Module 8 Lecture Content: Performance + interaction

This module will conclude our exploration of 4D artworks by looking at performance art, with an emphasis on performance artworks tied to an “event” as well as interactive performance pieces that can shift the viewer into a “performer” role.

Similar to the interactive and playable artworks we explored last week, performance is considered 4D because it is completely defined by the time in which it occurs. From this perspective, performance art is completely intangible - it only “exists” in the moments of the actual performance, and even in that timeframe, the artwork changes with every second. There are often physical components utilized in or by performance artworks, and these can be considered unique artworks themselves, or pieces of a larger performance artwork. Additionally, there are usually performers - both living and non-living - and these are also a part of the performance artwork. These physical aspects, however, do not fully compose nor define the entire performance piece. The moments of action, inaction and interaction are parts of an artwork that cannot be captured or tied to a physical form, and thus, are only realized in that moment of actual “performance”.

This module will contain less reading and description, and instead focus on reviewing documentation of different performance artworks. When viewing each of these unique performances, consider the following:

1. What is being performed? Who is performing?

2. How interactive is the performance? How much authorship does the audience / viewer take on?

3. What are the physical components of the performance? What are the intangible elements?

4. How does this performance communicate meaning? What ideas does the performance convey, and how might this performance affect viewers.

Performance Art in itself is another HUGE category of artistic practice - it is impossible to fully introduce in just a week, so, for this module, I will be focusing on the development of event-based performance art in the mid 20th century in the US, along with some contemporary counterparts. I will also try to focus on some examples this type of event-based performance art that also engaged the audience / viewer in a way that shifts them into a creative / performer role. Both of these aspects of performance art also relate to this week’s Studio Project, and thematically connect to how many artists and performers are currently adapting new ways of performing during a pandemic.

Allan Kaprow, Happenings + Site Specific Interactive Sculpture

In the 1950s and early 1960s, artist Allan Kaprow began to plan events and performance, usually around a very simple set of rules or a situation that he designed, for audiences to experience and engage with. He labeled these events “Happenings”. In some Happenings, the audience would explore a situation that Kaprow has constructed, such as a yard filled with tires. Other times, the audience was given a specific task to perform based on a set of guidelines or rules Kaprow outlined. In both of these instances, the audience would shift into the role of the creator / performer. This type of situational “experience-design” was further adopted and explored by the Fluxus Movement in the 1960s and 1970’s with many of their performance-based artworks and interactive or participatory artworks. The images above are from 2 of Kaprow’s Happenings, Yard + Fluids. Both of these invited viewers to participate in an event that Kaprow had intentionally designed - an enclosed spaced filled with tires or a installation process building a simple structure out of ice blocks.

The physical designs of these Happenings is very similar to the site-specific interactive sculptures produced by minimalist artists in the 1960s such as James Turrell, Robert Morris + Donald Judd. These sculptures were built into installations in galleries and museums, and encouraged audience participation - and performance - with the sculptures themselves. Many of these designs have been reproduced in recent years, and many contemporary artists also work with this kind of site-specific design that encourages audiences to interact with or engage with a physical space in a specific way.

Related Contemporary Interactive Installation Works

Ernesto Neto

Koo Jeong A

Karina Smigla-Bobinski

Scott Oster

FLUXUS

The Fluxus Movement also started in the 1960s, and was heavily influenced by the Dada movement from the 1920s. Fluxus artworks overlap completely with Kaprow’s Happenings, and they are often grouped into the same category, as they developed at the same time with many similar inspirations and influences. For this module, I am separating them into two categories, in order to focus on the individual performer / individual interaction that I believe was a little more prevalent in Fluxus performances, compared to the situations or circumstances crafted by Kaprow’s Happenings that were more geared towards a group performance or the experiences shared by a large group of people.

Yoko Ono + Cut Piece

FLUXUS Objects + Situations

Marina Abromovic - The Artist Is Present

Benjamin Patterson

Contemporary Related Works

Solange Knowles - An Ode To

Jump to Articles + Media Covering Performance:

Vanity Fair + W Magazine

Performance + Meaning

Many of the performance works from the Fluxus Movement as well as Happenings explored the participation process itself, and also used performance as a way to investigate the role of the viewer and audience, and their impacts on the authoring process. Sometimes these ideas were presented in a form of irreverence and deconstruction - similar to the Dada collages and other artworks that inspired these later movements.

Performance can be a very powerful method for reaching an audience and communicating ideas and meaning. Below are a few additional performance artists who work with performance to communicate ideas and meaning beyond self-expression. Ana Mendieta was a multi-faceted artist who worked with performance as a way to explore her own identity, but also to communicate ideas about colonized spaces, environments and bodies and her critical view on oppressive systems and structures of power including the “Art World”. This critique and dismantling of systems of power is a very similar idea and sentiment expressed by the performance duo The Yes Men via most of their projects.

These two performance styles and methods for presenting this meaning are incredibly different, yet effective across different audiences. Consider these contrasting strategies when envisioning your own performance or event - what ideas are you communicating, and how direct and accessible do you want those ideas to be?

Performance + Technology

I’m concluding this module by exploring the ways in which some performance artists began to also incorporate and work with technology in their artworks. In the examples below, technology is presented as a participant or performer to some degree. What is interesting about all of these examples, is that technology is also being utilized to document the intangible elements of the performance piece. In the case of the Ant Farm, the video they are working with to document their event-performance is the same technology at the center of their performance. In this case, the medium is inextricably linked to the content and the ideas that they are trying to communicate.

I am focusing on these artworks to finish out this module because at this moment, many performance artists are suddenly working with remote technologies as the only viable and safe way to continue their performance practice. These past few months have been a time of rapid development and invention in performance technologies and performance art as whole, both in the art world and also in more mainstream performance worlds such as television, film, theater and music. The ways in which this performance must be produced, recorded and dispersed remotely is changing the ways that these performances operate, look and feel. To some degree, they also impact the overall meaning, both in terms of the change to the content but also the way that we are all receiving that content.

As you view these older artworks, think about how the technology used to document them for later viewings - in some cases, 50 - 60 years in the future - affects their ultimate meaning and form. What does it mean that we view these artworks in black in white, or with the grain of early video technology? How does this change the other elements of technology that are being portrayed in the performances? How does this relate to our current situation, where many performances and events are being live-streamed or held via Zoom, and transported to our mobile or at-home devices, versus being experienced in-person?

Jean Tinguely, Homage to New York, 1960

Survival Research Labs, DOOM Show, 1994

Ant Farm - 1970s

Below, the cast of Back to the Future Reunites VIA Zoom about 1 year and 3 weeks ago….