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Posts Tagged → performance
Student Debt
Student Debt by David Horvitz
Oh Dracula
In 1974, at the Utah Museum of Art in Salt Lake City, Chris Burden climbed into a “chrysalis”-like sac and had himself installed in between some of the museum’s exceedingly random 18th century paintings, with candles placed at his head and feet. And there he hid all day.
[via]
Random acts of beauty (and) nonsense
Zack Danger Brown has launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to fund the making of potato salad. He set a $10 goal and he already reached $34,108. Oh, Internet.
Media Burn: the ultimate media event
“Media Burn integrates performance, spectacle and media critique, as Ant Farm stages an explosive collusion of two of America’s most potent cultural symbols: the automobile and television. On July 4, 1975, at San Francisco’s Cow Palace, Ant Farm presented what they termed the “ultimate media event.” In this alternative Bicentennial celebration, a “Phantom Dream Car”—a reconstructed 1959 El Dorado Cadillac convertible—was driven through a wall of burning TV sets.”
more documentation here
Hyper Current Living
“Hyper Current Living is a performance by Ryder Ripps in which he “lives” and “works” at Red Bull Music Academy between April 28th and May 5th 2013 – he’ll be drinking Red Bull and creating digital stuff at hyper speed. In the stream, our output is valued by its proliferation and its likes and favs – what incentive is there to spend 4 years writing a novel if it will just be a link in a stream lasting a few hours? The piece brings this trait into light by designating a time and space to the creation of such fragmented, short interactions native to social media.”
Milking is the new planking
Conceptual Art Fail
The Story Of Bow & Arrow. Reloaded
Image by Systaime. And here is the original performance.
After Duchamp
ART SCHOOL HAZING RITUAL (AFTER DUCHAMP), 2012 – performance
Cycle of Experimental Art
“Cycle of Experimental Art”, (1968), Rosario, Argentina by Graciela Carnevale:
In the context of Fascist Argentina, Carnevale invited an audience to an exhibition where she locked them inside the gallery for over an hour without prior notice or explanation, until the crowd finally decided to smash the glass to escape.
Touchy, a human camera
Touchy is a human camera, who is blinded constantly until someone’s touch enables the opening of the automated shutters. While a continuous physical contact is maintained between Touchy and a user, the camera shoots a photo every 10 seconds.
[via designboom]
de/Rastra
The de/Rastra oscillographic synthesizer is a real-time audio/video instrument and computer-interfacing device that allows a performer to generate visualizations intrinsic tocathode ray tube technology while simultaneously creating the acoustic analog of the displayed imagery.
Let’s talk about art, said the fool to the idiot
“I would be humiliated if I found out that anything I did actually became a commercial success.” – Lydia Lunch
Bruce Nauman was planking before it was cool
Bas Jan Ader
Il meme “First World Problems”
Esiste un vero e proprio genere di video su Youtube che è stato efficacemente battezzato emotional porn. Confessioni accorate, pianti dirotti, richieste di aiuto. Un sito, Webcam Tears, che si presenta come un progetto artistico collaborativo, sta riunendo in questi giorni decine di contributi accomunati dal profluvio di lacrime davanti alla webcam, individuati come “la nuova pornografia” in un momento in cui mostrare la nudità è tutto meno che scioccante. I pianti che troviamo in queste pagine però hanno spesso l’aria di essere teatralmente messi in scena. E sono quasi soltanto di giovanni ragazze. Come se il piagnucolio fosse una prerogativa tutta femminile e solo adolescenziale.
Mentre guardavo questi video mi è venuto in mente I’m too sad to tell you, opera di Bas Jan Ader del 1971 in cui l’artista piangeva silenziosamente davanti alla videocamera.
Le webcam però ancora non c’erano e la sofferenza,vera o verosimile, viene qui messa a completo servizio dell’opera d’arte, in un tentativo di scuotere un pubblico borghese sempre più assuefatto e reso passivo dal fuoco incrociato del consumismo e di una fagocitante cultura televisiva.
Le connessioni visive e comportamentali tra la performance art degli Anni Sessanta e Settanta e alcune forme di espressione e auto-rappresentazione portate alla ribalta dagli utenti del web sono sempre più numerose e sorprendenti. Eccone un’altra qui sotto. Nelle foto, rispettivamente, Bruce Nauman nel suo studio e un utente anonimo del Web alle prese con una delle più famose internet-manie: il planking.
Bruce Nauman
Il Planking
O restando su Bas Jan Ader (già che ci siete, la sua biografia va letta):
Ma se c’è un genere davvero estremo su Youtube che riguarda gli adolescenti, non è quello dei pianti né quello del planking o del falling. Sono i video intitolati “Am I Pretty or Am I Ugly“, in cui ragazzini da ogni parte del mondo (spesso bambini) si espongono al giudizio degli utenti del Web chiedendo un parere sul proprio aspetto fisico, pronti ad affrontare qualsiasi tipo di reazione, dalla più gentile e adulatoria alla più aggressiva e devastante. E tutti insistono su un punto: vogliono sapere la verità. A qualsiasi costo. “Be honest, I can handle it”, dice la ragazzina bionda. Le insicurezze tipiche del periodo adolescenziale si trasformano in uno spettacolo amaro; la ricerca di conferme è assurdamente spericolata. Tanta gente piange per finta, sia davanti a una webcam che nella cosiddetta “vita reale”, ma la messa a nudo qui è davvero radicale. E fin troppo vera.
Propulsion Paintings
Blitz
Spinning Beach Ball of Death
Spinning Beach Ball of Death, a performance by Improv Everywhere:
“For our latest mission, a presenter at the TED conference has his talk interrupted by the Mac spinning wait cursor, commonly known as the “Spinning Beach Ball of Death.” As he stands awkwardly and waits, things get weird.”
Punishment
Punishment is a new series of works by Julius von Bismarck:
“The title of the exhibition points to a pre-Christian legend that says that the Achaemenid King and Egyptian Pharaoh Xerxes had the strait at Hellespont punished with 300 lashes, after bridges that had been built on his order were destroyed by a storm shortly after construction.
Julius von Bismarck took up this anger allegorically for his new series of works. From October to December 2011 he went on a journey through Switzerland, South America and the United States armed with a whip. At impressive locations he plays with the rhetorical power of this traditional retaliation, whipping nature, defying its power, until he is exhausted. In a contemporary context, he thus rebels against socialization and, as a modern Sisyphus, questions value patterns which are conveyed to people today by societal constructs and authorities.”
Pussy Riot strikes back
“Feisty anti-Kremlin activists — the ones that terrorized the Red Square with purple smoke bombs and an illegal performance of their hardcore tune Putin Pissed Himself – strike again! Pussy Riot crashed Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour with their new anthem Virgin, Exorcise Putin! and its catchy chorus of “Holy shit, shit, shit/Holy shit, shit, shit.” Watch the video as they trash around and get dragged out by security and Russian nuns.”
[via animalny]
We Live in Public
I just stumbled upon the story of Josh Harris. How did I miss this until now???
“Josh Harris is the founder of Jupiter Communications and Pseudo.com. The dot-com pioneer dreamed up legendary art project Quiet: We Live in Public, a late ’90s spycam experiment that placed more than 100 artists in a “human terrarium” under New York City, with webcams capturing their every move. It ended badly, and Harris’ personal life later took a dive when he tried a similarly intimate stunt in his own loft. ”
Here’s a documentary.
The Antics Roadshow
The Antics Roadshow is an hour-long special made by Banksy charting the history of behaving badly in public, from anarchists and activists to attention seeking eccentrics.
Contributors include Michael Fagan talking about breaking into the Queen’s bedroom: ‘I looked into her eyes, they were dark’; and Noel Godin, who pioneered attacking celebrities with custard pies: ‘Instead of a bullet I give them a cake’.
Explaining his reasoning behind the show, Banksy said: ‘Basically I just thought it was a good name for a TV programme and I’ve been working back from there’.
Narrated by Kathy Burke and produced by Jamie D’cruz, The Antics Roadshow examines the stories behind some of the most audacious stunts of recent times and what motivates the perpetrators, from mindless boredom to heartfelt political beliefs.
It includes a world exclusive first interview with the man responsible for putting the turf Mohican on Winston Churchill’s head.
Storie di gente distesa. E di teste nel freezer
I memes non sono soltanto gif animate, personaggi bizzarri ed espressioni vernacolari. A volte, gli elementi replicanti prendono la forma del “comportamento”, dell’azione insensata, inutile e improduttiva. Qualcuno dà il via alle danze e milioni di persone seguono il suo esempio, replicando il comportamento iniziale secondo infinite varianti. L’azione viene reinterpretata, coverizzata, stravolta e ricopiata. Spostata di contesto, mescolata con nuovi elementi, reinventata.
Per chi ha un po’ di confidenza con l’arte contemporanea, non è difficile riconoscere in queste azioni il DNA di molte correnti artistiche fondamentali del secondo Novecento, come la performance art e l’arte concettuale. La performance come atto spontaneo, non teatrale e dis-funzionale. L’arte concettuale per la centralità accordata all’idea e alla sua formalizzazione in un set di “istruzioni”. Istruzioni eseguibili da chiunque.
Qualche esempio di comportamento / performance virale?
Planking, ossia sdràiati a pancia sotto nei luoghi più impensati, fatti una foto, mettila su Facebook. Di origine australiana.
Tag 241543903, ossia metti la testa nel freezer, fatti una foto, caricala su Flickr e aggiungi un tag numerico.
In questo caso, la commistione con l’arte è ancora più evidente. L’iniziatore del “gioco” è infatti David Horvitz, artista concettuale doc, che nell’aprile 2009 postò sul suo Tumblr una serie di “istruzioni” come parte di un progetto più ampio che cita famose opere degli anni Sessanta e Settanta (basta pensare agli instruction pieces di Yoko Ono).
Il prossimo quale sarà? E’ già arrivato, si chiama Owling…
P.S. nel freezer la testa ce l’ho messa anche io :-)
BYOB Venice 2011: photos and video
BYOB Venice has been short (rain came to disturb us after a couple of hours), but very cool!
More info: http://www.byobworldwide.com
Sewing Machine Orchestra
“Sewing machine orchestra is the first version of a performance created by Martin Messier. The basic sounds used in this performance consist entirely of the acoustic noises produced by 8 sewing machines, amplified by means of microcontacts and process by a computer.”
(Via TRIANGULATION BLOG)
Retrotv: Yves Klein
Be Your Own Souvenir
Be Your Own Souvenir project by Blablabla:
“This proposal aims to connect street users, arts and science, linking them to under-laying spaces and their own realities. The installation was enjoyed during two weekends in January 2011 by the tourists, neighbours of La Rambla and citizens of Barcelona, a city that faces a trade-off between identity and gentrification, economic sustainability and economic growth.
This shapes through a technological ritual where the audience is released from established roles in a perspective exchange: spectator-performer, artist-tourist, observer-object.
The user becomes the producer as well as the consumer through a system that invites him/her to perform as a human statue, with a free personal souvenir as a reward: a small figure of him/herself printed three-dimensionally from a volumetric reconstruction of the person generated by the use of three structured light scanners (kinect).
The project mimics the informal artistic context of this popular street, human sculptures and craftsmen, bringing diverse realities and enabling greater empathy between the agents that cohabit in the public space.”
(Via iGNANT)
King Philip IV of Spain autograph signing
From “the prank collective” Improv Everywhere: King Philip IV of Spain autograph signing:
“For our latest mission we staged an unauthorized autograph signing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art with an actor who bears a striking resemblance to King Philip IV of Spain. Standing in front of the 400-year-old Velázquez painting, the “King” greeted museum patrons and offered free signed 8×10 photos.”
Highscreen: net art on dying screens
Highscreen, 2011, by Aram Bartholl:
“In this public intervention ‘HIGHSCREEN‘ I revived dumped CRT screen from the streets of Berlin to show Internet art on them before they eventually go to electronic hell. Featured works in this intervention: ‘404’ by JODI 1997, ‘C.R.E.A.M.’ by Evan Roth 2010, ‘therevolvinginternet.com’ by Constant Dullaart 2010, ‘Super Mario Clouds’ by Cory Arcangel 2002″
Asking Random People If They Have Seen Themselves
This guy is a total genius…
[via]