I broke my performing cherry.

This wonderful image was the end result of our assault on Kat during the "performance exercise" today(technically yesterday since it's like 3 am... but who needs sleep?). Success? Well, It sure beats naked men climbing on jungle gyms... or naked men in general.

According to Justin and I, Kat is a very angry female with a rare eye condition who likes clowns, music, dragons, devil goatees and sleeps with Raggedy Anne dolls. And she's in love.

We made her up literally AND figuratively! I guess thats the concise way of putting our 'concept'.

I thought it went pretty well though. Everyone seemed pretty interested and some people said some good stuff about it afterwards, which is always the sign of a good piece of work, i think. Emotions were evoked, things were said, people grew, children cried, babies laughed, rainbows formed, unicorns galloped, countries went to war... it was beautiful.

I wish there were a video camera taping us or something, so that I could watch it again and more easily pick it apart... I'm kind of sad that those few moments are gone forever, only memories :-( ... If anything, I would want it to be longer, so we could really just make a mess of her face, so that parts just started overlapping each other... maybe it would show some sort of correlation between how many labels we have for people and if they're actually apparent or not... OO! Or maybe! If you got her face covered enough it would mean that the labels we give someone cover who they really are! ... or something! i dunno, i like to think outloud sometimes. Or type outloud. Or think while typing? Or think typing? Confused? Good.

James

Performance Artzzzzz

Martha Wilson defines Performance Art as the opposite of "the willful suspension of disbelief." Well, if put literally, that would make Performance art "the unwillful continuance of belief." And that makes sense with her later statements when she says when she says that performance art has spread confusion and that it "is happening now, in 'real' time." I guess she is saying that Performance art shold be shocking enough for you to try and disbelieve that it's happening, only to fail.
Well... I guess this picture proves it... I'd love to believe I've never seen this... but I know I will fail.
I think that my only gripe with the abundance of nudity in Performance art is that... after seeing a naked person doing something shocking for the 50th time... is it still shocking? Is that the only point of being naked in an artsy context? And, how is a painting of a nude beautiful... but a nude in real life shocking? *shrugs* Questions questions questions.
I disagree with Martha Wilson's statement that art has had little impact on society. According to wikipedia's entry on "Public Art", (which I understand isn't a reputable sorce, but a sorce nonetheless) "New York City has a law that requires that no less than 1% of the first twenty million dollars, plus no less than one half of 1% of the amount exceeding twenty million dollars be allocated for art work in any public building that is owned by the city." It seems kind of stupid to say that it hasn't had an effect politically or socially if there has been law enacted to help support it's creation. Reknowned artist Laurie Anderson's single "O Superman" climbed to the top of the UK pop music charts in the early '80s, definitely having a social effect. The Central Park Gates were a national phenomena. Every so often artwork comes along which permeates into the larger culture, definitely affecting the general population.

Here is a link to a pdf of the poem that she mentions as having a huge influence on Cubists. I think it is interesting even if you can't read French. The words are thrown upon the page without any structure, as Wilson explains, and it becomes an interesting visual idea in terms of a poem... I don't read much poetry, but I am familiar with the style of e.e.cummings, and I guess it's fairly apparent that he drew inspiration from that.

Musings on 'The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism'

"REVOLT! ANGER! SPEED! TECHNOLOGY!" These are the main talking points of F.T. Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto, which at points seems dramatic to the point of hilarity. It is an artistic call to arms, a declaration of war against the past. Perhaps the tone of his manifesto is summed up perfectly when he says, "Except in struggle, there is no more beauty."

As artists trying to be in the avante-garde, the Futurists are looking for the progression of art, rather than looking to the past to see what is "good." They want to create their own "good." They are angry at the museums for harboring the art of the past, which, to them, keeps them stuck in the past. They are looking for a constant progression.

It strikes me as hypocritical that they oppose woman, though. They talk of a progression, and of new ideas, but they want to exclude woman? That seems to be a very 19th century idea, not an almost mid-20th century one. I would think that excluding the female would just be going back to the very past that they scorn.

It seems that they are bitter over Italy's place in the art world. "Too long has Italy been a deal in second-hand clothes." I guess since Italy has such a rich history is art, they feel overwhelmed and want to stop being judged by their past.

They want to embrace the new technology, such as cars, and use their advantages. point of mentioning speed, which just from knowing a little bit about futurism from various art history classes, definitely shows in their work. The sculpture to the left, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space by Umberto Boccioni, tries to convey the motion and speed of a walking man in relation to futurist ideas.

To get a better idea of what Futurism actually looks like, this website shows many examples of some Futurism work, and some not part of the movement but inspired by nonetheless. Most of the has a look very similar to Cubism without the hard edges and with color.

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