Carlson

I think we talked the Carlson readings over pretty thoroughly on the 26th. On the distinction between performance and theater, I think a point of interest is the way in which they approach affecting the viewer or audience. In theater, it often seems, you rely on an audience's perception of a character -- an established archetype within the frame of the narrative -- and are able to twist perceptions (as is the crux of modern theater) based on the reality of this character. While characters are present in performance art, often guiding us through a swampy juxtaposition of narration and activity, we recognize these more readily as false or ironic. Basically, the overlap between modern theater and performance is the number interpretations of characters which are opened up.

Carlson: a dialogue

JB: Do you want to start? JD: You start. JB: Okay. JB: yeah so i think that the readings really just boil down to process/performance/ happening vs. art object/finished work. JD: well i think that is really just about semantics. JB: i mean.. JD: wait, why aren't we just writing this down? JB: oh yeah. (JD hands JB computer) JB: ok so tell me what you think about these articles justing being about semantics? JD: well its just that they are all about foundations and in relation to science that is how things start, and that is fine but it is not interesting to read. JB: i agree, from my perspective, i found that the readings were uninteresting because they skimmed a lot of different surfaces, and in order to really engage with this material, i think it would have been beneficial to have read the source material, and that would have required, like, a whole different kind of course. JD: you cant be all inclusive, all you can do is name drop, but i cant think of any other way to do it, but i cant think of a way to respond to it. JB: I think that although reading that formally, I'm finding a hard time responding...but the next time I do a performance I think this reading will help me think in terms of a formal theater tradition. For example, when I think about the performance I did with Sarah, I can use these readings to understand which parts were "minimalist", like how we interacted with the audience was....in a mass watching us, but not physically engaged (traditional), but on the other hand our narrative arch did not follow a traditional narrative arch, in that it did not have a text, and repetition of movement of gesture called on, like, a certain visual art tradition, versus a theatrical one. And since I've done the readings, I've been thinking about how'd I like to create that distinction for myself personally. Like does that occur with action. Does my body, acting, relate to the body of the audience, with imagery, etc, etc. And I haven't concretes it. JD: I mean, I agree, but I feel like it's less constructive for me to think of things in terms of, "Is what I'm doing postmodern? Am I playing into all those defined sensibilities? What would Banes or Copeland say about my shit?" I agree that it is a necessary starting point. What else is there to begin with, and all of this preliminary stuff IS really important if we really want to assess what is performance- trying to actually integrate the "formal" qualities of art making into whatever art we are doing. I just think that having this varied background in the steps leading up to whatever modern sensibility of "performance art" is stifling in its jargon. JB:I think the problem is that it runs counter to what Carlson is saying performance is. This anti-art-making, process orientates thing. And I think the, um, idea of practicing the dissection of what is performance turns, we have to call it a product, into a calculated process and into a product. I'm comfortable with that academic exercise when it comes to straight theater, because the concern is about dissecting a final product, but I don't I should be so comfortable with it in this genre because it is so different and it has such different goals. JD: What do you think the goals of performance are versus the goals of theater? What's the difference, because I get the idea that the two are inherently inseparable. JB: Right now it's just these feelings for me. I can't make them tangible yet. And I agree. I think that the relationship is really close. And the relationship between performance art and visual art are really close. JD: I mean, I definitely see that in terms of Man Ray. I mean his process was very per formative, cutting shit apart, making Dadaist statements about the roles of the art product, but at the same time he did do 2d art. JB: Yeah. And I can see how installation art and sculpture are lumped together with p art. And I think seeing those relationships for myself will help separate where performance art and theater are in my mind. JD: I'm interested in this Foreman quote: "Theater attempts to infuse the audience with some imaginary idea or emotion." I mean, despite this larger objective, which is still undefined for you and I and whatever that means for our performances, isn't performance art doing the same thing? I mean, isn't that what art is all about? Just because an audience is a little less disenchanted doesn't mean you can supplant affect. Viewing art and interpreting art is subjective and people build stories and people rely on the idea of "theatrics". JB: the big thing in theatre is the Aristotelian model, or, a response to that model. everything that happens in theatre is based on that model or is trying to respond to it, whereas, in performance art, there is no response or need for the Aristotelian model. i can bring that lens to it while viewing a performance art piece, but that just isn't what performance art is concerned with... is there anything else you wanted to mention? JD: fuck you. they shot rice. i don't know, make something funny. (yawn) (sigh). KEREM OZKAN: go suck a dick.

Artist Paper 1: Chris Burden

Kim Vorperian Spring 2008 Advanced Performance Art IRP

There is a Fine Line Between Genius and Crazy and Chris Burden is a Master Funambuler

Chris Burden is known world-wide as one of the prominent performance artists of the 20th Century. His career has been long, consisting of numerous performances most of which have been on the more controversially dangerous side of performance. Chris Burden has been shot, drowned, burned, dragged across broken glass, bedridden, and “doomed”. All of these acts were self-inflicted, but the real question is why? Some say because he's an idiot or mentally ill. Others look at Burden's work as an extreme way of working with important issues that concern the conceptual properties of art. I waver, leaning sometimes towards the former explanation for his performance activities, which is why I will not be focusing on his approach to the psychological experience of danger, physical risk, and pain. Nor will I address his aggressive abuse of the body as an art object. I am more interested and convinced aesthetically by his work dealing with the psychology of the artist/spectator relationship, which is what I will be discussing through his works in this paper.

A quick look into Burden's past will aid in the understanding of his concepts later in life. Burden was born in Boston in 1946. His father was an engineer and his mother got her master's in biology. He moved around a lot living primarily in Italy and France. He went to Pomona College, in Claremont, California, where his declared major was in architecture. On the side he studied physics, but gravitated toward art, with a special interest in Dadaism. One of his major influences is Duchamp which becomes quite apparent with later use of the body as an object. Burden graduated from the University of California, Irvin, in 1971. It was his master's thesis, the 5 day locker stint, that allowed him to be taken very seriously by the art community from that moment on.

Burden has dealt with the psychological aspects of the artist/spectator relationship in a variety of contexts. For one performance in Newport Beach, 1972, he sat immobile in a chair, wearing dark glasses, facing two cushions and an inviting box of marijuana cigarettes. The people that walked by naturally assumed that he was watching them, but the insides of his glasses were painted black, and he refused to speak. He reported, in his record of the work, “Many people tried to talk to me, one assaulted me and one left sobbing hysterically.”

In another work called “Back to You”, 1974, Burden lay half-naked in a moving elevator. A volunteer was requested and then proceeded into the enclosed elevator. Visibility was completely cut off between the audience and the inside of the elevator except for a monitor connected to the outside. The volunteer was instructed by a sign on the wall to “stick push-pins into Chris Burden”. In this particular performance the volunteer hesitated and then asked if Burden “want(ed) them in a particular place?”. There was no reply and the audience shuttered as the volunteer proceeded to stick push-pins into Burdens torso.

One work that stands out as a major accomplishment in the realm of artist/spectator relations is his work “Doomed” performed in April, 1979. This performance took place in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. The piece consisted of Burden setting a clock on the wall at midnight and then laying down on the floor under a leaning sheet of glass. Viewers came and went, but Burden didn’t move. Forty-five hours and ten minutes passed, during this time Burden inevitably soiled his pants. Then a young museum employee named Dennis O’Shea took it upon himself to place a container of water within Burden’s reach. At this point Burden stood up and smashed the clock with a hammer and left. This was the only time that Burden took on a public piece that put himself in extreme danger. What “Doomed” conveyed successfully was the absurdity of the conventions by which, through assuming the role of viewers, we are both blocked and immunized from ethical responsibility. In O’Shea’s case, the situation was complicated by his duty to maintain the inviolability of art works.

The question that comes into my mind is, what is it about an art piece that makes us feel unable to act even if there is another being in danger of being killed? Does art exist in such a different dimension that it releases us from our moral consciousness and objections? I find the way in which Burden questions the stability of the distinction between art and life is impressive. He achieves this by demolishing the gap psychologically constructed between the two. There is no gap between art and life, art is imagined. There is always only life and death. A dichotomy that Burden used to catapult himself into the art community of the 1970's.

http://www.ubu.com/film/burden.html