White, Black, and Lime

[wbandl]

Brevity is the Soul of- is a piece that demonstrates the struggle for the artist -or really for anyone- when dealing with the constraints of time. While I am acting in the scene I spend the entirety of the piece setting up and then taking down. When we set out to a project there is so much time that goes into not only physically starting but also mentally preparing oneself to work. Often times this “readying” duration results on one being pressed for time and sometimes finding themself out of it. I spend all my time setting up, prepping both my area and myself, only for my timer to go off and for me to then have to begin the clean up process short of having actually accomplished anything. While one in a sea of complaints to the structures and bindings of time that proves unconducive to work this work is still relevant as the problems persist both in and out of the academic setting. Over and over we are told that our ‘petty’ grievances are ubiquitous and characteristic of the ‘real world’ and slowly by this we are conditioned to follow regime and structure. One of these structures is time and we are all slaves to it. We live our lives and schedule our days around things like deadlines that are framed in windows that simply cannot happily accommodate that which is expected to have been produced within them. This is to say nothing on the nature of how some days are simply more productive than others for no explainable reason, ‘least not explainable to an official satisfaction. This is potentially a struggle without solution as life is unpredictable and so even if there weren’t deadlines and predefined durations there would still be those things that come up and interrupt the creative and working processes. Even isolation wouldn’t work as there are things internally that would keep one from maintaining a consistent working pace. Interruptions are inevitable but whether or not they can simply be moved past or if they bring the entire process to a halt define this struggle for those who just need the time to work. As this statement is for the class I will also address some of the choices I’ve made regarding my final result. I chose not to go with having multiple timers as the timer was to clearly punctuate the transition between my time to work and my time to clean up and go. The timer only sounds twice to act as the transitory tool to change the scene and then as a second reminder that I like everyone are controlled by time. I felt that by having more alarms going off and silencing them I was delaying the inevitable which, while a similar idea, shows some manner of control over my environment when I am supposed to be directly affected by it and be powerless to just how much time I have. There is no snooze on some deadlines and while having multiple alarms is a neat idea it doesn’t really match with what I wanted to say.

[wbandl]

Requisitions for Performance

(Bolded is what I need, standard is what I plan on providing)

Title: Brevity is the soul of-

Duration: No more than 8 minutes (4-6 min)

Tech Needed: Phone and other devices that can be used as timers and to produce sound. (Provided by me and whatever can be sourced up without trouble)

Lighting Needed: Directed overhead track lighting

Props Needed: A desk, a chair to sit at said dest, whatever clocks that can be reasonably acquisitioned, my own supplies/equipment/packs.

Clean Up: Moving of a desk and chair

[wbandl]

This piece is a revisitation of an earlier piece RailsAtMetro (https://youtu.be/DYrxkm7OOH0). While the original piece was following the assignment of walking a straight line over something it became a comentairy on a situation I have found myself and others encounter: getting trapped on the access ramp at the Aurora Metro Train Station only to realize -after running eight times the distance- that there is a much quicker set of stairs. This revisit returns to those stairs and to the villainous ramp only now, while I know the stairs are there -even after using them a few times- I openly choose to climb down the ramp railings as I had before. There are many things that we as humans get into trouble for or suffer embarrassment over simply because we did something that we knew better than to do. Why then did we do it in the first place? Assuming that the individual isn’t a complete moron and was operating deliberately against what they should do: what small victory therein can be found? Now that I’m not scaling the ramp to get somewhere but am doing it despite the superior decision -what do I stand to gain? Is that even the point?

[wbandl]

For me life feels like a constant uphill battle. Some who share this sensation seem to take pride in their accomplishments and their participation to continuously trekking up their own staircase. I however find the process a bit redundant: constantly working one’s way up while keeping your eyes on the ground and for what? There may be a plateau at the top where there’s nowhere to go, there may be a descent of ease and luxury after all your work, or there may be more stairs to climb until you can’t climb anymore. Then where will we be?

[wbandl]

A piece about the meticulous process of creation and the destruction there of then the picking up and starting again. This work addresses a situation of monotonous repetition and the closure of completing the task at hand only to stop moments before completing and starting over. This work illustrates the obvious metaphor for running the track of life but without any of the closure of ever actually finishing anything. To make matters worse it isn’t even a task that needs doing and the materials aren’t even particularly valuable. The question there being would anyone even care if the job wasn’t done and just how many things that we do for hobbies are the same way and could go without doing to no one’s detriment.

[wbandl]

WhatTheScreenSees

A hobby of mine, and evidently millions, is gaming and often for way too long. An example of this that comes to mind immediately would be the popular game League of Legends that is infamous not only for its horrible community but also its rather lengthy game times. During these thirty minute to an hour windows users veg out and are hardly flattering or icons of the popularized, commercial gamer image -what, with their tidy hair, clean skin, and exuberant participation over every little event ingame. For thirty-nine minutes I played a (winning) game and recorded my face straight on. While it didn’t feel like any more than fifteen the final time came down to thirty-nine minutes and one second. This bizzare accelerated passage of time is inherent to any moment where we lose ourselves in our work (or play) and an hour becomes a few minutes. For these ‘few minutes’ I have captured what the object of attention, the screen in this case, sees in a timely format that also reflects the passage of time as thirty-nine minutes becomes just less than five.

[wbandl]

Performance walk from the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art to The Railyard Dog Park via the directions for Trafalgar Road (London) to the Yogscast Studios (Bristol) but vastly smaller. A bit structured for a Dérive but vastly educational nonetheless. 

[wbandl]

OffPhone I try to make a phone call on my phone. Typically a simple thing to do but not when one’s phone is off. Refusing to be deterred I try whatever I might to make a call on *specifically* an off phone before deciding to leave it to “charge” and try again later. The definition of insanity is never learning your lesson when faced with failure: that is why I try many different things in vain hopes to one day accomplish my mission. 

[wbandl]

A quick performance about my favourite little zig-zag that I have seen many a person attempt to run down after getting off of a bus in order to catch a train that wasn’t going to wait for you anyway. If only they had seen the much shorter stairs adjacent rather than getting trapped in what is otherwise a bit of a commitment.  https://youtu.be/DYrxkm7OOH0 (if It doesn’t work)

[wbandl]

The Satire Paradox

Q: Who do you remember now? Sarah Palin- or Tina Fey’s Palin? -Comedians have become our truth tellers. C: I’m reminded of a conversation between two drag queens (UnHhhh Episode 80:”Apologies” with Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova) where they discuss the reality of comedians being called on to apologise for what they’ve said but never politicians. Comedy is born out of tragedy and there is nothing more tragic than the injustices of the world. What's more people will only see what they want to and in the instance of Colbert liberals will assume that they’re in the right and vice versa for conservatives. Q: Is there some seed of success in humour and satire with the intensity of what is portrayed? There is that expression “go big or go home” and is the secret to success trying to offend everyone by calling them out so that both sides see the monsters that they want to?

[wbandl]

Dada and Anti-Art: Chapter 11

Q: If I understand him rightly, he is not so much interested in richness as in simplification: establishing a line of demarcation between oneself and all that is vague and nebulous. He wants to purify the imagination, directing attention not so much to its store of images as to the stuff of which those images are made. C: The obnoxious thing about Dada is how it was anti-art and is now viewed as proto art for a ‘disestablishmental’ field of art. And because Dada is so diverse it is hard to really set any limits on what is is or can be which makes it difficult because it wasn’t well received at the time of its conception and is now brilliant. Each noteworthy piece was created on different principles and with different goals and can only be appreciated AFTER the fact which means it can’t adequately be judged and is permanently unattainable. Q: Has Dada been hijacked by the realists who want to find truth in everything and is that why it has become so popular?

[wbandl]

The Joy of Anti-Art: Subversion Through Humour in Dada

Q: Much has been said to the effect that the everyday is already heavily aestheticized, while art is losing its romantic mission to subvert. C: Theres a rather interesting point in here about the T-Shirt as a subversive artistic media and while I adore that idea I think it is mostly because it borders the dreaded aestheticising of life and the kitch. Theistically there are some issues with this for both the art world and the Dadaists which I suppose is why it is a”dramatically opposed point of reference” Q: Is the essence of Dada similar to the pure essence of art: to create without external interference? Or more planely, to create independent of the art world in one’s own interest?

[wbandl]

Machismo Ain’t Just for Boys Anymore

Q: Allowing hybridized gender to be rhythmic and animated by showmanship was exciting. Although, it is tempting to link Jocson to the drag king tradition, a woman appropriating Manila’s specific style of male dancing is simply without any widely known precedent. C: It seems an easy direction to start when you want to make a statement is to just go after what you aren’t. Ala Woman after Men, Gay after Straight, Colour after White; and isn’t it curious how the ‘isn’t’ always opposes one particular member of the demographics? Q: Are there examples of performance art where the artist isn’t ‘going after’ anything? That they want the viewer to think but not to about social justice and norm, or are these the only pieces we consider to be ‘worth it’?

[wbandl]

Jackass: Transgression, Abjection, and the economy of White Masculinity

Q:Burlesque directed its barbs at ‘high culture’, capturing a particular class-consciousness that sought to lampoon social hierarchies. Indeed, the burlesque performer ‘was a transgressive other, whose “business” was predicated on subverting and perverting the very essence of the legitimate theatre. She was a low other, dragged up from the netherworld of the working-class saloon’’ (Allen, 1991, p. 125) C: I can see this essay being poorly received and to be completely honest I am one of the individuals for whom this document’s thesis strikes as undeserved. However it is curious that the moronic self harm inflicted on oneself can be perceived as ‘in reaction to’ movements rather than just one stuntman doing the only thing he’s good at with his buddies. While I’m not buying that Jackass is parody it is interesting perspective to get out of the undeserving “victim”. Q: Could the fact that literally anything could be a worthy cause and anything could be performance have something to do with the art world’s delegitimization of the art form? Are all performance art pieces inherently anti-art or are those the only examples we’ve been given thus far?

[wbandl]

Violence and the White Male Solo Performer

Q: The propagation and success of strong, distanced masculine images reasserted fantasies of both a masculinity that is self-evident and a cultural moment in which this masculinity retains cultural privilege. C: A good amount of self image comes from the Lacanian “mirror phase” and that is further perpetuated and warped by the cannon of images we see in the media. More simply our ideas of everything even ourselves are shaped by what we witness and take in via the media as truth everyday. Q: Is violence or the shock there of the only way to covertly question the viewer about their supposed identity and are there other examples of this in performance art’s history?

[wbandl]

Impossibility of freedom

Q: “It’s like painting in the rain-” Todrick Hall

C: Experience is the best teacher and by experiencing the torment of torrent both Scott and his viewers were treated to the horrors of civil subjugation in our past.  

Q: What lines are people okay with an artist crossing? What if this were to be performed by a white individual or is authorship everything?

[wbandl]

Dread Scott Enacts the images of oppression

Q: “-it was important for them to see, as they don’t get to see performance art. Many students or adults don’t know what performance art is.”

C: It’s important to remember that each performance may be the first for someone and as such you will want to leave an impact, whether that impact is one of fondness and curiosity or shock and bewilderment. Equally as important is knowing not to overstep the mark you’ve made for yourself because all things can turn ugly and lose their temper when under the wrong kind of stress.

Q: How do performance artists get to a point where they are partnered with institutions to do works? Some individuals would whine that there isn’t an artworld recognition of performance art but that obviously isn’t true so to what end do they require recognition beyond the ephemeral attention these artists already have for their productless work?