I am a third year student in the arts and science program, with minors in biology and studio art!
I decided to take this program because it allows me to study all my areas of interest. I’m hoping the result of this program is strong interdisciplinary skills and diverse career path options.
Marina Abramovic
The Artist is Present
1. What is your first impression of Marina Abramovic’s performance works?
My first impression of Marina’s performance works was shock by how confrontational and extreme they are, with each work testing the limits of both her and the audience. Specifically her work, Rhythm 0, which involves inviting the audience to use various objects on her in whatever way they wish, including knives, scissors, and a gun. From this work, I admire how it reveals the uncomfortable truth of how quickly people will become violent when given permission. However, I think it can be problematic to have this level of danger in a work, and risks aestheticizing this type of violence.
2. What have you learned about features of performance art based on Abramovic’s work?
Abramovic’s work taught me about several key features of performance art, including the use of the artist’s body as a medium in the work. Her quote, “when you perform it is a knife and your blood, when you act it is a fake knife and ketchup,” emphasizes the importance of including real life risk and consequences which cannot be achieved with traditional materials.
Duration is also a key feature, with most of her work lasting for prolonged periods of time, it demonstrates her commitment and endurance. Audience participation is also crucial, as the viewers inevitably become part of the artwork creating art through interaction rather than observation.
3. Discuss the ways performance art resists many museum and commercial artworld conventions. How does Abramovic solve/negotiate these challenges?
Performance art resists traditional artworld conventions because it is not an object to be sold or collected, it is an ephemeral experience that cannot be permanently displayed in an exhibit. Abramovic negotiates this by documenting/recording her performances to be viewed afterwards and occasionally repeating performances. I think this adds to her work because it broadens the audience as well as further conveying the value she places on endurance. This negotiation involves her work enduring a transfer into a system that is not built to house it, and I find it impressive that the intensity of her work can still be communicated through the documentation of it.
“A kilometre traveled in other realities”
Make a kilometre
For my “make a kilometre” assignment I didn’t want to treat the distance as something physical to measure, instead, I wanted to represent it as the mental and emotional distance I travel when reading. I chose books as my medium because reading is the way I experience movement without physically going anywhere. There is an aspect of escapism when reading books, specifically fiction, and I wanted to translate that into a kilometre.
To calculate a precise kilometre, I measured the length of each book in inches and multiplied it by the number of pages to determine the overall distance of that book. I continued adding and measuring books until I reached the distance of a kilometre.
This ended up being 13 books, 39,374.2 inches, and 4,732 pages. To others, this may just look like a stack of books, but to me this stack represents the hours of attention I devoted to these books.
The process of completing this project and the discussion during critique made me reflect on how I value the use of my time. As I was choosing which books I wanted to include, I picked ones that were meaningful to me, not realizing that they were all fiction. While reading fiction could be considered less productive than nonfiction, these books have all taught me something and changed me in some way. So I view my time spent reading them as valuable because time spent doing the things I love is not time wasted.
This kilometre was accumulated by pages rather than steps, marking a form of distance that resists visibility. With this kilometre I am highlighting that internal movement should be recognized as real, even if it is more difficult to justify.
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