Assignment Post Week 13

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the reading for this week: section 6 in the library reserve binder: the chapter on Funding from A Guide to Guerilla Performance and Multimedia. You might consider the following: which aspects highlighted by the authors do you consider to be the most useful to your personal work? Which aspect do you consider the most dauting? Which interviewee presented the most compelling argument? The most compelling suggestion? Why?

Also, be ready to present your Simultaneous Group Action Piece. Remember that we are not meeting in our regular room, but instead in University Center Room 126 (Brooks Room). The room will be available for the duration of class. It would be advantageous to the group if you all had an idea of what each partnership was planning to do and where you were planning to be. After the piece, I will be asking you all to write up a summary and review of this piece, so keep in mind the issues you raised as a group in conceiving the piece, the aims of your piece, the different methods you used to address the points and goals.

Again, it is suggested that you turn in a proposal for your final project on Monday to maximize your development time.

Finally, please take a moment to review and comment on the projects posted on the blog by your peers. Your critique feedback can be very valuable to them, and it may earn you some extra credit points.

I look forward to your project on Monday!

(Assignment Post) Reading Week 12

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the reading for this week: the JSTOR article Going with the Flow: Performance Art and Mass Culture, by Philip Auslander. You may post on any issue raised in the text, but please site your source. You might consider especially what new elements you would add to Auslander's arguments given the almost twenty years since his writing of this piece. What trajectories can you follow? What claims may still stand? Do you sees breaks or cycles?

Assignment Post: Corpus Projecti at Colorado College

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on Lian Sifuentes' performance installation at Colorado College.

Here are some considerations, but you are also welcome to raise your own issues regarding the piece:

•How would you categorize this piece and/or what movements in performance history have strains evident in this piece?

•What do you consider the purposes of the different elements of the piece (installation, projection, presence, etc.)?

•Provide a critique of the piece.

Week 11 Assignment Post and Reading List

For class on Monday, you will need to have your proposal for the Internet Gaming project, as well as four new posts to your del.icio.us site, and two thoughtful comments on the blog post that follows. The reading assignment is the same this week as last week: section 8 in the library reserve binder: Actuals: A Look into Performance Theory by Richard Schechner.

Here are some considerations:
•Concerning Schechner's use of the term "actuals:" what are the implications for performance art specifically? What examples can you think of that fit within/outside of his parameters?

•What examples can you cite relevant to artistic practice that bear out his categories of contemporary (or modern) movements: "wholeness," "process and organic growth," "concreteness," and "religious transcendental experience"?

•Concerning ritual, are you aware of rituals that are examinable and explainable following his model? Elaborate.

(Assignment Post) Readings for Week 10

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the reading for this week: section 8 in the library reserve binder: Actuals: A Look into Performance Theory by Richard Schechner.

Here are some considerations:
•Concerning Schechner's use of the term "actuals:" what are the implications for performance art specifically? What examples can you think of that fit within/outside of his parameters?

•What examples can you cite relevant to artistic practice that bear out his categories of contemporary (or modern) movements: "wholeness," "process and organic growth," "concreteness," and "religious transcendental experience"?

•Concerning ritual, are you aware of rituals that are examinable and explainable following his model? Elaborate.

(Assignment Post) Readings Week 9

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week: pages 266-286 in the Fusco book and the following two JSTOR articles: Shaping Belief: The Role of Audience in Visual Communication, by Ann C. Tyler and Art and Audience, by Nick Zangwill. You can comment on any issue raised that you wished, but please cite your reference with a page number so that we know where you are coming from. Of particular interest may be parallel and conflicting perspectives on audience for designers versus artists, as well as claims of audience necessity or ancillary status as you are placing yourself in an audience position.

Readings Week 8 (Assingment Post)

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week: pages 97-113, 177-194, and 203-224 in the Fusco book.

Here are some considerations:
•Comment on the usefulness and functionality of some of the alternate labels for work (other than "performance art") mentioned in the Ramos essay. How might some of these terms better describe your own work? How are they useful in the context of Venezuelan work, or do you find similar problems with all terms?

•Discuss the claim from the 1981 CADA work that "the work of improving the accepted standard of living is the only valid art form/the only exhibition/the only worthwhile works of art." Pay attention to specific implications of words and how they translate for you and your experience, i.e., if this statement is assumed to be valid, what is really meant by "form" and "exhibition"?

•Are you persuaded by Lotty Rosenfeld's discussion of her work? Why or why not?

•What are the implications of Felipe Ehrenberg's designation of the street happenings between the two galleries as art? If these are pieces, is he the artist of the piece because he identified them as such? Or do the pieces have unwitting artists, or no creating artist at all?

Readings Week 7 (Assignment Post)

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week: pages 59-96 in the Fusco book and section 5 in the Readings Binder on reserve in the library, In Defense of Performance by Guillermo Gomez-Pena.

Here are some considerations:
•What is your response to Jesusa Rodriguez's theories of humor, and do you see these claims translated into her work?

•How do you think Tito Vasconcelos' characters, especially Tatiana Illhuicamina, translate differently to an American audience than to his community?

•What was the most persuasive argument to you in Gomez-Pena's chapter? Why? And what was the least persuasive argument in your estimation in his chapter? Again, why?

Grandpa's Still in the Tuff Shed (assignment post)

For those of you who attended Friday night's screening of Grandpa's Still in the Tuff Shed, post 2 thoughtful comments on the film and/or Dr. Macaulay's lecture. Consider performative elements in the history, the festival, and the hype of the circumstances.

(Assignment Post) Readings Week 6

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week: pages 133-173 in the Fusco book; and "Presence" in Absentia: Experiencing Performance as Documentation by Amelia Jones.
Here are some considerations:

•Are you convinced by Jones' claims and contentions about experiencing a work only as documentation? How does it's presence in document differ from the live experience of the piece? How do these issues affect your process of deciding methods of documentation?

•Respond to and critique one specific work by Mendieta, Clark, or Oiticica. Given that your experience of this work is solely description in an essay and possibly documentary photographs, what elements of your response do you think are owed to this written perspective?

(Assignment Post) Readings Week 5

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week: pages 225-265 in the Coco Fusco book and pages 13-22 in the Interventionists book.

Here are some considerations:

-How is a figure like Alejandro Jodorowsky especially pertinent to current students of art, and more particularly to students like you in programs like VaPA?

-Respond to Bustamante's contention that the group movement in Mexico ended with the 1983 MAM exhibition. What other "institutionalizations" are you aware of and what effect do you think such recognition or inclusion has on artists and art forms/trends that were previously uncannonized?

-Link or trace the use of the term "tactics," especially in the Thompson essay and the Chavoya essay. How does this term function and how is this useful in your efforts to construct an intervention proposal?

-Respond to the direct dealing with situation, concept, space, community, and issue in Asco's work. Does this account of some of their projects help you in concieving your own piece? (What direct issues are you involved in/aware of and do they seem like subjects for art work to you?)

Readings Week 4 (assignment post)

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week: Performance Art: (Some) Theory and (Selected) Practice at the End of This Century by Martha Wilson and section one in the library reserve binder, chapter 5 in Performance: A Critical Introduction by Marvin Carlson. (Pages 152-226 in the Goldberg book are addressed in your individual entry posts.)

Here are some considerations:
•After the descriptions of performance art as a genre in these two readings (and almost one month in class), locate/delineate your understanding of the nature of performance art.

•How do the discussions in these readings of some of the artists you are already familiar with from class videos, discussions, and prior readings clarify, expand, or change your understanding of these artists' works?

•For those of you with a background in theatre, respond to references to theatre as the antecedent and discussions of theatre's relationship to performance art.

Readings Week 3 (assignment post)

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week: pages 97-151 in the Goldberg book.

Here are some considerations:
-Suggest a theoretical happening based on the tenants of the Bauhaus (descriptions of Bauhaus festivities and Schlemmer's conceptual assertions might be a starting point.)

-What concerns of the period influenced the aesthetic investigations of the Bauhaus (re: interest in technology, etc.) and what parallel concerns of contemporary life might likewise influence your aesthetics?

-How do accounts of and artists statements regarding some of the early happenings in the 1950s-early 1960s fit in to class discussion regarding the need or lack of need for artist intent and responsibility? (ex., Alan Kaprow's statement regarding 18 Happenings in 6 Parts: "the actions will mean nothing clearly formulable so far as the artist is concerned.")

-Discuss and react to the social implications of the work of Klein, Manzoni, and Beuys; or defend the assertion that Joseph Beuys is the best artist ever.

Performer/Audience/Mirror (assignment post)

In class we watched Dan Graham's 1975 piece, "Performer/Audience/Mirror." Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the piece, continuing our class conversation, and/or responding to the following quotes concerning the piece:

"The performance is doubly reflected back to the audience by the artist's lecturing and the architectural device of a mirrored wall. Graham has written extensively on how video, which can deliver information in real time, functions semiotically as a mirror. Using the mirror at the back of the stage as a monitor, Graham voices his unrehearsed observations, activating the various feedback cycles taking place within himself as a performer, between the performer and the audience, and among audience members. Issues of duration and attention are critical for both performer and audience." (Rewind: Video Art and Alternative Media in the United States, Chris Hill, ed.)

"Through the use of the mirror the audience is able to instantaneously percieve itself as a public mass (as a unity), offsetting its definition by the performer('s discourse). The audience sees itself reflected by the mirror instantly while the performer's comments are slightly delayed. First, a person in the audience sees himself "objectively" ("subjectively") perceived by himself, next he hears himself described "objectively" ("subjectively") in terms of the performer's perception." (Dan Graham qtd. in Hill)

Readings Week 2 (assignment post)

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week: pages 50-96 in the Goldberg book and the Performing Bodies conversation article found on JSTOR.

Here are some considerations:
•Construct a bridge between the motivating principles of the Dada/Surrealist artists and the contemporary Chinese artists.

•Explore the progressions, crossovers, and functional distinctions between the Futurists, the Dadaists, and the Surrealists respecting their performances.

•What provoking differences can you identify between the works of Zhang Huan and Ma Liuming despite their parallel backgrounds? Consider the similarities evident in an intial survey of their work and what different conceptual groundings could have led them to seemingly related products.

The Beaver Trilogy (assignment post)

For those of you that made it to the film last night, please post at least two thoughtful comments on the film.

Here are some considerations:
•Discuss Gary's characters (that he portrays) in contrast to the characters portrayed by (Sean Penn's) Larry and (Crispin Glover's) Larry.

•Discuss transformations or other subtleties between Gary and the two Larrys (who are both characters portrayed by actors).

•Examine a trajectory (thematic or otherwise) from the first film, an accidental documentary, through the other two subsequent fictionalized films.

•Highlight any performative methods (and locate them in the piece so I know what you are talking about) that were particularly effective or that may be useful to you in your personal practice.

Readings Week 1 (assignment post)

Please post at least two comments on the readings for this week: the Klaus Groh essay, the Jon Erickson essay, and pages 7-49 in the Goldberg book.

Here are some considerations:
•How do the working definitions of performance art, whether delineated, implied, or retreated from, differ for each author?
•What claims are you inclined to believe/agree with? (and why)
•Are you willing to answer any of the questions asked by Erickson in the concluding sections of his essay? ("Should we expect a historian. . .to be a skilled theoretician at the same time?" "When and how does theatre become 'performance theatre," "the relation of art to life" etc.)
•Defend or refute Goldberg's claim on pg. 9 that the base of performance art has always been anarchic.
•If you have studied the Futurists in other courses (art history, English, etc), how does this recounting of the movement's history differ from what you learned before about the individual artists work, their motivations? Does this recontextualization affect your reading of their manifesto claims?
•Why are these authors making claims about artists' "desperation" (Groh), "impatience" (Goldberg), experience in "ridicule" (Erickson)? What might this imply about the art world, mainstream culture's perception of performance art, or an artist's choice to work in performance? How does this square with your experience of the "art world"?

Please note: Erickson's references to Goldberg's book, Performance: Live Art Since 1960 differ from his references to her book, Live Art: 1908 to the Present, which is an earlier version of our class text.