When researching for my essay, I found it really interesting and informative to watch and read a variety of interviews conducted with the artists I was writing about.

• Marina Abramović

 

The following extract is transcribed from Carrie Scott’s above In Your Face interview with Abramović:

MA: As soon as I’m performing, I think that I um, I, I’m not playing somebody else, I’m just me.

CS: So do you think then, that there is a line between you and the work?

MA: I don’t think so, it’s a really blurred, maybe the beginning of my career there is a line but  then it’s blurred completely, because first of all I always work from the, my experience and then this experience, it’s about me experience them, and then I try to translate, that um, ideas into the work and then I try to find the key that this experience becomes transcendental so that everybody can find himself in, inside that work and become universal, because who cares about your own private life otherwise? (1)

This interview was not only helpful for considering Abramović’s ideas, concerns and aesthetics for my essay, but also informed my performance. The above quote made me realise the value and appropriateness of autobiographical work that is not explicitly ‘my life story from A-Z’. Instead, one can take a personal point and expand and distort it, to make it applicable to an wide audience, as we see Gray do with much of his work.

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• Spalding Gray

In his last recorded interview, Gray said “in order to live my life in a free and open way, I have to have a monologue going. That’s my way into the world.”  (2) This idea encouraged me to continue developing a piece based on personal experience and feelings, in order to process those things, whilst aiming to create a wide-reaching piece of social commentary.

 

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• Adrian Howells

This interview was conducted for the British Arts Council, with Howells discussing what his work aims to do and why.

AH: “I kind of feel that what I’m doing is almost like a collective catharsis, a global catharsis, that’s what I’m after, that’s what I’m interested in [chuckles].”

This quote really struck a chord with me as I was feeling like this was the sort of thing that, as a year group, we needed; because everybody’s in the same boat but nobody’s talking to each other and that’s horribly lonely and terrifying. Putting Howells’ idea on a more immediate scale, I could use solo as a platform to highlight and bridge some of the space between us as a collective, and perhaps in doing so ease not only my own anxiety but make clear to anyone in the audience feeling similarly that they were not alone. (3)

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(1) Abramović, Marina and Carrie Scott (2014)  In Your Face: Interview: Marina Abramović, Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRSvNVL0P-4 (accessed 6 February 2015).

(2) Smalec, Theresa (2008) ‘Spalding Gray’s Last Interview: The Edited Transcript’, New England Theatre Journal, 19 (2): pp. 53-69.

(3) Howells, Adrian (2010) An Interview with Adrian Howells, Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7btf8Tdg_s (accessed April 2015).

I really enjoyed writing a comparative essay on Abramović, Gray and Howells, considering their works in parallel with each other. What I personally find interesting about comparing these three artists is seeing the divergent impact each work has on its creator; particularly considering notions of feminism alongside such comparison. This research has affirmed for me the idea that Abramović’s work is created by her to illuminate her idea/ls in our own minds; she has clear, immovable beliefs that she wishes to share with us so that we may believe as she does. Whether we are present to see her work performed will not affect her personally. Gray and Howells, however, need an audience; they need the affirmation and connection that a live audience provides. From a third-wave feminist position, this creates interesting discussion for the evidently vulnerable, unstable position of the white, Western, dominant male next to the solid, affirmed position of the Eastern female. Have we actually moved into a position where performative gender is irrelevant in society? Or does solo performance create a platform which transcends predetermined social status, allowing for individual, personal exploration outside of the confines of politicised gender? Personally, I would suggest the latter but continue to hope that such performance can only add to the former’s development.

I knew very little about the ‘grandmother of performance art’ before I was asked to present on Marina Abramović. Though my research and presentation centred on specific performances, here I will avoid being descriptive and instead focus on the influence researching Abramović had on me personally and the kind of ideas I’d like to take from her into my own work.

I learnt that Abramović pioneered performance as a visual art form, what we may refer to as performance art.

For Abramović, this means marrying;

1. Concept with  physicality

2. Endurance with empathy

3. Complicity with loss of control

4. Passivity with danger

(1)

For me, these mean;

1. Embodying and symbolising a theoretical concept in a physical / creative performance
2. Taking the performative action of a piece and making it a notable part of the concept, extending its duration to provoke a person, internal, emotional response in the audience
3. Challenging oneself to go beyond the controlled environment of a performance, allowing for an external factor – be it time, audience participation or an unpredictable element such as fire – to the development of a piece and one’s own response to it as a performer
4. Pushing the boundary between the safe, stationary known and the precarious, fluid unknown by challenging both performer and audience to act upon an instinct and respond organically to a situation

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Rhythm 10, her reproduction piece based on Russian roulette with knives, aimed to merge the past and the present, exploring physical and mental limits with performance and attempting to recreate authentic/organic responses as well as consider the state of consciousness. (2) On the final point Abramović says; “once you enter into the performance state you can push your body to do things you absolutely could never normally do”. (3)

Though personally I would not be interested in exploring such physical risk in performance, I would be intrigued to know whether unplanned, unmediated performance could lead to learning new things about oneself, whether a kind of unknowable element could lead to thoughts or emotions one ‘absolutely could never normally’ find.

Rhythm 5, is a piece in which she created a sawdust 5 point star and set fire to it, before jumping into its centre. For Abramović , this work led to a realisation that there is a physical limit to performance; “when you lose consciousness you can’t be present, you can’t perform.” (4)

What really interested me were the implied notions of purging, sacrificing and transforming energy. I hadn’t before considered how fire could be used in performance for something more than spectacle, it really caught my attention as a beautifully symbolic way of combining the notions I mentioned above with the innate, raw connection I have with fire and the emotions it provokes in me.

I will also mention a three part piece called Freeing the Body, which included Freeing the Memory and Freeing the Voice, for a comment on the latter of these performances. (5) Watching a video performance of Freeing the Voice, I was struck with how much emotion is conveyed and developed through such a simple performance; where Abramović simply lays on her back and repeats a single sound over and over until she loses her voice. What caught my interest was the idea that the development of such emotion appears unplanned, as though the performance evolved in such a way of its own accord, because of the act of performing for such a long period of time.

This links back to my idea from Rhythm 10 about finding unexpected things through challenging, durational performance.

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Were I to create a piece based on Abramović’s work, I would take my influence from the above pieces; her ideas of audience participation as exploring themselves through her performance, and  the self-described notion of her work as a “quest for emotional and spiritual transformation”. (6) I’d like to create an installation, a durational piece in which I built a library of sorts; a collection of memories and experiences transformed into physical ‘books’ or sculptures. These memories/experiences would be specific elements of my life that I struggle to come to terms with in some way; lingering feelings about a breakup, underlying issues in other relationships I’ve never been able to address, fears, regrets etc.  I then envisage inviting an audience to peruse my library, laying my past bare for them to explore, read and touch, perhaps I would add a performative element in reading or explaining items they had picked up or perhaps I’d just explore them myself too. I’d then like to have some kind of stand in which I could set fire to each of these things after they’d been ‘read’, perhaps again inviting the audience to take part in this ritual-esque performance, purging myself of all the things that I hadn’t been able to let go of. We could then watch the fire die down together. In full Marina spirit I could then imagine climbing into the stand and covering myself in the ashes, before inviting the audience to wash them off me – the phoenix reborn from the ashes of its past life.

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(1) Lisson Gallery: Marina Abramović, Online: http://www.lissongallery.com/artists/marina-abramovic (accessed 2 February 2015).

(2) Abramović, Marina (1973) Rhythm 10, Online: http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/rhythm-10-2/ (accessed 2 February 2015).

(3) Art Tattler: Marina Abramović (2008), Online: http://arttattler.com/archivemarinaabramovic.html (accessed 2 February 2015).

(4) Fischer, Lucia (2014), The Memorable Rhythm Performances, Online: http://www.riseart.com/article/2014-11-28-most-memorable-rhythm-performances-by-marina-ambrovic (accessed 2 February 2015).

(5) Abramović, Marina (1975/1976), Freeing the Body, Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihDy3dD-iUg (accessed 2 February 2015).

(6) O’Hagan, Sean (2010), Interview: Marina Abramović, Online: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/oct/03/interview-marina-abramovic-performance-artist (accessed 2 February 2015).

 

 

• Anna Deavre Smith Baltimore, 1950

# Race                                   # Identity                            # Community     #Documentary

Interview            – Unbiased, not her view

-Voice, accent, mannerisms, utterances – INCLUSIVE

-Varied context / subject matter – SAME APPROACH: Characters vary, style remains

 

• Eric Bogosian Actor, Playwright, Monologist                    ‘Genius laced with comedy’

Harmonious: Alienation/Harmony

Collating big, social / philosophical ideas with everyday comedy

Molecules: Creating characters which can articulate his personal views in an accessible/ comical way

#Internal//External                         #Black Humour                                 #Attack on Society

-Creating characters to invite judgement

-‘Wanting to hit the world with a stick’

 

ADS vs. EB

Embodies characters to tell their story           ||          Embodies Characters to tell his story

& give their viewpoint                                          ||                         & give his viewpoint

Joshua Sofaer’s Performance Pack Performance was a really fun and interesting experience. It structured ‘how performance is used by performers’ in this model:

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• The Art Exchange                          }              Space   –  Location
• Participants: Artist & Audience   }                         &
• Art Work: Form & Content               }              Time    –  Duration

———————————-

• The Art Remnant: Documentation –Recorder –Viewer –Medium –Selection

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Each of these sections is broken down and considered in terms of a certain number of options:

• 1.) The Artist: Cultivates and Practices. In the case of my performance the artist will obviously be myself however this section will include collaborators such as my classmates, Martin, Lisa and anyone else I enlist for help along the way!

 

• 2.) The Audience: Auditors, spectators, participants, collective witnesses

One to One        //            Chance                 //            By Ticket              //            Remote Viewer

 

• 3.) The Form: How the piece is expressed, performance technique and application

// Object          – Left over from performance end

// Video            – Performer not present, entire piece pre-recorded

// Interactive   – Audience directly affecting performance

// Action           – Live action as with traditional theatre

 

• 4.) Content

Personal              //            Political                 //            Spectacle             //            Self-Reflexive

 

• 5.) Location: No site is neutral.            Given Location vs. Chosen Location

Chosen Specific Site     //         Given Specific Site         //          Theatre                //            Street

 

• 6.) Duration: Quantitative

60 Seconds         //            60 Minutes         //            24 Hours              //            365 Days

 

• 7.) Documentation: Recorder – Who, Viewer – Sense of, Medium – Form, Selection – Content

Photo                    //            Drawing               //            Trace                     //            Gossip

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Each of these sections will be considered for my final piece and having gone through the pack, looking at a number of artists and performances and discussing the different options as a whole class was a great way to consider a range of perspectives. Overall, the Performance Pack Performance provides a helpful set of tick-boxes to ensure a stable structure.

 

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Final Performance:

1.) Myself.

2.) Ticketed –  25% by invitation.

3.) Action – involving direct address.

4.) Self-reflexive – though projected on / inclusive of the majority of audience members, i.e. other students. Also, intertextual; weaving ideas and extracts from ‘The Library of Babel’ with the ‘mad woman  in the attic’s story and my own opinions and perceptions.

5.) Chosen specific site – essence of ‘theatre’ and stage, made more intimate.

6.) 10-15 minutes.

7.) Gossip – though practical elements of process were documented through photos.