Introduction to Art
Making- Motion and Time Based:
A question of the body and its reflections as gesture.
Ò...material action is painting that has spread beyond the
picture surface. The human body, a laid table or a room becomes the picture surface.
Time is added to the dimension of the body and space.Ó
- "Material
Action Manifesto," Otto MŸhl, 1964
VIS 2
Winter 2015
When: Tuesday: 5:00 p.m. to 6:50 p.m.
Where: CENTR 115
Professor: Ricardo Dominguez
Email: rrdominguez@ucsd.edu
Office Hour: Tuesday. 11:00 a.m. to Noon.
Room: VAF 551 (2nd Fl. Visual Art Facility)
The body-as-gesture has a long history as a site of
aesthetic experimentation and reflection. Art-as-gesture has almost always been
anchored to the body, the body in time, the body in space and the leftovers of
the body This class will focus on the history of these
bodies-as-gestures in performance art. An additional objective for the course
will be a focus on the question of documentation in order to understand its
relationship to performance as an active frame/framing of reflection.
We will look at modernist, contemporary and post-contemporary, contemporary
work by Chris Burden, Ulay and Abramovic,
Allen Kaprow, Vito Acconci,
Coco Fusco, Faith Wilding, Anne Hamilton, William Pope L., Tehching
Hsieh, Revered Billy, Nao Bustamante, Ana Mendieta, Cindy Sherman, Adrian Piper, Sophie Calle, Patty Chang, James Luna, and the work of many other
body artists/performance artists.
Students will develop 1 performance action a week, for 5 weeks, for a total of
5 gestures/actions (during the first part of the class), individually or in
collaboration with other students. The class will view and discuss each students performance documentation with the specific
Teaching Assistant Block they are assigned to for the quarter. Students will
also be expected to write an 8 PAGE FINAL PAPER (*MLA -
Manual of Style* - http://www.mla.org/style_faq1) on a performance artist, performance
art, or the performance genre. The paper should compare and contrast the above
with your own gestures.
Course Requirements:
1) 5 performance gestures (10%
each): You will be required to construct a performance gesture and document the
gesture. All gestures will be done beyond UCSD and La Jolla, CA.
2) Final Paper (8 Pages) (30%): In the
Final Paper students will frame the work they have made in class by
comparing and contrasting it with the work of Performance Artist, theme or
genre covered in class. (MLA).
FINAL PAPER DUE MARCH 17th, 2015
3) *Students who have to miss any classes due to an emergency (with documentation)
will be able to do an extra Gesture
to make up unexcused absences. Note that social events such as weddings,
anniversaries, quinceaneras or barmitzvahs,
though important, are not considered emergencies.
4) Attendance and participation (20%): TA's will be taking attendance every
time our class meets. Aside from counting toward your overall grade, attendance
and participation will be crucial. Students who do not show up to class and are
unaware of the material and discussions covered in lecture are not likely to
obtain a passing grade.
Course Website:
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/performance9.html
This website is a crucial component of this course.
The site will include the syllabus and links for review. I strongly urge you to review the Class Site on a weekly basis.
Grading Scale:
100-97 = A+
93-96 = A
90-92 = A-
89-87 = B+
86-93 = B
82-80 = B-
79-77 = C+
76-73 = C
72-70 = C-
69-67 = D+
66-63 = D
62-60 = D-
59 and below = F
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
PERFORMANCES
Commitment and Risk
Creativity in Presentation
A General Understanding of Performance Art/Art History
Application of Critical Connections in Each of Your Performances and in your
Class Essay
ALL REQUIRED MATERIALS WILL BE ON-LINE on this SITE.
CATALOGUES AND BOOKS THAT ARE RECOMMENDED:
CATALOGUES:
Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present
by Arthur Danto, Chrissie Iles, Klaus Biesenbach and Marina Abramovic
Performa - New Visual Art Performance
by RoseLee Goldberg
Art and Performance: Live (TATE U.K)
Out of Actions (LA MoCA)
Outside the Frame: Performance and the
Object (Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art)
Performance Art (edited by Roselee
Goldberg)
Body and the East: Form the 60s to the
Present, (Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia)
BOOKS:
Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting
Publics, Shannon Jackson
So Much Wasted: Hunger, Performance, and
the Morbidity of Resistance (Perverse Modernities), Patrick Anderson
Performance Art from Futurism to the
Present, Roselee Goldberg
Exercises for Rebel Artists: Radical
Performance Pedagogy by Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Roberto Sifuentes
Ethno-Techno; Writings on Performance,
Activism and Pedagogy, G. Gomez-Pena
The Twentieth Century Performance Reader,
eds. Michael Huley and Noel Witts
Performance, Marvin Carlson
Contract with the Skin, Kathy Odell
Performing the Body, Amelia Jones
The Explicit Body of Performance,
Rebecca Schneider
Happenings and Other Arts, ed Mary Ellen Sandford
Unmarked, Peggy Phelan
Acting Act: Feminist Performances,
eds. Lynda Hart and Peggy Phelan
Let's Get it On: The Politics of Black
Performance, ed. Catherine Ugwu
Corpus Delecti:
Performance Art of the Americas, ed. Coco Fusco
Greenwich Village 1963, Sally Banes
The Blurring of Art and Life, Alan Kaprow
Imaging Her Erotics,
Carolee Schneeman
The Citizen Artist: An Anthology from
High Performance Magazine
Liveness,
Philip Auslander
Dada Performance, ed. Mel Gordon
Futurist Performance, eds. Michael
Kirby
CLASS ONE - Jan 6th - Introduction
to the Class: The W(hole) Body and its Rituals
Opening discussion on the nature of the class, what will be expected from
each of you and the grading process? An explanation about the
expectations, process, and documentation of your 5 gestures for this class.
Carolee Schneemann on
"Interior Scroll" gesture:
http://www.caroleeschneemann.com/interiorscroll.html
Breaking the Frame: A Documentary about Carolee
Schneemann:
http://breakingtheframe.com/
Viennese Actionism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viennese_Actionism
Viennese Actionist Films:
http://ubu.com/film/vienna_actionists.html
Pocha Nostra:
http://lapochanostralivearchive.tumblr.com/
La Pocha Nostra: The Insurrected Body (Video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NprOwUiA7wU
Gesture One:
Choose a site where you can engage in a performance activity in a Public Space for
at least 2 continuous hours. You can move for this exercise or be still. If you
move, don't leave the site you have chosen. Choose and develop a means of
recording your actions/inaction AND the events or non-eventfulness around you.
Try to be as aware as possible of the smallest of changes in your own body,
mind and immediate environment. Do not just wait for something really
noticeable to happen. Do not use any cameras or electronic recording devices.
Limit yourself to what you can commit to memory, write down or otherwise record
with some part of your body. Once you have completed your action, chronicle the
experience in writing if you have not already written it down. Keep in mind
that while writing is PERMITTED, it is not the ONLY way to make a record of
actions, so consider other means too!
BRING DOCUMENTATION TO CLASS. Each TA Block will review
and discuss everyone's performance and non-traditional documentation.
CLASS TWO: Jan 13th – Public space and
Public Performance
ÒTheory of the DeriveÓ by Guy Debord:
http://www.ubu.com/papers/debord_derive.html
Teching Hsieh One Year Performance 1980 - 1981 (Time Piece):
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/one-year-performance/video/1/
L'Hotel by Sophie Calle:
In 1981, Sophie Calle spent three weeks working as
chambermaid in a hotel in Venice. This allowed her to spy on the guests:
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/hotel/
Tompkins
Square Park Crawl by William
Pope.L:
Barbie
Liberation Organization:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVT4T7OR3iQ
Crowd Control by Tania Bruguera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7L1s_GWn3o
Gesture Two:
Using any type of camera, to record only segments of
your body doing the same performance you did last week. BRING DOCUMENTATION TO
CLASS. Each TA Block will review and discuss everyoneÕs work.
CLASS THREE: Jan 20th – Ephemeral
Gestures:
Gestures that employ short-lived
materials, a significant aspect of the practice of many modern and contemporary
artists who reject more traditional media, such as oil paint, marble, and
bronze, which were chosen for their ability to stand the test of time.
Fountain (1917) by
Marcel Duchamp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIr-4oZTHD0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_%28Duchamp%29
Cut Piece (1965) by
Yoko Ono
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYJ3dPwa2tI
Jessica Stockholder's site-specific interventions and
autonomous floor and wall pieces:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIcD0rLQWk0 - t=16
Lick and Lather by
Janine Antoni
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nD1y0iTz5U
Allan Kaprow Yard, Reinvented by
William Pope L
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk-vyLO6X4E
GESTURE THREE:
Using any type of camera record a performance of your
making something.
Many performances involve making, from concrete objects to ephemeral or
immaterial things, to traces of actions, to records of actions, to waste
products resulting from actions. Choose one of these approaches and develop a
performance that is organized around the act of making.
BRING DOCUMENTATION TO CLASS. Each TA Block will review and discuss everyoneÕs
work.
CLASS FOUR: Jan 27th - Photographs as Gestures,
Gestures for Photographs
May 2011 - 120 Model
Tableau Vivant - Skylight One Hanson from Sarah Small's Tableau
Vivant:
Thoughts
on the Work of Hannah Wilke
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/zoebrigley/entry/deconstructing_the_feminine/
Cindy
Sherman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421914688&x-yt-cl=84503534&v=I6MyCErU2Y0
Mariko
Mori
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-0KPS1ZzDw
Nikki
S. Lee - images
http://www.tonkonow.com/lee.html
Photographer Nikki S. Lee Can Turn Into
Anyone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI8xpJItPVI
GESTURE FOUR:
Most of the history of performance actually is known
through photographs. Many performance artists rejected the use of photographic
documentation in the 50s and 60s, and also elaborated a critique of the
objectification of performance through photography. On the other hand, many
artists create performances exclusively for the camera. For this session, you
should choose to create one of two kinds of performance: either a performance
that incorporates the process of photographing the artist into the act itself
(other students can act as photographers) or a performance that is presented as
a photograph or series of photographs, or a performance that uses the
photograph against the photograph as a performance and then photograph it.
BRING DOCUMENTATION TO CLASS. Each TA Block will
review and discuss everyoneÕs work.
CLASS FIVE: Feb. 3 - Naked/Nude Gesture
Seedbed by
Vito Acconci (1972)
http://www.ubu.com/film/acconci_seedbed.html
November 10, 2005: Marina Abramovic
re-performing: Vito Acconci, Seedbed, Found at
00:09:42 (Time into video):
http://www.ubu.com/film/abramovic_seven.html
Post-Porn
Performance Art by Annie Sprinkle:
http://xhamster.com/movies/816806/annie_sprinkle_on_stage.html
SEXECOLOGY
by Annie Sprinkle & Elizabeth Stephens:
http://www.dance-tech.net/video/sexecology-annie-sprinkle
"I'm
An Ass ManÓ by Karen Finley:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv7_zyIvJas
Frankly
Speaking by Frank Moore:
La Ribot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jruElNdVaQ
GESTURE
FIVE:
For
this session use any type of camera to create a performance of your naked/nude
self. Use the camera as a confession machine or as a disciplinary machine. You
could tell us secrets, show us your tattoos or sit naked eating lunch. Just be
naked! Which does not mean that you have to be nude. One can be over dressed
and still completely naked and raw.
BRING DOCUMENTATION TO CLASS. Each TA Block will review
and discuss everyoneÕs work.
NO CLASS - Feb 10th
CLASS SIX:
Feb. 17th - Becoming Gender(s), Performing
Gender(s)
GUEST
LECTURER – ANGELA WASHKO
http://angelawashko.com/home.html
! Women Art Revolution
http://www.hulu.com/watch/503135
Judy Chicago on Q TV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rERrne0PFkI
Judy Chicago
http://www.judychicago.com/
Guerrilla Girls
http://www.guerrillagirls.com/
The Guerrilla Girls at the Feminist Future Symposium, MoMA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHVBZh5HBgc
Digital Drag Kings
http://www.technodyke.com/drag/default.asp
Becoming Dragon by Micha
Cardenas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHEDym1aOZs
Gender as Performance
http://www.theory.org.uk/but-int1.htm
EXTRA CREDIT GESTURE:
For this gesture use any type of camera/or
documentation to create a performance of
you as another gender, create; a disguise-as-drag, become a *third or forth*
gender, build an object that reflects your sense of gender in a public space,
become a dream gender...become another gender in public space.
CLASS SEVEN: Feb 24th –
Queer/Queering Gestures
TIM MILLER from ÒMY
QUEER BODYÓ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BflcTdtksWw
"MY SKIN IS A
MAP" from TIM MILLER from ÒMY QUEER BODYÓ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYgVXPenwLk
Holly Hughes from
ÒClit NotesÓ
http://playgallery.org/video/holly_hughes_performs/
Dyke Action Machine
Interview 1998
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV2RXqJIcRQ
Leigh Bowery by
Charles Atlas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VQVhkDDf14
Queer Technologies
– ÒHow to make a Gay BombÓ
http://www.queertechnologies.info/demonstrations/
CLASS
EIGHT: March
3rd
– The Body-as-Pain Rituals
Shoot
by Chris Burden (1971):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE5u3ThYyl4
Through The Night
Softly by Chris Burden (1973):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxmy4aQ1dZY
Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose (1993):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zdbu-0NHnU
I Miss You by Franko B (1999):
http://www.franko-b.com/portfolio/performance/
Huellas by Regina JosŽ Galindo (2003):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D46p71QdCTc
Perra by Regina JosŽ Galindo (2009):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGGEaVcPKxs
Estoy Viva - Regina JosŽ Galindo (Short Documentary):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXUmcOVsHFk
START YOUR WRITING 8 PAGE ESSAY
CLASS NINE: March 10th – Techno-Gestures
Stelarc:
http://stelarc.org/video/?catID=20258
Orlan:
http://www.orlan.eu/works/videos-dorlan-2/
0100101110101101:
http://0100101110101101.org/home/reenactments/performance-abramovic.html
http://0100101110101101.org/reenactment-of-vito-acconcis-seedbed/
Elle Mehrmand
Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0:
http://bang.transreal.org/
FINAL PAPER DUE MARCH 17th, 2015
MORE ON-LINE DOCUMENTATION OF PERFORMANCE ART
A
History of Gestures
Reading
and View:
Futurist Performance
Dada Sound
Poems
http://www.ubu.com/sound/dada.html
Surrealism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism
Linda Montano
http://www.bobsart.org/montano/
Translated Acts: Performance Art from East Asia
http://archiv.hkw.de/translated_acts.html
Media Art Net
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/mediaartnet/
The Practice of Everyday Life
Michel de Certeau
http://www.ubu.com/papers/de_certeau.html
Art and Advocacy
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/sl1.html
e-misferia (Latin American Performance and Politics)
http://hemi.nyu.edu/journal/2_2/splash.html
Art and Commitment
http://artandcommitment.umn.edu/webstream.html
New Visual Art Performance
http://performa-arts.org/not-for-sale/interviews