Below are a few links to short videos of performance art to help you brainstorm ideas for your performance pieces. John Cage
Gilbert & George
Laurie Anderson
Joan Jonas
The Art Guys
The Tiger Lillies
Jackson Pollock
Fischli & Weiss
Oskar Schlemmer
Please watch all of them and answer the following questions:
1.Which of the approaches to performance interested you and why (please be specific)?
2.How are the different performances structured (around time, use of materials, objects, people etc.)?
3.What is the role of the audience/viewer? Are they addressed? If so, how?
39 comments:
1. I am interested by the performances that deal with the absent body. I think that it is really interesting how you can show the essence of the body without actually having the body there.
2.Each of the different performances are structured around different objects and materials. Gilbert and George make their performace structured around them and Jackson Pollack on the other hand structures his around the canvas.
3.The role of the audience or viewer is to interpret the art by examining the possible purpose. In a lot of the works, the audience is not directly addressed but each work will appeal to a different type of person.
0000001. i liked gilbert&george's because it had an aspect of real absurdity to it, just two guys bending around in white space. i also liked the art guys, and especially fischli and weiss. the others were straight up creepy. oh and i like when there's music (unless it's creepy music)
0000002. the performances focuses mainly on the people-- for example, with schlemmer, he uses primary shapes and colors to focus on the image of the movements of the dancers. cage's also focuses on the dance.
0000003. sometimes the audience is addressed and sometimes they are not. the tiger lillies tell a(n extremely upsetting) story to the audience, and laurie anderson's is shot like a music video, while others, like cage, seem unaware to an audience outside of themselves.
1. I really liked Tiger Lillies and Schlemmer Triadic Ballet. In tiger lillies i liked the use of song, noises, and tone (the meowing). In the Ballet one i liked how unreal and toylike it looked.
2. Most of the performances focused on using music/voice as well as dance, images, double exposures, and light.
3. Some of the pieces seemed to be directed to an audience, and telling a story or message of some sort (tiger lillies, laurie anderson...), while others I think were just meant to be watched and interpreted/ appreciated by the viewer in their own way (Schlemmer, Cage...) I think many of them were just meant to have a factor of shock and confusion.
1. I liked the performance art from The Tiger Lillies. I enjoyed the use of the singer's delicate but harsh falsetto- it was capable of evoking intense, raw emotion from the viewer.
2. The performance was structured around the use of a story sung aloud (verbal communication), musical instruments in the background and images flashed on the screen to compliment the verbal story.
3. The audience is sung to the viewers directly, with use of firm eye contact from the performer.
I. The most intriguing performances were those that gave the audience freedom to interpret the meaning of the art. I liked Laurie Anderson's music video and Gilber&George's "Bend It!"
II. The performances that incorporated music mostly followed the rhythm the music established like Schlemmer's Ballet and Gilbert&George's dance. Other artists including Anderson, Pollock and Cage, used objects in their performances.
III. Some artists like Pollock and The Tiger Lillies address the audience directly, while other artists like Anderson and Cage address the audience indirectly through movement.
1. Gilbert and Geroge's sort of amusing approach to performance art interested me the most. Their awkward "bend it" movements were unexpected from two men wearing suits.
2. Everyone of the performance is structured around different materials. Sometimes, like in Oskar Schlemmers, what the people are wearing is very important to the piece. Other times, like in John Cage's, the performers are wearind indiscrete clothing and the focus is on their bodies.
3. The audience has a different role in each one of the performances. In some, such as The Tiger Lillies, they were telling a story directly to the audience. In others, the audience was not as involved and the art stands alone.
1. I really enjoyed Gilbert & George's "Bend It", I actually favorited it on youtube. It's a silly and cute performance, and just fun to watch because of how ridiculous it is. The Tiger Lilies video was a little strange at first, but I thought it was funny when it got to the part about the girl being on fire. Yes, I have a morbid sense of humor. I found the Pollak video interesting because of the expressing vs. illustrating aspect.
2. Gilbert and George make their performance about themselves, and they use a simple, white background to keep the focus on the two of them. The Tiger Lilies focuses mostly on the performer, but also uses illustrations to help tell the story. The Pollack video was mostly just shot of his arms and his canvas as he works.
3. Some were more personal and didn't speak directly to an audience as much, such as Pollack's. Others were very audience-dependant, like Tiger Lilies, which was more of a story telling.
1. I enjoyed the performance done by Gilbert and George because the music was catchyish and it just made me laugh. Also their dance was just wow.
2. A lot of the performanced had music and singing in it. Some had dancing too. The performance done by Fischli & Weiss is all objects that connected to each other.
3. The viewers role were different in each performance. Some of the performance were live and sung to the viwers while others like Gilbert and George and Fischli & Weiss do not include the viwer.
1. I like the performance of Nikki Lee because it is interesting that she immersed herself in different social cultures and adopted their manarisms.
2. Many performances are structured around people like those of staged happenings and the singing sculpture.
3. The role of the audience is to observe excluding in the performance of a staged happening inwhich the audience is involved.
1. I liked the approach of Laurie Anderson because of the combination of the music and the visuals, unlike in some of the other videos (Oskar Schlemmer, Fischli & Weiss), where it seems like random weird sounding music was thrown in. I also like the absurdity and the mystery.
2. Some of the performances are based around music (The Tiger Lillies, Laurie Anderson, Gilbert & George), others are based around forms and objects (John Cage, Oskar Schlemmer, Fischli & Weiss.
3. In some videos, the audience is told a stroy, like in Laurie Anderson's and The Tiger Lillies'. Also, Gilbert & George were aware of the audience. But most of the others (John Cage, Fischli & Weiss) ignored the audience and just danced/performed.
1. I liked the performances that were very abstract and almost random, with wierd sounds and shapes, among other things. I liked this because it was "trippy" and "physcadelic".
2. The time seemed to vary with each video, some being fairly long, and others mere seconds (yay!!!). They all included lots of different materials and different amounts of people (or lack of). Most of them appeared to be stream of concious type preformances.
3. The role of the audience is to observe the artists creation. If there is art but no one to view it, is it still art? If a tree falls and no one hears it does it make a sound? Maybe some art isn't meant to be seen. The audience is rarely addressed because the artists didn't think they'd have one (well, that's just my opinion).
1. I enjoyed the Fischli and Weiss video, and the Gilbert and George one. I find chain reactions are very cool, and the Gilbert and George one was just so odd that I liked it.
2. Each part in the Fischli and Weiss video was timed to move at exactly the right time. In the Gilbert and George video, the blank background and the pristine suits contradicted with the odd movements.
3. They don't really seem to be addressed in either of the videos particularly. They are viewers, no more or less.
one. i most liked Gilbert & George "bend it" because it seemed very surreal and absurdist. Both the abscent background juxtaposed with the men in suits made it comical working along with the upbeat music. I also like Laurie Anderson anyway, but more in some of her other more directly satirical pieces...
two. the preformences were all mostly structured around the soundtrack, but also paying attention to form and movement in conjunction, or disjunction, with the sounds. many of the artists also had a tension between empty space and the person or object moving.
three. some of the performers are conveying their piece specifically to an audience like The Tiger Lillies, or Jackson Pollock with his voice over, but others seem less concerned with the audience. Laurie Anderson speaks directly to the audience to get her meaning accross. the viewer must take in all of the material and process it, taking any bit/ piece that speaks to them or invokes a feeling in some way. the music helps set the tone for this sort of thing as well.
-tesla
1.I liked techniques used in Gilbert and George and in "the way things go". I am most interested in the absent body or body at rest/movement aspects of the performance art. I liked the simplicity of Gilbert and George video and the use of rhythm and music. I thought it was interesting to combine different objects together that caused other objects to move in "the way things go" video.
2. Some of the performances are structured around people (dancers, singers- for ex. John Cage). Others are structured around objects. (the way things go)Most of them use some kind of sounds and music.
3.I think that a lot of the performances are adressed indirectly to the audience.`One person may interpret them differently from the other. Performance, such as Gilbert and George is pretty simple and straightforward even though it does not focus on the audience at all. When the two guys move they do not care about the viewers.
1) I really enjoyed Laurie Anderson's performance because it was very eclectic and random, but at the same time was very focused.
I also like the performance by Peter Fischli and David Weiss because it was very interesting to watch.
2) In this performance, everything is focused around the music but it isn't exactly on beat. It also is structured around her talking/singing/making noises, and lights and images.
The piece by Fischli and Weiss used objects.
Other performances also used music, sound, spoken word, movements and objects as well.
3)In all performances, the performers are aware of the presence of the audience but mainly the audience is not involved, but more an outside observer of the pieces.
-Laura Greenly
1)I was most intrigued by the Tiger Lillie's performance. It was easier for me to connect to it becuase they told a story. I also found myself unsure as whether to laugh or to cry...
2) All the videos seemed to differ in objects,time,poeple, and materials. Also, it seemed a lot of them shared a sort of nightmarish/creepy quality.
3) In most of the videos the viewer/audience wasn;t addressed, although i noticed there was applause at the end of the Tiger Lillie's prefromance.
1. I was very interested in the Gilbert and George performance. it was very simple and didnt overcomplicate. but was also fascinating to see.
2. Ficshli and Weiss's was completely centered arond objects, where as most of the others showed definate human involvement.
3. The audience was not adressed directly in most of the films. this may have been to make it more personal to each viewer, but also, i think its as much for the people perforing it as for the viewers.
Gilbert & George, Jackson Pollock, and Fishli & Weiss all interested me. The one from Gilbert & George was very abstact and I liked how they were wearing suits and dancing all around. Jackson Pollock was interesting becuase it was cool to see him create art. My favortie was Fishli & Weiss because it didn't have to do with people but it was still really interesting.
2. Most of the performances are structured around people or objects. John Cage is structured around the dancers. Gilbert & George are structured around the two men in suits. Laurie Anderson was structured around the person and the circle of light. Joan Jonas is focused around the people and the shiny ball. The art guys is focused around the man in black dancing around. The tiger lillies is focused on the man and the stage. Jackson Pollick is focused on him and his paintings. Fischli & Weiss was focused on the chain of actions based around the objects and Oskar Shclemmer is based around the dancers.
3. The audience is addressed in some of the videos and not others. The audience has to interpret why the artist is showing us this and what does it mean.
Fischli And Weiss's perfomance interested me the most, because of the way their objects were made and how they interacted with each other, it must have took a long time to think of the objects and then make them work perfectly..it was just fascinating to me.
2.the perfomance was structured around objects working with other objects, while most of the others incorporated people, song, dance and music
3.their perfomance did not adress the audience, but other performances told stories which would obviously affect the audience emotionally, and others sent weird dream like subliminal messages.
1. I am interested in Ficheti and Weiss's performance, it showed a chain of actions that left me wondering what would happen next. It put certain objects in a different perspective. I also liked the work of John Cage, who combined filmed images and real performance.
2. The differet performances were structured around different tempos, sometimes because of music other times because of what they were trying to show. The materials of the performances ranged from people who were dancing or moving, to materials that were moving. Sometimes these two were combined as in schlemmer's.
3. The role of audience differed in that some were directed towards the audience while others were performed whether or not an audience presence was acknowledged.
1. I was most interested in Gilbert& George's performance, and the Schlemmer Triadic Ballet. In G&G, I just thought it was strange and funny and I wasn't quite sure whether they wanted it to be funny, and that in itself made me like it. I liked the Triadic Ballet because I loved the costumes and the way they greatly incorporated shapes and short movements into everything they did.
2. In both of the two I previously mentioned, the performance was based on the movements, and the interesting shape and pace that they were moving. The sounds of both were also very important.
3. In most of these, the audience is just left to watch and personally interpret the performances. Many were telling a story, while at the same time many just left the audience in confusion of what exactly was the purpose of what they were doing.
1.I found the approaches of Gilbert & George and Fischli & Weiss interesting. Gilbert & George's performance was funny and I liked how they didn't over-do it like a lot of the other performers. Fischli & Weiss's video stood out in my mind because objects were performing instead of people. I thought it was clever how they showed inanimate objects doing something that is usually thought of as something only people can do.
2.In Gilbert & George's performance, the time is controlled by the music. When the music speeds up, so do the actors. The music also controls the mood. It makes the whole performance more humorous.
3.The role of the viewer is to interpret the performances, while also trying to relate/connect to them. The audience is directly addressed in performances such as the Tiger Lillies but more often than not, the performers do not acknowledge that they are being observed. This allows each performance to seem more natural and mysterious.
(one) i really liked fischli and weiss because it seemed to be the most straight forward. there weren't any special effects, it was pure movement. even though it was a guy with a camcorder filming tires and shoes and kinda grungy stuff, there was beauty in the precision necessary to execute the sequence and of occurrences - the flow was mesmerizing. (and i thought the shoes were really cool to watch)
(two) some performances are focused solely around the body(gilbert&george/art guys), while others use visual layers (schlemmer/jonas), or music and the voice(tiger lillies/anderson)
(three) some seemed to be telling a story or trying to get a message across or a reaction out of the audience (tiger lillies/anderson) while others seemed to be more personal, and just meant to be individually interpreted.
1. I was interested by the performances that were more based on chaos and disorder, such as Pollock's paintings and John Cage's piece. These pieces have intentional aspects to them, but appear confusing and random. I was also interested by the performances which were ordered yet strange and unusual, such as "Triadic Ballet" and "The Way Things Go."
2. The performances are each structured differently. Some appear to be completely unstructured, such as Pollock's, but even his paintings are based on form, shapes, and color. Other performances are based on time, such as the one by Fischli and Weissm and some are based on sounds, like Laurie Anderson's.
3.The audience is usually not addressed in these performances. The more abstract ones seem completely foreign to the audience, and we have almost no connection. For example, "Bend It" just appears absurd to an observer, and Gilbert and George appear to be performing for themselves.
1. I liked Gilbert&George's performance because it was simple but incredibly funny and absurd. It just shows that simplicity can be effective as long as it is innovative.
2. Music and body expression/movement was a big part of most of the perfomances.
3. Some of the artists were absorbed in themselves seemingly unaware of the audience (Pollock) while others addressed the audience directly (such as Gilbert&George showing "their favorite dance" or the Tiger Lillies telling a story directly to the audience) For most of the artists turning their attention to the audience, atleast for a short time, was a very important part of their performance.
sheera
1) i really liked the performance from tiger lillies becasue i liked hwo it incorperated the song in the back. I also liked gilber and george becasue i like the the movement of the body thorugh the ballet like movements.
2) SOme of the performances dealt with musical intrument and images flashing in the bakground, dancing...
3) sometimes the audience is addresed and other times they are not ddressed. the pieces are confusing becasue they are meant for the sudience tointerpret the piece
1-I liked the Fischli & Weiss video because it made you question the purpose of the piece a lot. At first I was thinking that there was no purpose to the performance, but then it started to get more advanced and complicated. it ended without any warning and in the end I realized that there was no real purpose, except to maybe confuse the audience into thinking that there was a purpose.
2-In some of the performances the focus of object and people chage over time. In the John Cage performance the focus is at firts on a bunch of tape players on a table (objects). Later on the subject changes to a bunch of dancers doing different excersises and various formations (people). After a while you start to notice the annoying noises happening in the background (sound) and finally, forgetting about the beginning scene, you see the tape players on the table again and it all connects together: the tape players created noise that the people danced to.
3- The audience wasn't adressed too much in any of the videos, except in Gilbert & George and the Laurie Anderson performance. In the Laurie Anderson video she constantly looks at the camera and at the audience as if she is singing to them. In Gilbert & George they talk to the audience in the beginning and even ask the audience to join them in the dance they perform.
1. Gilbert&George completely won my heart i have to say. the performance is run by the idea of reaction.
2. objects and the people seem to be the mian intrests of these artists.
3. it all depends on waht the artist is going for. some people like to address the audience, while others like to ignore them.
1.) I was interested by Gilbert & George's "Bend it" because of the suprise in it. Their rather awkward movements were unexpected from two middle aged men wearing suites.
2.)Each performance varied in their time and subjects/objects. Some were lengthy and had many subjects while others were short and used few subjects.
3.)The audience's role varied in each performance. In somelike the Tiger Lillies performance the audience was being told a story. In others the audience had not perticipation.
1. The performances that interested me most were the Gilbert & George, Pollock, and Fischli & Weiss. The g&g one was really funny and silly (two pretty old men just dancing to some random song). whereas the Pollock and F&W ones were interesting to watch.
2. The different performances were structured around different things. Most were structured around objects or the people in them.
3. some of them were directed to the audience - like the ones that told stories, while others were just meant to be watched and weren't addressing anyone in particular.
1. I was really interested in Gilbert and George's piece, first of all because the performance really won me over with the silliness of two old men bending in suits. This piece was unstructured enough to give you room to think and be creative, but was also entertaining.
2. Each performance really focuses on a different thing. For Gilbert and George it was themselves abd the space, for Pollock it was his canvas, and for others it was other objects such as the audience or shapes and colors.
3. The role of the viewers was different in each performance. For some, the audience was addressed directly, while in others it was addressed indirectly. However, in most of these the audience is not directly acknowledged.
1. i liked gilbert & george's. i liked the different idea of their performance and how it is just in white space. The music was sometimes cool, but sometimes a little weird. I also liked the absent body because that was interesting.
2. Many performances focus on the poeple/performers, and some focus on different objects. A lot of also used double exposure, music, etc.
3. It differs. Sometimes it is directed towards the audience who then have to interpret the art, but many times it was just directed towards whoever connected to it.
1. I liked Gilbert & George because they seemed to embrace and exaggerate the silliness of performance art (I tend to find performance art pointless, but I haven't really studied enough to say that with good judgment). I also really liked Laurie Anderson's--it incorporated a lot of things, like time, sound (synthesizer), visual (the light coming out of the mouth), and the evolution between scenes (everything tied in together).
2. All the performances are structured differently. In Jackson Pollock's, it seems like an interview; pretty unscripted and unplanned. Pollock is just doing his thing, but in the Tiger Lillie's, it was rehearsed, making it seem more like a show and less true.
3. The role of the audience is addressed in Jackson Pollocks, as he is trying to explain his methods. The others are more of a show aired for a silent audience (Laurie Anderson, the Tiger Lillies, Fischli & Weiss). They are all, of course, centered around the audience, as most art is.
1. I liked Gilbert and George because it looked like a lot of fun, but i also really like the Tiger Lillies because the story grasps onto people in a way that a lot of the other clips don't.
2. The performances were all really different witht heir props, like Gilbert and George didn't use any, but other clips used nothing but props.
3. In some of the performances they address the audience, like the Tiger Lillies tell us a story, and Gilbert and George make a statment before they begin dancing.
1)I was most interested by the Tiger Lillie's performance. It was easier for me to connect to it because they told a story. I couldn't display a clear, imminent emotion while watching it
2)Objects and people were common themes used as well as music being incorporated into the performances
3)Some artists address the audience, like the applause at the end of Tiger Lilles's performance, and other opt not to
~Liam
1. I really liked Laurie Anderson's approach. I liked how she captured the mood of the time period with not her words but her movements.
2. the performances were mostly structured around the music. Gilbert and George have it structured around themselves
3. The role of the viewer is to experience the emotions and ideas that the artist is trying to portray.
1. Loved Tiger Lillies. good stuff. they took a really trivial story and played it as a really important piece, which made it (a) funny and (b)interestingly talented (quality meowing with blues bass line).
2. Tiger Lillies, Gilbert and George, and Oskar Schlemmer,for example, based tehir performances on the actors, while Jackson Pollack and Fischli and Weiss centered their pieces around objects.
3. For many of the pieces, like Pollack, Fischli and Weiss, and John Cage, the audience was removed from the piece, while The Tiger Lillies performed as if on stage, and incorporated the audience to a greater extent.
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