I’m in my second year of my undergraduates degree, dual majoring in Studio Art and Sociology, with a minor in Creative Writing. I plan on perusing a career in law after graduation but have always had a passion for the arts and want to continuing growing and keep that love strong! My specialization is painting and I don’t venture outside of that much so I’m excited to see the ways this course pushes me out my comfort zone and what I am able to create!
The Artist is Present – Marina Abramovic
1. 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?
I have seen many of Marinas performances before this documentary and personally love and feel deeply for many of them. However if I’m basing my impression on the documentary alone I would say her work is quite freaky and scary, but I think that was a very intentional lens they filmed through and exactly how they wanted to portray her. At the beginning we receive a brief introduction and summary of her early work, accompanied by many vulgar and violent clips from the performances (as seen below).
I agree these pieces are problematic as she is intentionally causing harm to herself, which is viewed as mentally unstable by vast majority of people, as well as extremely unsettling. However I admire her for these pieces as well as she is sacrificing herself to spread her message because the typical person can empathize to feel what she is feeling.
2. 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.”
The main feature of performance art I picked up from this documentary was despite each piece/performance being carefully planned in both message and execution, it is equally as natural, raw, and organic as life when it is being lived by the artist. The artist is present at every live performance, both physically and emotionally, and despite planning, one can never fully plan how they will feel in the moment and that has the power to change everything. Which is exactly what performance art is about, the shared genuine experience between the artist and the viewer. And the quote “When you perform it is a knife and your blood, when you act it is a fake knife and ketchup.” perfectly sums this up as you can act out getting cut a million times and have the perfect script, but if it were to happen in real life, you would never be able to get the perfect scene.
I think the moment that highlights this perfectly is during her ‘Artist is Present’ exhibition when Ulay sat across from her, and despite her planning to sit completely still, she extended her hands to him and allowed herself to be real and raw with the audience in that moment.
1 Kilometre
My first idea that I shared at our round-table was to represent my kilometre using spaghetti noodles and make a big gigantic bowl of spaghetti that I could portion and donate to the local homeless community in my hometown of Woodstock. However after doing the calculations and learning one noodle is 10 inches, it would take 3,937 noodles to make a kilometre, and after weighing the factors of cost, time and labour, as much as I wish I could it just wasn’t realistic, and ultimately my mom said no to the operation occurring in her kitchen. So I went back to the drawing board with knowing I wanted to stay in the same direction of representing the homelessness crisis in my community. What I landed on was to take a 1 kilometre walk in my downtown (Dundas St) and take note of what I saw within the homeless community and how that made me feel and think. I didn’t want this to be exploiting in anyway possible, but rather highlight how they are exactly like the rest of society, to help humanize and create empathy and awareness for the crisis. I also recognize it is not always possible to know if someone is without a home just from seeing them on the street, especially in the middle of a weekday, so I used my best judgement and was observing and reflecting rather then judging as I walked by, never stopping and staring.
I took my walk on Thursday, Sept 24th around 3:40pm starting from the art gallery (felt fitting) and walking east towards the centre of downtown. Across the street of the gallery I immediately saw a group of 5 individuals gathered together some sitting some standing in the ‘town square’ engaging in conversation with one another. I couldn’t hear anything but the body language seemed positive. I thought about how they probably all know each other, how they are their own community. They have their friends and the people they dislike, just like we all do. Not enough steps later I quickly walked by an individual tucked in an empty store front like they were trying to stay in the background along with a shopping cart elaborately modified to hold double its manufactured capacity. I first thought about the courage it must take to have to be on display, so vulnerable at your lowest to the public, and how sad it is to see them feel the need to tuck themselves away and disconnect from society. Then I passed 2 more individuals walking together in the opposite direction of me. I made the judgement they were a couple and that made me think about how difficult it must be to navigate romantic relationships in their position. One the one hand having a genuine compassion could help both going through the situation so much, but on the other hand love can also be so toxic and devastating. We all have experienced relationship troubles and they would be no exception.
These thoughts brought me to the end of my 1 kilometre walk. In 15 minutes and 22 seconds I observed 8 individuals who appeared to be homeless in my community. That is one for every 1.9 minutes of walking. I’m aware that is not a very accurate average however it is still far too many for the time and distance. I think our homeless crisis is one so many people ignore and don’t care about that I feel so passionate about and I want more people to gain empathy and reflect into these deeper thoughts and view them as equals because they are all humans too.
MOCA + Mercer Union Field Trip Reflection
I want to start this reflection off by saying this was such a great day beyond viewing and experiencing the exhibitions themselves. I had so much fun getting to connect with so many of my classmates and explore a new part of the city I have never gone to before! The day filled me up with so much creative energy and motivation!
The two pieces that sparked my creative energy and are relevant to my own practices both come from the ‘Bones’ exhibition by artist Bharti Kher. The first piece is Virus (2010-2039) and the large variety of smashed mirrors covered in bindis, there were so many, all so different I was mesmerized by each.
I’ll start with ‘Virus’ as it’s the first installation I spotted entering the MOCA. Immediately I was drawn to both the colours and size. Aesthetically I find it extremely pleasing to look at, feeling calming and comfortable, my eyes couldn’t help but trace the entire path. After discovering the accompanied writings the piece felt a-lot bigger and gained so much meaning. I was provoked to start thinking more about my own life, both past and future and in that way I was able to project myself onto the wall.
Also on the first floor of the MOCA were these absolutely eye-catching smashed mirror installations that I had such a heavy gravitation towards. Although I missed any description on these pieces, they were visually enough for me with their bright colours, the combinations, orientations and glittering effect from the lights on the mirror. I found myself searching for my reflection within the mirrors, which made me think about the meaning behind covering and breaking a mirror and the meaning behind that and I felt relation as I understand the feeling of wanting to do those actions.
The main reason I choose these two pieces and how they are relevant to my personal practices are simply there visual aesthetic appeal. My aesthetic is extremely bright, and flashy, and loud and I try to keep my work light hearted and feel good. So although I personally appreciate and love deep and thought provoking art, it’s not relevant to my personal practice.
Lastly I learned that despite not knowing the artists meaning behind a piece, I was still able to find meaning on my own, reminding me even without an explanation, an artwork still has the power to create feelings for the viewer.
Turning the Gestures of Everyday Life Into Art – The New York Times – Response
1. Describe the work discussed in the article and the unique challenges – as well as the unique gifts- that come with attempting to archive personal movements?
The article discussed the project “Motus Mori” by Katja Heinemann, a piece that involves ten dancers, public volunteers, and their donated movements, that get choreographed into multi-hour long public installations. I think a unique challenge that comes with this piece is the identity of the dancers. From what I gathered from the article this is more then a career for these dancers, this performance is their life and we are even told the copied mannerisms go beyond performing seeping into their everyday lives, This sparks ethical questions for me, how safe is this truly for the psyche of the dancers, is this interfering with their quality of life?
2.Discuss one or two examples of movements in the article – what strikes you about them?
Something that struck me while reading this article is the equal value the artist gives to all movements. Examples of these opposites from the article include the simple gesture of a scratch being equal to a religious gesture. “For Heitmann, there is no “good’ or “bad” movement, as long as its authentic” This work isn’t supposed to highlight the gestures themselves but the identity of the individual behind it.
3.Describe the habitual movements/unconscious gestures, tics etc. of 3 people you know well. How do individual body parts move, and how does the whole body interact? What about facial expressions, and emotional valence of the movement? How does body type inform the movement? What do these examples of small movements mean and imply?
Im sure I have many unconscious gestures I am unaware of but two I catch myself doing constantly are twirling my hair and Scratching picking my hands. I twirl my hair out of a need to fidget both when bored and focusing. I scratch pick my skin out of anxiety. For me these are both unconscious actions I have done my whole life.
my partner is an occasional lip biter when he is anxious, for him it appears to be a disconnect from reality for him. He ases this unconsciously without realizing.
Lastly my best friend for as long as I’ve known her has fidgeted with her jewelry. As both a conscious and unconscious action to keep her hands busy she is always twisting a ring or jingling bracelets.
Childhood Nostalgia – 1 Shot, 3 Feats
Payton Goosney, Charlotte Christie, and Mateja Bubas
Our intentions behind Childhood Nostalgia was to push the child-like act of blowing bubbles in chocolate milk to the extreme. Most of us have done this throughout our youth but will never let ourselves blow to the point of spilling the drink over the edge of the glass, whether it was fear of our mom yelling at us growing up, or having to clean up the mess ourselves now, we will live our lives without pushing that extreme. Except for Charlotte, Mateja, and Myself.
We entered filming our one shot with the intentions of being as serious as possible and having the focus and extremity on the bubbles and the mess itself. We decided to use only one camera angle to capture a strait on shot keeping it as simple as possible to align with our original editing plans for feat two. We also only did one single take due to mess, and material limitations and cost of the chocolate milk. We used a completely white background and tablecloth to create a sterile like atmosphere to emphasize the mess of the bubbles we are creating. Our other supplies included clear plastic cups and colourful straws. And with that we filmed our one shot, which took a turn from intentionally serious to naturally humorous completely changing our plan.
With the new plan of focusing on the extreme humour of blowing bubbles, we began editing what is now the original feat two (not our final edit) that I’ve attached below for your viewing pleasure. This edit had us belly laughing as we created it, however we quickly realized we had completely lost our focus and intentions which are the bubbles and the act of blowing itself. So we started from the ground up creating what is our final edit above, that was much more tame, simple, and intentional, while still highlighting the humour that so clearly co-exists.
That brings us to feat three; our animation. With this animation I knew from the beginning despite the serious plans for the first two feats I wanted this one to be very playful and tap into that childhood like nostalgia that comes from preforming child-like acts such as blowing bubbles as an adult. I knew I also wanted it to be a mixed media stop-motion animation as I have recently started experimenting with that form of media however due to time constraints, my personal situation, and material/technology limitations I had to create the stop-motion completely digitally, which gave me the pro of having access to all the material and designs in the world, however that was also the con of a loss of originality and creativity.
Overall we are very happy with how all three feats came together and all really enjoyed getting to step away from the familiarity of our personal practices and have the opportunity to create something so silly and nostalgic to help recharge that childlike energy in us.