Week 8 – Rehearsing and Discussion

READINGS FROM WEEK 8 SESSION

• “Certain Fragments” Tim Etchelles
• The beginning for Live Art can be traced back as early as the 1950’s and had a complete rationale and group of Practitioners by 1970.
• Introducing this style of performance into this era could have been a difficult task for British society as the 1950’s was post WW2. The British public where constantly reminded by the skeletons of what was once their brilliant empire. Whether it be in London with the bomb broken buildings or in the fields that were scattered by military bases.
• This controlled style of society distinguished any kind of imagination the public. So creating a new style of anything would have meant a new style of change for everyone. Which was something that the British had been through enough of already.
• However, as Britain began to re-build its greatness and people started to develop their own opinions again Live Art began to attract attention because of its difference.
• A loosely founded group, Fluxus, were a global collection of practitioners but mostly based in New York City. The founding man of this group; George Maciunas. He describes his rationale for FLUXUS as; “A fusion of Spike Jones, Gag’s, Games, Vaudaville, Cage and Duchamp.”
• FLUXUS wanted to change the world not just the Art world – Destroy the boundaries between both Life and Art.
• ‘FLUXUS is anti-art’ – to underscore the revolutionary mode of thinking about the practise and process of thinking.
• This Art group wanted to mock ‘high art’ and they used influences from such as DADA for his use of humour to present their true intent on the piece.
• The playful manner of this groups pieces they were however serious about the true context for their group, about gaining the right balance that is deserved for the Arts.
• Their performance mainly relied on the audience’s individual interpretations to change and mould the outcome. Their performances were based on the process and development of creating the piece rather than the actually performance.
• John Cage was a heavy influence on the group due to his beliefs of the art world – Art should be work that doesn’t have a definite end. The development stages count not the finish product.
• The most important piece that the group did together was called “Total Art Matchbox” – This performance was a matchbox that contained matches which also had instructions on. These instructions read;
• “USE THESE MATCHES TO DESTROY ALL ART – MUSEUMS AST LIBRARY’S – READY-MADE-POP-ART-AND AS I BEN SIGNED EVERYTHING WORK OF ART- BURN-ANYTHING-KEEP-LAST MATCH FOR THIS MATCH.”
• FLUXUS – commonly created performances that created identical objects that they used in their performances to devalue the object.

• This reading was written with colloquial language.
• EXPLORATION:
• The writer went on a tour in a van – the van parked up on an evening – When he woke the next morning he realised he was in a seaside resort due to the waves he could hear.
• HARBBISSON – Spoke of the process of arriving somewhere at night and exploring in the day- This term is called VEILD ARRIVAL – ‘Acting out and allegory of knowledge’

The next example given was:

• Describes a city and every detail he saw he documented – “walking and talking was named a part of the process … crowds of cider boys gathering laughing … Gateways supermarket … In the streets we’d see the old guy directing traffic … Cardboard houses under the bridge … the old advertising slogans … all of these things made our performance.”
• A smart dressed male – busy city- he began running through the streets between the bustling people and stood himself flat on the side of a building as if to hold up the building – He then tilted his head backwards and looked up to the building as if to check for curvature of the building.
• People of the public commented and said that he looked to be keeping the city alive by checking the movements of each building – This man repeats this same route of the city checking every building he comes across – JEREMY WOOD / DANIELLE RODGERS – Every day at the same time.
• Burned out buildings that had the words “GET WELL SOON” wrote all over the – a telephone box that all fang at the same time of day for no one – ARE ALL OF THESE LINKED?
• He as a spectator is left to make his own opinions, speculations and connections to create an ending for the piece.

MAPPING

• Created am instillation gallery piece names “Ground Plans for Paradise”
• This piece was created using a model city that was completely deserted and made of 1’000 balsa wood blocks that were situated on top of a breves block plinth – Above these toweres are photos of sleeping faces take by HUGO GLENDINNING – Can be perceived many ways but most commonly are thought to be angles that’s are looking/dreaming of the streets bellow.
• The reading also mentioned that cities are made of places created from passion, fears and narrative echoes of the 21^st century. ( Dave’s Shirtless Chip shop, Love street, The Blood Club, Hope Street)
• GROUP DISCUSSION
• Discussed the to-do for the day, which didn’t partake as we had to peer view our entire group workings. This did help slightly to give us all insight into how others perceived Site specific workings.
• We did want to rehearse the giving and receiving of flowers between our group and the audience.
• However we did manage to get in some library research and planning of our performance before this happened.
• GROUP SESSION
• We spoke about Nick Kaye’s introduction to Site Specific.
• Michael Fried and his theory of how sculptures can become performances in their own way.
• We watched a video based on Fried and Greenburg’s ideals and arguments for Site specific.
• Both of these men agreed that Art of this style should be kept in the same space and that there was distinct difference between abstract art and Minimalism. Neither like Minimalistic art because of its simplicity.
• Greensburg’s theory was that art should be superior to normal life and when it was superior it then became good art.
• Embracing Object hood – By this they mean that objects are in the same time zone as us – that art can be seen every second.
• Donald Judd – a practitioner of minimalism – He didn’t like the time zone theory – He wanted real space because he believed that it was more realistic to look at and art shouldn’t be a lie. This style of art needed an audience to be completed.
• Abstract art on the other hand was more about the process of getting their rather than focussing on the end result.