Mein Art Diary

This journal records my ideas, influences, my work, development and new interests through the seminar “Performing Culture” with Dr Jondi Keane in semester 2/2009 at the Griffith University.

Personal introduction (written 9.8.09)

What is Art? What is Performance? I wanted to clarify these terms for myself to get a basic idea of what I am up to during my work in this course.

Sometimes or for some people Art needs to have a purpose. After the Second World War “Art seemed to have failed” to prevent this chapter in history. Others say, it does not need justification, nor reason. It exists and nothing more is necessary. As long as you declare it Art, it will be Art. I like the idea of Art as a free craft, who can exist without any reason, just because the artist decided to produce Art.

Performance connects Modern Art with Body Art. Performance Art became popular in the 1960s when Artists challenged the Art industry with not static, not movable and therefore not purchasable Art. A performance normally involves the body of the artist and or others people. They deliver some kind of action which is not regulated. A performance can be anything from a dance, to enlightening a cigarette, to sitting on a chair.

Art can be nearly anything and performance too. This can be a pressure but I am willing to use my liberty for a creative output.

Group exercises (written 10.8.09)

Within every lecture/seminar with Jondi, he encourages us to participate in different group exercises. Walking as a group but in individual speed, trying to stop all at the same time without a signal, concentrating on objects or people during our walk, feeling/sensing other people but not focusing on them.

These exercises are very relaxing but together with other people from the group, we don’t know if we understand the task correctly or feel the things we are supposed to feel.

You become aware of how you shift your focus through the body and how you connect to objects, space and ideas.

Listen here to Jondis instructions. (Loading will take a while)

Culture influences every single aspect of our daily life. Culture also has decided how the body shall behave in certain situations. Jondi gave the example of how left handers were trained to use their right hand during their childhood. In our cultural understanding (or the one of the 1950s and 60s) the left hand is the “bad hand”. Nowadays it is still difficult for left handers to buy gear and tools for them.

The group exercises have a second more competitive aspect. In Week 1 Jondi set up a table with plates, cutlery, glasses and cups, asking us to individually rearrange two objects. In round one, we all played around a little bit, but were far from “thinking (or acting) out of the box”. Of course with the second round we became more brave in playing and exploring the different objects and their substance.

In another exercise we should interact with a little rock (ca. 500 Gram).

I was part of the audience in the first round and observed how people glued the rock to their feet, waist, arm or simply carried them in their clothes. I wanted to be different and at the same time connect a deeper meaning to my performance. I glued the rock on the back of my neck. My inspiration was the Greek God Atlas (Link) who has to carry the Earth on his shoulders.

Because of the tape it was hard to swallow, at the same time, the rock itself did not feel heavy at any time. The experiment of being a/the Greek God failed. On the other side I realized why many artists produce dangerous performance art. The attention of the audience is higher. The artists receives more respond and the effort of producing art becomes through pain or discomfort more visible. I felt sorry for Marina Abramovic who put herself in a lot of painful situations to perform

and for Chris Burden who arranged to get shot for a performance

and got crucified on a VW Beetle.

In my opinion dangerous or painful performance/body art is not (has never been?) about a specific message but more likely about how the artists wants to be seen by his audience. I generalize here strongly but this has been my personal experience.

We as a class always tend to be more extreme in further rounds after we analyzed the first round. Small changes like carrying a rock had for the audience and the artists physical and emotional applications.

What we realized:

Our performance changed through interaction, comment, experience, the audience, a competitive element, the attempt of being individual/smart/unique.

Performance is for reception and reaction. As soon as I understood that the planning for my repetitive Action became more difficult.

Walking exercise… with post-its! (written 20.08.09)

Jondi handed out blue post-its. We should mark interesting objects with them. All together this action created a picture of the room, showing us what people considered as interesting and through the growing amount of psot-its our attention was also drawn towards certain objects, which lead to even more attention and post-its. Very interesting exercise!

Walking exercise in week5 (written 24.08.09)

We should particularly stop at places in the room we liked or disliked and perform a repetitive action with two things in the room. At the end we wrote down our thoughts:

You can listen to my thoughts here.

“The place I liked is the sink with the colourful spots. It reminds me of an Art class I attended years ago in Germany. The memory gets better every time I think about it, which is bizarre, because the situation itself was uncomfortable/boring. A place I did not like has been the waste bins. Obviously and because I associate a strong smell with waste in warm countries. Since a day or so my mind is pretty much occupied with private stuff and I could not respond or feel the walking exercise as I would do normally. That is also the reason why I didn’t put much effort in the action within the room. Switching on/off a powerpoint and hitting the lock of the projector was not very mindful, but still, through doing these things I was occupied and forgot nearly to watch the others. I had to smile when I saw someone actually moping the floor.”

My repetitive Action (written 12.08.09)

For week 3 (10.8.09) we had to come up with a Repetitive Action. In our first lecture Jondi spoke about the Performing Art of empty bookshelves on the Bebelplatz in Berlin. I thought about burning books.

My idea has been to read from a boring book and then burn some pages. After a couple of days the idea seemed boring and very much like trying to start a controversy (German guy burning books).

I decided to make the controversy part of my performance. Being aware of creating a “storm in the water glass” I simply wanted to erect a black board behind me with the sentence: “Am Ich allowed to do that?”

This seemed not straight enough to the point, so I changed to “Am Ich boring?”

Trying to get the focus on the staged affront was in my opinion the most boring and artificial idea of all and I went back to the basic idea – of destroying a book. The text “Hardly Beach Weather by Bernhard Cohen is a remarkable boring piece about a guy who travels with his former girlfriend across Australia to their new separate lifes in Sydney. The book is full of inner monologues and uninspiring dialogs/arguments and scenes between the two characters. Reading it has been a waste of time and I was really angry that the author delivered such a poor work. Instead of just ripping of pages or throwing it into a fire I thought about how I can create something new out of the useless book.

On the 10^th August I presented my piece in class, recorded it and uploaded it to Youtube.

I presented the book with a few words but did not gave a opinion about the content. I choose randomly one of the sentences who I had marked previously and read it out loud. Then I ripped out the complete page carefully and cuted it to a paper snake which I installed in the room. I read a second sentence from another random page, ripped of the page, formed a paper plane, threw it in the audience and closed the book.

My message is that it is allowed to destroy a book, as long as you can create something beautiful out of it. I am happy that the audience got this point.

Jondi had the idea to combine different Repetitive Actions.

I don’t think that these mixture contributed much. It was more distracting and taking attention away from the single act. We decided which Actions should go together but still, since we have not planned to put them together, the whole performance became a little bit random.

One week later, we got our feedback from Jondi: He described my action as: “excellent”. It is still difficult for me to put so much meaning in our little performances but I am happy that I seem to be on a good way.

The lecture and the reader = constant input and source for ideas

I will use this chapter for notes about the lecture of Jondi Keane and the reader who goes along with the seminar.

Lecture

Week2 (written 13.08.09)

Self regulation

Michel Foucault said that we regulate ourselves through social standards. We do or don’t do certain things because we fear negative feedback from the community. We want to be liked or at least fit in somehow. These social standards go far beyond most laws which only forbid criminal acts.

Foucault draw in his book “Discipline and Punish” the theory of “Panopticism”. It is the concept of a self regulated prison. The cell blocks with clear roof glass would surround a higher watchtower. From the tower it would be possible to watch the prisoners at all time through a window front which is only clear from the inside. The inmates can’t be sure when observed and when not. The idea has been, that they feel always watched and behaved in response to that.

This concept hast become reality in our society. Surveillance cameras are a part of our daily life and we don’t know if or when someone is watching us in real time.

Christian religion, especially the roman-catholic church, invented with the confession the perfect instrument for self monitoring.

With the confession the church puts itself between God and man to watch and control the people. Indeed, an all knowing, all seeing God recognizes all our actions and thoughts. As a Christian I agree with that to the point where God sees, judges and puts into account what is a sin. I don’t feel threatened in this situation because God loves me and watches me because he cares and does not intend to take part. He is a moral accountant who forgives as long as I redeem my sins.

As the greatest tool for self monitoring remains the society in which we live. Daily life in a particular culture shapes our behavior. When I start living in a foreign culture I always feel the small mistakes I make in the beginning. No society is like the other and every one follows different rules. If I want to fit in, I have to follow their rules.

Notion of performance

Successful performances have to be outstanding. I would say, they have to be “loud” in their own way.

They differ from normal actions sometimes only with a surprising or new idea.

Examples: David Hicks father protested against his sons imprisoning in Guantanamo Bay with wearing orange clothes putting himself in a cage on the Times Square.

“The Big Donor Show” in Dutch Television pretended to let patients participate in a game show, racing for a new kidney as prize.

A more personal and less bombastic or controversial performance is to shave the head to show support for cancer patients.

Notes to different art directions

Modernism is characterized by Industrialization and the notion of progress and reason. The personal behavior became applicable every where.

Dada is about not making sense anymore, because these things brought war and bad life circumstances to the people.

Conceptional art shall shape our way of thinking.

Performing art wants an ethical way of behaving.

Art reception – through Rembrandt

What do you perceive? A deeper understanding of performance in a painting through Rembrandt‘s – The anatomy of Dr. Tulp. The picture shows how the famous Dr Tulp examines publicly the corpse of a convict. The doctor is very secure in his appearance, does not address anyone personally with his speech. He just likes to hear himself and is happy with his role.

The audience is not really watching the examination but studying a nature science book or checking a list. The corpse has two right hands.

The picture is a performance of culture, showing the viewer what is wrong. Rembrandt declares that scientists forgot to observe the core of their science and are only interested in their own appearance, old knowledge or the tradition. This link gives more background information but does not add anything to the message of the painting.

Matthias Grünewald was a German Renaissance painter of religous works. His piece “Maria Magdalena”

also works with a visual effect, visibile on second sight.

The perfect form: Measuring the skull

The perfect form produces the perfect mind/thoughts/person. But functionality does not rely on form. Alphonse Bertillon invented the fingerprints and the skull measuring.

Beuys explaining art to a dead hare.

In ancient German culture the hare is a wise character, an ancestor. With this performance in 1965 - How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare – Joseph Beuys explains his work field to his own past and heritage.

Work and art can be produced only for the future too. All workers and designers of cathedrals never saw the finished piece. I took 300 years to complete such a building.

In the Japanese culture business plans and culture are sometimes made for 30 generations.

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman produces stills of women in stereotypical positions for different decades. She plays with reception, memory and sterotipical thinking. Showing a world which has never existed but we all have an idea of.

Interacting with the material on a bodily level, some examples

• Cutting out all the texts from a newspaper

• Only leavings the streets in maps

• Building a house of silk curtains

Journal of Marina Abramovic

• did extreme physical performances

• was born 1946 in Belgrade from Partisan parents

• “what are you willing to watch”

• developed simple ideas into sophisticated experiences

• childhood memory: Created a false memory about the a glossy book, lost it again. This picture stays with her all her life.

• The influences of memory as source material or inspiration. Images and memories you have can be used to interact with the world and perform art.

Tibetan Buddhist tradition

says: The aim is to reach a state of emptiness by for example imprinting clay with the image of Buddha 100,001 times. Performed in running water.

How does the repetition change you? Meaningless work is potentially the most important art-action experience one can undertake today.

Exercise – Indian Monastery 1987

-Sitting eyes closed on chair, waiting for hours for a call

-Sitting and facing a white wall motionless for 7 hours

-Sitting and focusing primary colors for 3 hours

Taking an idea to the extreme

Body artists (see Abramovic and Burden above) developed extreme and dangerous performances but artists don’t have to go this way to achieve a profound effect. The body is mostly used as a research tool or material to explore culture and responds of the audience.

Lecture

Week3 (written 23th August 2009)

Janine Antoni

is a performance and installation artist. Personal and community involvement and feminism are important for Antoni.

“Loving Care” is one of her most popular performances.

She dips her hair into a bucket of hair dye and mopes the floor with it. The cleaning act shows the position of women in society between cleaners and the pressure of being beautiful. She considered every choice in the personal life also as political and wanted to mark out this observation. Everyday rituals became mindful when they were put into performances.

The Text Generator

In week 4 (17.08.09) we had to present our idea of a Text Generator. Daniel Mckinnon and I came up with a Hide-and-Seek Game to create a text.

We formed twenty little boats out of paper and wrote different tasks on them and hide them in the room:

Write down one sentence out of your Diary, if you have it with you.

Write down one sentence out of your Mobile (Text message inbox or from the sent messages)

Write down one sentence out of a book if you have one with you.

Write down what you think at this very moment.

Write down one sentence you heard last in a conversation

Write down one sentence you said last in a conversation

Write down your biggest dream

Write down your biggest fear

Write down one sentence out of your Unibook/Reader

Write down one sentence out of you from what you read in this room

What you think about the room?

What you think about your classmates?

What you think about the teacher?

What you think about the task?

Write down one sentence from a piece of paper in your back

Write down the last sentence you have written down

Write down any commercial which comes to your mind

Wrap up the movie you have seen last in one sentence.

Write down a sentence from your favorite song

Describe your favorite piece of art in one sentence

The boats had to be found in a short amount of time and numbered randomly between one and 1000.

Twelve boats have been found and this is the result:

Listen to our result here.

Its pretty wide and dirty.

Dear diary, I am happy today how are you?

I fearless.

This belongs to you.

Sometimes love comes around and knocks you down.

Performing Culture week4.

They are fantastic.

The former AFL player Spruikig Keno.

U can leave your beer here.

This is a white boat for what you think about, when you are naked.

Jondi, he is a cool guy.

I forgot it.

We wanted to create a sense for the room and the class just through a couple of sentences. The performance got a little bit slow when we tipped in the sentences into a computer to read them out to the class. We could improve our performance when we for example would have split it up in a finding and in a writing act. Or one of us would have yelled the answers to the other, who then tips it in.

Lecture

Week 4 (written 17.08.09)

During the lecture, Jondi presented four performance artists:

Erwin Wurm

Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Joan Jonas

Bruce Naumann

The different links give a good insight in the work of these artists. The internet also contains a huge amount of videos and images for these four. A reproduction here is not necessary. The links lead every interested person to further material.

Lecture

Week 5 (written 24.08.09)

Jondi showed a video about BIID.

Body Integrity Identity Disorder, or BIID, is a psychological condition in which the individual requests an elective amputation. Individuals with this condition experience the persistent desire to have their body physically match the idealized image they have of themselves.

One case informed about a man who had his complete healthy left leg amputated because he did not feel this leg as part of his body. After suicide attempts a doctor agreed to remove the leg. An experiment in an university lab revealed how easy it is to trick our mind when it comes to body awareness. A fake arm, placed near the own body is easily recognized as the own, without being attached.

This could be an interesting idea for the group work or the final performing action.

Jondi spoke also about proportions and how we assume size, heights etc. just by cultural knowledge or just guessing.  You think movie actors are taller and sitting people smaller, for example. Again a good impulse for a Performance.

Mein Art Diary continues on the second page.