Reflections on Performance 5

For my fifth and final performance in my intermedia class, I decided I wanted to stick with the theme of "breaking out" (like in my plastic and frame piece). I was inspired by Kate Gilmore's work. She has many different pieces of her breaking out of uncomfortable situations. She had a piece called "Every Girl Loves Pink", which was the main source of inspiration.

I wanted to place myself in a corner, surrounded by pink. I liked the sound of cardboard paper, so I put all of the pink and white cardboard paper in the corner with me. I wrapped my legs in pink lights, put on pink sparkle heels, and worked to get out of the lights, and out of the boxed up corner.

This did not go as smoothly as I intended. The lights kept coming unplugged, and the boxes fell over too early. It all ended very fast. I feel like this performance needs to be thought out and tweaked a little more.

Reflections on Project Four

Food for thought. Our assignment was to incorporate food into our performance in some manner. I honestly struggled for days after reading the assignment to figure out what I was going to do. After days of deliberation, I decided I wanted to try something in the style of John Cage. This is a new concept for me. I have tended to do more work that deals with social issues. In this piece, I wanted to try a style that is based on the deconstruction of high art. I picked foods that I figured would make some kind of interesting noise. I then found a randomizer online to pick an order for them. To finish my score, and figure out how long I would play each "instrument", I used a deck of playing cards, and played a second for each number that the card displayed. At class, I sat up all my "instruments", pulled out my score, and started playing my song Music of Meals. 

Looking back on it, I should have had some official way of keeping track of time. I just did it in my head, but John Cage used a watch, or a timer. A kitchen timer would have had an interesting effect on this piece. I also think it might work better with another person, so the food could be played simultaneously instead of one at a time. Another way to change this piece, is to give it more of my personality. One suggestion was that I try to do this in the style of the food network. I thought that would be interesting, and more in tune with my style of art.

Laurie Anderson

Last week, we as a class went to Iowa City to see the artist Laurie Anderson give a lecture. We were introduced to Laurie's work a while back, particularly her "Oh Superman" piece. Going into the lecture I assumed we were just going to learn more about her work like that, but it turns out I got a lot more out of her lecture than a recap of her old performances. Laurie showed the audience that there was no need to label herself as "a painter", or "a singer", or any other specific art style. She said no one ever asked her what kind of artist she was, so she never felt the need to define herself. By doing this, Laurie has been able to break through many different medias and styles to create what is artistic to her. What I found interesting, is that she never looks at one of her pieces and says "yes, that's it! I'm done!". Her art is always evolving. I found this quite relatable, since I too don't really feel like my work is ever exactly right either. She then proceeded to show us her work in progress (which I found very brave of her). I was really a fan of her story telling. She was talking about her dog in a cute silly manner, and then ended the story with 9/11. It was amazing to see how she can switch the mood of a room so instantly. She has stories that you can't make up, like how she put on a concert for dogs, or that her dog plays the keyboard. She showed us a clip from a movie she's working on, where the view was the city, and her voice was super low, telling stories. It was a very interesting dynamic to put together. I really enjoyed getting the opportunity to see Laurie Anderson's lecture. It was insightful, and inspirational.

Reflections of Performance 3

*Video Coming Soon*

Distortion Through Plastic

Performance 3 was a very new experience for me. I felt like I was definitely putting myself on the line. I was inspired by the idea of breaking out of the frame, as well as distortion of the image of the body. I started out covering my old mirror frame in tin foil, so that I could leave impressions of myself in the frame before I scratched it open to emerge from the frame. The morning of the performance though, I looked at it, and realized that it was too easy. All I would have to do is simply run my nail down the foil, and breaking through would be a simple task. However, historically, women breaking out of the frame has clearly been much more of a challenge- we are still talking about it today! Knowing that, I wanted to do something more endurance based. I ripped off all the foil on my frame, and replaced it with a cut up plastic garbage bag. This would allow me to really distort my image to the audience, as well as create a much bigger struggle when trying to break through.

I had a couple difficulties when performing this piece. First off, my frame was definitely too small. I knew that going into this project, but I used the materials I had. The frame was not big enough vertically or horizontally. My frame was also slightly broken I started this piece. I thought that by taping it together, it would hold for the performance. Unfortunately, the plastic bag did such a good job or restraining me, that instead of the bag ripping, the frame broke. I felt like I could have gone for longer if my frame did not break, which would have emphasized the endurance aspect of my piece even more. Finally, I was unsure of what to wear for this performance. I went simple, and chose a nude color top with black pants, but I'm not sure if that was the best choice. Should I have dressed up more to fully embrace the idea of femininity and women breaking out of the frame? Should I gone even more basic? These are questions I have to figure out for Live Art Night.

I was very nervous about this piece. I tried talking about it to my friends who aren't in this class . They all thought it sounded weird (some said artistically weird though, which gave me some hope). I knew that squishing my face against a plastic bag would look strange, maybe even be uncomfortable to watch. I don't usually put myself out there like this, it's a very new experience for me. This class is helping me feel more comfortable about my ideas and doing the weird things. Its new, and I like it.