Sunday 28 December 2008

Sunday 21 December 2008

Elective -self assessment

The elective program has informed my personal practice to a great extent.
Performance and live art is something that I have been interest in for some time. During the first term my practice seemed to naturally progress to work that could be described as performance. However I wasn’t sure were these games and activates I was inventing fitted in, and weather they had much value. Through my own research I started to become more informed about this unfamiliar art form, but the performance/live art elective has given me a much better understanding and a broader sense of what performance and live art practice can be.

What first lead me to undertake these initial activities, which could be described as performance, was a sense of restlessness and wanting to work in an active environment. I wanted to react to the everyday around me. The studio had always been a setting that I was not overly comfortable in; here my mind would go blank. It was a frustrating space to be in, sitting opposite blank walls.
The first brief set ‘being animal’, provided me with a system to make a piece of work I had wanted to do for a while. I would climb the studio space the way an animal might, rejecting the ’normal’ and the expected behaviour for this particular space. I would explore the unknown places, on top of cupboard and under tables.
This original brief is what has informed my personal practice for the majority of this term, I have found a theme that has become the base for an in-depth investigation.

As part of this course I have also been made aware of issues in my work that can be improved or more considered, one of these being how a piece of live art or performance is documented. Previous to this I had not seriously considered the way I document my works and the affect it has on the understanding of the work. Through discussions and visits during the elective I’ve realised the way in which work is documented is very significant, as this documentation becomes the only trace that is left of that moment. This record is all you are left with as an artist, the only indications of the event.
Another is conviction in work; I feel conviction should be more evident in my performances. This art form is all still relatively new to me and I have not fully overcome the shame issue that was discussed in the primary lesson. The role of catalysis rather than performer is I would have placed myself before this elective. My work has developed as a result of being pushed in to situations that I’m not completely secure in, and consequential I’m now more willing to try alternative kinds of performance.
Throughout I have been requested to question what I’m producing and reflect on my work as a whole. Taking into account how my work applies in a broader spectrum. This has aloud me to become more focused on what I want each performance or piece to portray. Thinking more carefully about how it will be received by the audience.
A piece of work can be made form the smallest thing, an object that would normally be unnoticed. Claes Oldenburgs essay ‘I am for an art…’ has inspired me to look at the finer details and the unexpected beauty of our surroundings, ‘ I am for the majestic art of dog-turds, rising like cathedrals.’ in performance we react to our surrounding, and you are completely immersed in what is happening in that moment.

Christmas

I came across these videos while looking for inspiration for my Christmas performance



Saturday 20 December 2008

22nd


I am for an art ...

by Claes Oldenburg

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.

I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a staring point of zero.

I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap & still comes out on top.

I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary.

I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.

I am for an artist who vanishes, turning up in a white cap painting signs or hallways.

I am for an art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky.

I am for an art that spills out of an old man's purse when he is bounced off a passing fender.

I am for the art out of a doggy's mouth, falling five stories from the roof.

I am for the art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper.

I am for an art that joggles like everyones knees, when the bus traverses an excavation.

I am for art that is smoked, like a cigarette, smells, like a pair of shoes.

I am for art that flaps like a flag or helps blow noses, like a handkerchief.

I am for art that is put on and taken off, like pants, which develops holes, like socks, which is eaten, like a piece of pie, or abandoned with great contempt, like a piece of shit.

I am for art covered with bandages, I am for art that limps and rolls and runs and jumps. I am for art comes in a can or washes up on the shore.

I am for art that coils and grunts like a wrestler. I am for art that sheds hair.

I am for art you can sit on. I am for art you can pick your nose with or stub your toes on.

I am for art from a pocket, from deep channels of the ear, from the edge of a knife, from the corners of the mouth, stuck in the eye or worn on the wrist.

I am for art under the skirts, and the art of pinching cockroaches.

I am for the art of conversation between the sidewalk and a blind mans metal stick.

I am for the art that grows in a pot, that comes down out of the skies at night, like lightning, that hides in the clouds and growls. I am for art that is flipped on and off with a switch.

I am for art that unfolds like a map, that you can squeeze, like your sweetys arm, or kiss, like a pet dog. Which expands and squeaks, like an accordion, which you can spill your dinner on, like an old tablecloth.

I am for an art that you can hammer with, stitch with, sew with, paste with, file with.

I am for an art that tells you the time of day, or where such and such a street is.

I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street.

I am for the art of the washing machine. I am for the art of a government check. I am for the art of last wars raincoat.

I am for the art that comes up in fogs from sewer-holes in winter. I am for the art that splits when you step on a frozen puddle. I am for the worms art inside the apple. I am for the art of sweat that develops between crossed legs.

I am for the art of neck-hair and caked tea-cups, for the art between the tines of restaurant forks, for odor of boiling dishwater.

I am for the art of sailing on Sunday, and the art of red and white gasoline pumps.

I am for the art of bright blue factory columns and blinking biscuit signs.

I am for the art of cheap plaster and enamel. I am for the art of worn marble and smashed slate. I am for the art of rolling cobblestones and sliding sand. I am for the art of slag and black coal. I am for the art of dead birds.

I am for the art of scratchings in the asphalt, daubing at the walls. I am for the art of bending and kicking metal and breaking glass, and pulling at things to make them fall down.

I am for the art of punching and skinned knees and sat-on bananas. I am for the art of kids' smells. I am for the art of mama-babble.

I am for the art of bar-babble, tooth-picking, beerdrinking, egg-salting, in-sulting. I am for the art of falling off a bartstool.

I am for the art of underwear and the art of taxicabs. I am for the art of ice-cream cones dropped on concrete. I am for the majestic art of dog-turds, rising like cathedrals.

I am for the blinking arts, lighting up the night. I am for art falling, splashing, wiggling, jumping, going on and off.

I am for the art of fat truck-tires and black eyes.

I am for Kool-art, 7-UP art, Pepsi-art, Sunshine art, 39 cents art, 15 cents art, Vatronol Art, Dro-bomb art, Vam art, Menthol art, L & M art Ex-lax art, Venida art, Heaven Hill art, Pamryl art, San-o-med art, Rx art, 9.99 art, Now art, New ar, How art, Fire sale art, Last Chance art, Only art, Diamond art, Tomorrow art, Franks art, Ducks art, Meat-o-rama art.

I am for the art of bread wet by rain. I am for the rat's dance between floors. I am for the art of flies walking on a slick pear in the electric light. I am for the art of soggy onions and firm green shoots. I am for the art of clicking among the nuts when the roaches come and go. I am for the brown sad art of rotting apples.

I am for the art of meowls and clatter of cats and for the art of their dumb electric eyes.

I am for the white art of refigerators and their muscular openings and closing.

I am for the art of rust and mold. I am for the art of hearts, funeral hearts or sweetheart hearts, full of nougat. I am for the art of worn meathooks and singing barrels of red, white, blue and yellow meat.

I am for the art of things lost or thrown away, coming home from school. I am for the art of cock-and-ball trees and flying cows and the noise of rectangles and squares. I am for for the art of crayons and weak grey pencil-lead, and grainy wash and sticky oil paint, and the art of windshield wipers and the art of the finger on a cold window, on dusty steel or in the bubbles on the sides of a bathtub.

I am for the art of teddy-bears and guns and decapitated rabbits, explodes umbrellas, raped beds, chairs with their brown bones broken, burning trees, firecracker ends, chicken bones, pigeon bones, and boxes with men sleeping in them.

I am for the art of slightly rotten funeral flowers, hung bloody rabbits and wrinkly yellow chickens, bass drums & tambourines, and plastic phonographs.

I am for the art of abandoned boxes, tied like pharohs. I am for an art of watertanks and speeding clouds and flapping shades.

I am for U.S. Government Inspected Art, Grade A art, Regular Price art, Yellow Ripe art, Extra Fancy art, Ready-to-eat art, Best-for-less art, Ready-to-cook art, Fully cleaned art, Spend Less art, Eat Better art, Ham art, Pork art, chicken art, tomato art, bana art, apple art, turkey art, cake art, cookie art.

add:

I am for an art that is combed down, that is hung from each ear, that is laid on the lips and under the eyes, that is shaved from the legs, that is burshed on the teeth, that is fixed on the thighs, that is slipped on the foot.

square which becomes blobby

May 1961

Source:

Monday 15 December 2008

Tuesday 2 December 2008