msu performance art

[samdavick-art]

Project 5 - Open Work

At the beginning of the semester for my Seven Easy Pieces, I recreated one of Dagnini’s “Private Performances” ( where I writhed covered in paint in the bathtub). It had me thinking though, what would a private performance look like for me? I had a few ideas but none of them really resonated with me like this one. So I decided to record a video of myself singing in the car for y’all.

Ever since I was able to talk, I loved to sing. It was such a huge part of my life until I graduated high school. From belting my lungs out at home, to singing soprano solos at my mom’s church, and being involved in any local musical I could find, it’s always been a massive part of my identity. But for a variety of complex reasons, I stopped singing in front of others. Once I entered adulthood it became something that I wanted to keep to myself. I think I mostly used my voice as a tool to receive validation from others. Perhaps I felt like my voice had been taken from me, and I needed to reclaim it for myself.

In the past year though, I think that I’ve really come to terms with my insecurities. The things that I have had to endure, that took my voice from me, are no longer crippling. Now that I’ve been able to reclaim it, I would love to share the joy it brings me with others again.

It’s been a lovely semester. Hope y’all enjoy.

-Sam

[samdavickart]

Performance Artist 14 - Vanessa Beecroft

For my final performance artist post, I decided to write about Vanessa Beecroft. An Italian-born American multidisciplinary artist, Beecroft is mostly well known for her works of performance. The most critically acclaimed works have been described as “living-paintings”. Her work is a great example for examinations of the body as these large-scale performances often involve multiple female models. Thematically, she mostly works to criticize perceptions of gender and the feminine body. 

[dunlapel]

Project #4: Participation

This project was, in all honesty, the most fun I’ve had in this class. For my performance, I decided to play Super Smash Bros Ultimate with my boyfriend. He doesn’t really like being on camera but the fact that we were playing one of his favorite games made him more willing to make an appearance. We’ve been together for nearly 3 years and we always play this when we’re feeling a bit competitive. I used to be absolutely horrible at the game but over the years he taught me how to properly play and now I can sorta hold my ground against him in a fight. This game is almost nostalgic to me in a way because it helps me look back on the early part of our relationship where we played this all the time. Now with our busy schedules, we play it once in a blue moon. This game is always a fun experience to play with him because I can see how much I’ve improved overtime even if he always wins. I loved that I got to do a performance with him in it since he is such a big part of my life. I’m glad that I got this experience with him.

For reference in the video, I’m playing as Kirby and he is playing as Mewtwo

Strong language warning

[samdavickart]

This was a really sweet way to involve your boyfriend in this project. I’m glad to see that y’all are still having so much fun even after three years together!

[taylorcozart]

Project #4 | Participation

For me, I am very drawn to simplistic forms of relaxing and art making. I enjoy allowing myself to wonder aimlessly as I talk, watch, listen and more on a piece of paper and see what comes to life afterwards. For participation, I enlisted the help of my partner, who finds himself sometimes getting agitated at the fact that he is not “good” at art. With that in mind, I made sure to explain that the watercolors that we were doing were just for fun. We enjoyed ourselves as we soaked up the sun, laughed, listened to music, and talked about the latest family drama. He, and myself were lost in the moment and in pure enjoyment of each others company while playing out narratives or meaningless shapes on a canvas. It was fun to watch the person that I love come to life as he created a story of “Zeus smiting people” as he put it… The act of participation no matter how big or how small can make a lasting and enjoyable impact on the ones that we love the most. It was an experience that we both enjoyed as we could be in the moment and create silly art that had no rhyme or reason other than for the pure intentions of it being fun and wholesome. 

Music: Gravity, The Infamous Stringdusters 

[samdavickart]

This is so fun and wholesome Taylor! I’m so glad to see that you got your partner to enjoy some art-making, even if it was just for a moment.

[muchbetterinmydreamsblr]

Project 4

For this project I was having quite a hard time finding something to do and decided to take the route of having participants through technology. I did a series of poll stories on my Instagram that allowed my followers to dictate and create my look. From wig to outfit to makeup style I let other people make those choices for me and it was a fun way to have participants without physically being around others! I was hoping to do something a bit more extravagant but this idea fit best with my timing and availability and I am pleased with the outcome. After taking in the choices made by my peers I just made a short video on TikTok to have some kind of physical receipt that I followed the choices that were made for me!

[samdavickart]

This was such a great way to let social media participation dictate a performance! I also really love your choice in songs for your lip-synchs.

[infiniteimpdrive]

Project 4 - Participation

I played the live stream, but no one joined. (I did have more instructions via the stream title) The few that were a "maybe" didn't make it, so I played a little over 13 minutes solo while a handful of folks filtered in and out. I'd like to redo this, but plan ahead a bit more and have more people actually committed to participating instead of just hoping folks want to play along. I also think I should probably lessen the fancy lights etc on my end, so that it seems more inviting/casual. Here are the droney noisy sounds that I made...

[samdavickart]

I totally found myself zoning out to this audio, it’s really mesmerizing. I hope more friends show up to your next live stream!

[pcardoza426]

Project 4 Participation

I can wear makeup out in public with less concern what others think. I can put on a ridiculous amount of eyeliner and eyeshadow, but still feel somewhat confident. Feeling insecure in public happens, but it’s at home when I feel the worst. Something about my family seeing me with my face full of makeup that creates this strong sense of guilt and embarrassment. I displayed this in the last project, but wanted to take it a step further in this one, and face this fear. I had my mother in the room as I applied lipstick. As I did this I talked about this guilt and embarrassment I feel. I began shivering and I struggled to say my words. I knew I was scared, but the feeling was a lot more intense than I imagined.

I then asked her to simply respond to what I did. She questioned why I apply makeup on me, and if there’s a message I was trying to send with it. The only thing I responded  was that it just brought me joy. Although the conversation turned into a little religious lecture, it did end on a positive note. She basically stated that I should do what makes me feel comfortable in my appearance. I’m unsure how to feel after this project. 

Apologies for not recording this instead of just having a single picture. I felt it would of altered our reactions, and it’s a bit too personal for me.

[samdavickart]

I think this is really quite beautiful Pablo. Thank you so much for sharing this moment with us, and I am really glad to hear that you’ve been able to open a dialogue with your mom about your self expression. Congratulations!!

[metrostate0930-deactivated20210]

Participation

Artist‘s Statement I love food, and sometimes process of making something you like is therapeutic.  My mom makes very simple version of (Mongolian) pig in a blanket and they taste like heaven.  My kids usually dig out most of the piggies and me and my mom are left with the blankets.  While making pig in a blanket, I get to bond with my mom.  We talk about old things, new things, fun things, and perhaps little gossip.  Sometimes it even helps to think over things, make some plans, meditate, and just relax.

The anxiousness of waiting for the food, the smell, the final look of the product, they all can be very overwhelming yet so satisfying.  Have you ever thought you made something not too good looking or not too good tasting, but ends up tasting amazing and looks just as awesome?  That’s what my mom felt making this particular piggies (since I’m hoovering over to take pictures).  And, how can I forget the most important people and their produces.  Here is Raheem and Reina with blankets for their piggies...

P.s this is a raw footage of the process, so please don’t mind the background noise.

[samdavickart]

This was such a sweet way to involve your family in this project! It really made me want a pig in a blanket to be honest.

[callforclarity]

Project 4: Participation

Artist statement:

For this project, I wanted to explore themes of intimacy, relationships, and connection. I was inspired by a documentary I watched recently on chimpanzees. The documentary discussed how they groom each other to build relationships. As I watched them gently and meticulously groom each other, I was touched by the tenderness and I was reminded of my relationship with my partner, and the relationships of so many of others. Like chimpanzees, we humans often groom each other as an act of love, whether it’s familial, platonic or romantic. My partner and I often do each other’s skincare routine at the end of a long day as an act of love and service. Like the chimpanzees, It’s these small acts and others like it that have kept us connected over the past 8 years. So for this performance, I filmed us doing our usual face routine. Through this performance, my partner and I highlight the less visible parts of intimacy through our grooming, silence, laughter, and of course, cringiness. As a by product of our Christian based patriarchy, we are often told that intimacy is found through sex, but intimacy is multifaceted, existing in so many different spaces, and within so many different acts.

https://youtu.be/dBy5mycu9D0

[samdavickart]

I really appreciate the parallels that you draw between your routines and those of our primate relatives. After all, we’re really just fancy monkeys right?

[emmashounmsu4d]

Artist statement- This piece is of me and my sister blindfolded both drawing flowers. For this project I really wanted to explore how the two of us think differently as siblings. I wanted to take something simple that we both used to draw all the time and examine that. You can see the vast differences in us just through this short video. Not only in how she chose to blindfold herself, but in how she is using an iPad and I am using a pen and paper. This is intresting to me because you would think something as simple as drawing a flower blindfolded would be really similar, but it wasn’t. in life she is much more technical than me, she is a bio science major and I think that this simple clip shows that well. I really enjoyed this project and it was interesting to make. When looking at the actual flowers themselves they show our styles and personalities as well. She has always drawn that way and so have I, so that was interesting to see as well. The flowers are also slightly similar, we started with the petals then went into the stem and leaves.

[samdavickart]

This was a really interesting way to explore the differences between siblings. I think that your flowers themselves look similar but I love that you pointed out the differences in approach.

[samdavickart]

Performance Artist 13 - Hungry

This week I decided to talk about another artist that I have been following on social media for quite sometime. Hungry is a “distorted drag” performer who is based out of Berlin, Germany. She models for incredible photographs, walk runways, and livestream shows on twitch every Friday. She creates incredibly conceptual looks using handmade accessories, makeup, hair, and collaborations with designers. You might be familiar with her for the iconic look she designed for Bjork’s album Utopia. I always look forward to Hungry’s new posts, if you don’t follow her already you’re missing out!!

[samdavickart]

Performance Artist - Week 12

For this week’s performance artist I chose to talk about an artist that I have followed on Instagram for a while, Hanna Lee Tidd. I think that it is really interesting how the ways that we consume social media has turned some people’s artistic practices into performances. I’m sure that she would not describe herself as a performance artist, but I think that there is a good argument for it. The real time videos that she posts of her one-stroke painting process absolutely fit the bill, and the products of these videos are stunning. 

[muchbetterinmydreamsblr]

Project 3-Site Specific Locations and Artist Statement

I will post two links to my video, hopefully one of the two will work. One is a YouTube link but I ran into copyright issues due to the song I used. The other is a link to an IGTV video on my instagram so whichever is easier! 

https://youtu.be/Fth1akGsxqo

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CNaHLZhDlVj/

Artist Statement: I was really looking forward to this project to create a performance that had some substance and gave me practice as a drag artist and just performance art in general. I spent a lot of time considering outfits, locations and songs and eventually put all the pieces together into something that I am proud of. Project three for me was basically a digital drag performance to song ‘Killer’ by Kali Uchis. To stick to the nature of performance art I wanted to only do one take with minimal editing because, to me performance art is about the individuality and uniqueness of a raw performance. So the video was the one and only take with a filter thrown on and clearer music over the video. The site is my partners basement and stairwell. The site, outfit, makeup, editing and song enhance the performance in creating a haunting, vintage, melancholy atmosphere. 

[samdavick-art]

I looooove this performance! Your outfit and makeup complimented the song so wonderfully. I hope to see you doing numbers like this up in the gay bars some day.

[callforclarity]

Site Specfic Performance

(Sorry it’s so late)

Artist statement:

I have a complicated relationship with death, as I’m sure many do. It fascinates me, it scares me, in many ways, it rules me. When I was 15, my boyfriend died by suicide and I developed post traumatic stress disorder. My fear of death controlled my actions, thoughts and relationships for many years. When I entered my 20s I began actively working to accept death as an inevitable part of life and work through this trauma. This cemetery I chose for my site specific performance has been a huge part of this on going healing process. I began coming here with my partner about 3 years ago. Here I can appreciate the temporality of life and I think about how the energy of people who have passed never ceases to exist, and I find comfort. I have taken so much from this place, for this performance, I wanted to give to it. The graves that line this cemetery are predominately from the late 1800’s, early 1900’s, many seem long forgotten. For this performance, I bought a bouquet of roses, the flower of gratitude, and placed them at the graves. I did this to give back, to remember, and to pay homage to the space that has aided in confronting my own prolonged grief and acknowledge how far I have come.

(Sound warning: I left the sound in the video because I think its essential to the space, but it was very windy, so for the sake of your ears turn down your volume to low before clicking on the video)

[samdavickart]

This was such a beautiful performance knowing the context of your experience.  Thank you so much for feeling comfortable to share this with us, and for bringing some beauty to these people’s graves.

[vastgerm]

Site Specific Situations

Soil is one of the most integral elements of life on earth. I knew I wanted to work with it in some capacity, at first planning on digging a hole in the ground and burying myself in an attempt at being closer to the natural world. Instead, I brought it into my home. The bathtub setting is a more intimate one, and one that has connotations with cleanliness and self-care. The act of bathing in dirt could be seen as ironic, but to me it stirs thoughts of burial, rebirth, and how the human body continues to interact with the planet after life.

[samdavickart]

I really enjoy the way that you incorporate themes of the abject into your work! These photographs are such a beautiful form of documentation. 

[metrostate0930-deactivated20210]

Artist’s Statement.

We are going through a tough time due to the pandemic.  Some people are handling it the best way they can and some people are struggling, whether it’s financially, physically, or mentally.  Upon talking to my coworker about her mental health and how she’s doing through the pandemic, we came up with an idea for this site-specific project.  My coworker likes being at home, away from people due to her anxiety.  She was always ashamed of it because others would express how weird she is for it, or that being alone and not socializing with others is bad for her.  She would sometimes force herself to hang out with people, force conversations with people, and it made her miserable.  But, now she loves it, she saw how strong she can be, those that told her she was weird, can not even enjoy themselves at home.  She sees them complaining how they hate being at home, and that it’s killing them, sometimes they say it’s affecting their mentality and wants to commit suicide.  We saw this as an opportunity to learn ourselves, meditate, relax our minds.  Society often sees those who like being home, those who don’t like socializing with everybody as weirdos and that there must be something wrong with them.  Here’s my coworker enjoying her state of mind, her own freedom, love for herself, being her own person.  

P.S.

I do not own the copyrights to music.  YouTube would not upload the video, so I will post it here.

Cindy loves dancing, we choreographed this small piece together.  After long day of work, nothing feels more amazing than being in your own space and be you.  Introverts or extroverts, who cares, nothing is more beautiful than loving yourself and self care.  

[samdavickart]

I think this was a really interesting way to highlight the ways that people have been able to find silver linings in this tragic time! Thanks for sharing.

[performanceartlaurenduff-blog]

Blank Sign Experiment, Project #3 

During the fall semester a few class mates of mine were trying to film a dance video for one of our classes on the 16th street mall. We were asked to leave asked to leave various different locations of the mall before we could even start filming. We had white poster boards and I wondered if this had something to do with it. I went down to see if I could recreate and document the same experience as before. I took a blank poster board with nothing written on it and live streamed myself on Instagram. I was only asked that I couldn’t display a sign down there  and when I showed him the other-side of my blank poster board he did not ask me to leave. I was not really sure why this was different than it was before. Did they decide that because I was by myself it was not a big deal or had events from the summer passed longer and the security was not as worried? Did my skin color lead them to believe I was not a threat? After I had left down town I looked up what I had done a similar demonstration had been completed by Aslan Sagutdinov in Kazakhstan in 2019. He held up a blank sign to see if he would be detained and he in-fact was.  It leads us to question what is public space? When I was looking up my rights before going down there it says we all have freedom of speech but not necessarily freedom of where or when.  

[samdavickart]

I think this brings attention to a super interesting question - where is the line that something becomes a “public disturbance”? Is that line arbitrary? (yes)