like Guelph, I could have gone to I found the community like atmosphere I felt from this place which I found welcoming. I hope this program eventually allows me to get a better understanding of what I want to become in the future and to get a BA, so I have more options for my future.

The Artist is Present Documentary

What are some of your first impressions of Marina Abramovic’s performance works, based on the documentary? Use an image/example of one or two works to describe aspects you admire, and aspects you might agree are problematic?

Some of the first impressions I got from the documentary on Abramovic’s performance works made me uncomfortable and I felt several of her works made me feel sick. A large amount of nudity is a part of her performance art which makes me feel uncomfortable seeing but the part of her art that makes me feel the most uncomfortable is the violence and harm she puts herself through. The acts of violence that was shown being done to Abramovic to herself and by others makes me feel extremely disturbed at the actions. While it’s definitely admirable that she’s tough enough to even do any of this stuff showcasing human endurance. One of the pieces of Abramovic that I find worrying is her performances in the Rhythms (1973-74) where these specific pieces brought physical harm to herself to do. In Rhythm 10 she plunged a knife between her fingers only stopping after cutting herself 20 time while in Rhythm 5 she lay in a wooden star that was set in fire where she eventually passed out due to a lack of oxygen.

In Rhythm 0 Abramovic laid out 72 different items for the members of the audience to use any of these objects. Some of the items provided were items like a pen, bell, rose, bandages which are relatively harmless but other items were chains, saw, axe, and a loaded gun. While the beginning of the performance started relatively tame though still something I find to be inpatriate it quickly turned more and more violent,

“When a loaded gun was thrust to Marina’s head and her own finger was being worked around the trigger, a fight broke out between the audience factions.” – Mc Evilley

What have you learned about features of performance art based on Abramovic’s work? Name a few key features according to her examples. Include an image to illustrate. Consider her quote, “When you perform it is a knife and your blood, when you act it is a fake knife and ketchup.”

To me this quote means that what Abramovic work is the real connection between the audience and herself as well the real pain and discipline she uses to create these performances. That performance art should be real no using fake blood or knives like in acting where the audience knows everything is performed. While in performance art it’s supposed to bring out a real sense of discomfort that the Abramovic is could bring real harm to herself in the process of the performance. I think a really good example of this is the pain Abramovic had to endure for The Artist is Present performance where people were able to genially connect with her in a real way that wasn’t just superficial and performance.

Discuss the ways performance art resists many museum and commercial artworld conventions. How does Abramovic solve/negotiate some of these challenges, and do you find these compromises add to, or undermine the ideas at play in her work?

Performance art pushes the boundaries of what has been considered art. Usually art is something physical that can be displayed in art museums however with performance art usually requires immediate interaction with the audience which questions the conventional way art has a physical object. Performance art asks the audience to sometimes even become a part of the art which can be seen in performance. Abramovic is able to do this with her audience, challenging them to interact with her art even when it makes audiences uncomfortable. However, she also is able to work with these museums by documenting her performance art through videos allowing a much wider audience able to experience her art.

1 Kilometer

The Kilometer Hunt

For this project I wanted to focus on something that I could do physically, and my initial ideas were sports related or perhaps to make something physical. But I decided that my ideas to make something physical would be too expensive and there would just be not enough time. I didn’t really like my initial sports ideas very much and could not think of how I would execute them. The idea I eventually decided to do was a kilometer walk of wildlife. Basically, the original idea was to look for animals and take pictures of them. Due to it being winter the chances of finding and spotting animals lessened, so I decided to look for any traces of life in the winter.

The process to actually execute my idea involved me to actually be able to see any signs that animals were there, which meant I needed to go to a place that is abundant with animals despite it being the winter and involved me having to be more observationally aware on my kilometer walk. I decided to walk in the arboretum which is known to be a haven to wildlife and offers a diverse range of habitats for these animals. Initially I blindly walked through the Arboretum and didn’t really have a plan taking pictures of trees and videos of noises I heard but soon found it to not be what I wanted as my final piece.

To increase my chances of finding wildlife I decided to use some methods that hunters will use in the winter to hunt their prey. Firstly, I went to the part of the arboretum with lots of wetlands that would eventually lead me to a small lake, as all animals need food and water even during the winter. I thought that would be my best bet for finding any wildlife in winter and on the way, I was actually going to look for signs of wildlife using the fresh snow to look for any animal tracks from walking around in the snow. As a way of showing the wildlife I found I decided to document these footprints by taking pictures of them as I didn’t want to destroy the tracks by touching them. What I wound up with is that the animal tracks were in fact more concentrated where any water was.

To track my walk while looking for signs of wildlife I used the Strava app to measure my walk in the arboretum to exactly 1 kilometer and to help me not get lost. At the end of my walk, I had found a variety of different animal footprints from rabbits, birds, and other wildlife like foxes.

My final piece was created after gathering up all the photos I took on the walk and decided to use the best-looking ones to me and make them into a sort of collage or quadriptych to show the different places the animals where and the variety that were there. Initially I thought to make all the photos black and white but decided to go against it to emphasize the idea that life still persists even in the winter rather than it being bleak and gray.

I chose this idea of finding wildlife specifically because I wanted to really challenge my observational skills to spot these tracks and not mistake them for just water that had warped the snow. To see if I could really pay attention to the environment around and that even in the dead of winter life still lives on even if it might be harder to see.

Final Image for the Kilometer Project

Then in the end I choose my 4 favorite images from the photos I took and using the Strava app I overlaid my own trail on top of my images to show my own path on top of the animals. If I were to ever show it in a gallery, I would most likely print the work as it is to hang it up.