Traces Revision- Lacey Gardner

TMP Traces - iPad from Lacey Gardner on Vimeo.

What're You Waiting For? REDO -Anissa Ciani

FInal

TMP Final from huynhna on Vimeo.

Grace Won redo montage

Time#3 WonS redo from Grace Won on Vimeo.

TMP Final - Relationships

anishaa interview from Natasha Janardan on Vimeo.

Final Project_B.K Jung

Fear JungB from Bo Kyung Jung on Vimeo.

Hayley Tanasijevich FINAL-The Journey

The Journey from Hayley Tanasijevich on Vimeo.

Jenna Guswiler Final Project

Adrift from Jenna Guswiler on Vimeo.

The Journey-Hayley Tanasijevich

The Journey Final from Hayley Tanasijevich on Vimeo.

Maria Shin Final Project

My First Experience at a korean church called The Korean Church of Ann Arbor.
Title: "The Passion and Fear"
 (The audio file is on CTools Dropbox and the Class Server)

kathy reid - video final "functional"

jet - iPad from kathy reid on Vimeo.

Margaret Jensen final

FINAL COSMIC from margaret jensen on Vimeo.

Final

Eloise from Payal Doshi on Vimeo.

Bekah Malover FINAL

Enthralled from Bekah Malover on Vimeo.

Emily McGowan Final

Empty from Emily McGowan on Vimeo.

Chaotic Endings FINAL (2.0)

Chaotic Endings FINAL (2.0) from Payal Doshi on Vimeo.

Hayley Tanasijevich "Process" Final

Process from Hayley Tanasijevich on Vimeo.

Hayley Tanasijevich "Process" Version 2

Waiting 3 - iPad from Hayley Tanasijevich on Vimeo.

What're You Waiting For? FINAL

WhatreYouWaitingForFINAL - iPad from Anissa Ciani on Vimeo.

Montage Project Edited by Maria Shin

"Waiting for Life to Begin" edited, according to feedback.
I shortened a lot of parts and changed the ending.

tmp3 ShinM edited from Maria Shin on Vimeo.

time3_McGowanE Redo

time3_McGowanE from Emily McGowan on Vimeo.

time3 GuswilerJ - iPad 1 4 from Jenna Guswiler on Vimeo.

Cindy Sherman

From 1977-1980, Cindy Sherman achieved unbelievable recognition for a piece consisting of 69 black-and-white photographs. Compiled in disparate characters and settings, Sherman reflects styles of Italian neorealism or American film noir in from the 1940-60’s. With provocative and challenging notions seen through female roles, the film catalyzed a widespread concern of our culture, rethinking the fashions in which humanity shapes personal identity and the weight mass media holds on our everyday lives.        

          

In some photos, the artist can be seen in a bedroom or kitchen, exploring both interior and exterior contexts, continually transforming roles and ushering a sense of female provocation with each new snapshot. Indeed, Sherman made sure to cover all variations of female stereotypes, from librarian to sex kitten to sophisticate; every image further shattering artistic precedence at the time.

Homework #3

Cindy Sherman is better known as a photographer for her conceptual portraits, in which she is the model and also the director for the setting.  She created her work “clowns” between years 2003 and 2004.  The role her body has in her works is that she is her own model.  Cindy Sherman comes up with the concepts for the portraits and puts on the necessary clothes, makeup, and expressions for the photograph.  For the concept in “Clowns,” Cindy Sherman wanted to use the idea that clowns express more than just their painted faces.  The pictures depict clowns with contorted happy, almost psychotic expressions.  After going through some of her own struggles, after 9/11, she was trying to figure out what she wanted to say to the public.  She wanted to depict how the clowns have sadness beneath the happiness and humor they try to evoke for the audience.  After dressing up the people and painting their faces like clowns, Cindy Sherman photographs them and uses a swirly and obtrusively bright backdrop.  Her “Clowns” portraits are at the MOMA and are different in the other portraits in the message she wants to send, that “clowns are sad, but they are also hysterically, psychotically happy” (Cindy Sherman).

Yoko Ono "Voice Piece for Soprano"

Yoko Ono wrote "Voice Piece for Soprano" in the autumn of 1961. It reads:

"Scream.
       1. against the wind.
       2. against the wall.
       3. against the sky.

1961 autumn"

I found a video on Youtube of her performing the piece at MoMA in 2010. During the performance, Yoko Ono stands in the middle of a gallery at a microphone, and people gather in a large circle around her to watch. She goes through several different types of screaming/singing which sound sort of like vocal exercises, and she moves her body along with the noises.

Although it is interesting to watch, I cannot make the connection between screaming against something. As it is written, the piece sounds like it could be quite inspiring if performed literally. It would certainly have more context if done so, and I would love to see a performance of it. In the middle of a gallery, I think the piece loses any meaning. It seems like Yoko Ono is just screaming in front of bunch of museum-goers, and it is not very compelling to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GMHl7bmlzw

Gilbert and George "The Singing Sculpture"

Gilbert and George did the “Singing Sculpture” in 1970. They stood on a table and played the song “Underneath the arches.” They sang to it, sometimes for a day at a time. They painted their faces bronze to become living sculptures. The suits they wore became like a uniform and make them recognizable. The pair seem to still always be seen together. They consider that everything they do in their everyday life has to do with art. They did this work to become popular and later focused on large scale photo works. They do not use much of their space. They stand on the table and their movement is limited by dance. Yet, this makes them seem more like a sculpture that would be limited in movement anyway. Their performances are watched live and recorded. Yet, they realized after they could only reach a certain amount a people at a time, they then created films and pictures that could extend their idea of “the living sculpture” without needing their presence. They used their bodies to become pieces of art and give life to what a sculpture would normally look like. The performance explores idea of having the art interact with the audience. I like how they were able to bring life to something that is normally stagnant. Yet, even though they wanted to make a more serious performance to be respected and gain popularity, I think this work is amusing. I think their work could be applied to modern day by having a someone acting like a sculpture and singing modern songs. There could be a way to juxtapose the image of traditional art to modern times. Even though they are most known for “The Singing sculpture,” I also enjoy seeing them trying to do the moonwalk as they dance to Michael Jackson. I also like the idea of painting the body and making it look like something else for a performance.

Janine Antoni's "Gnaw"

Janine Antoni is an artist whose work blurs the definition of sculpture and performance. Her piece Gnaw, which was completed in 1992, was featured in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Two 600-pound blocks of material, one chocolate and the other lard, were chewed or gnawed away at by Antoni over the course of a month to create sculptures. She was interested in using her body as the tool and was intrigued the way a sculptor left behind the marks of their process during the making of a piece; this aspect was clearly highlighted in Gnaw by the teeth marks that showed her process in creating the sculpture. In addition, she was intrigued by the idea of constructing a piece by the deconstruction of the material around it. She iterates this idea by creating a two part exhibition which comments on the struggle of desire that women face in society; she uses the chewed up chocolate that was eaten away by her to create chocolate candies that women desire but fight off the urge to, and she turns the gnawed off lard into lipstick, which women use to become more desirable.

Patty Chung

           Patty Chang is known for videos and photography documenting her own performances. In her performance, she uses her body as a medium of expression and also uses satire to deal with such things like contemporary gender issues. Patty Chug describes her performance as “time based sculpture” and often she uses her body and often she establishes a connection between food like melon and her body.

             In her performance called Melon (At a Loss) in 1998, she puts plate on her head and facing the camera. Chang narrates a story about the plate, which is made in honor of her aunt who had died. As she speaks, she slices through left sided and oversized bra, which later becomes halved melon. The artist tied melon in front of her body as breast. She then gradually scoop out the melon with her hand and piles the seeds onto a plate balanced on her head. By eating the melon, she tells us the story of her aunt who died of breast caner. Also the empty space in the back of her in the middle makes us to more focus on her movement/performance.

Marina Abramovic

Ulay and Marina Abramović, "AAA AAA", 1978 The 9 minutes and 51 seconds of performance art documentation portrays Abramovic and Ulay standing and facing each other. They look each other and make 'AAA' sound with open mouths. Gradually the 'AAA' sound gets louder and louder and for last fifteen minutes, they move closer and almost yell into each other's opened mouths. Sometimes they breath at the same time; sometimes the duration of the sound varied. For instance, while Ulay keeps making 'AAA' sound Abramovic takes a breath in. In the beginning, Ulay and Abramovic's bodies seem balanced and parallel. They both make sounds and scream at each other's faces. Their bodies give a balance of both contents and contexts. They slowly build up the tension raising the volume of the sound. The subject of this performance is voices and sounds. Until exhaustion, they scream at the top of their voices into each other's mouths. Their continuous and gradual change of sounds gives both animalistic quality and challenge of human body. They kind of communicate each other just making 'AAA' sound without any linguistic words. They use the space quite tight because the camera takes both artists filled in the whole scenes. Also, the gradual zoom-in gives the intensity and the extremeness of increasing pitch of screaming. The performance was documented in black and white film . Also, "the performance was repeated to be filmed a year after its original creation in Amsterdam by Louis van Gasteren, for documentation purposes."

HW #3 Liu Bolin has spent several years trying to prefect the practice of camouflage and he has come as close as any human might. In one of his most successful pieces from his collection “Hiding in the City” he transforms a man into the surroundings of a children's toy aisle. The actual performance is still with little movement, the idea is to imaging that the man does not exist at all. Bolin’s intention was to comment on the constantly changing culture of the Chinese society. Many of his pieces are created with simple tools and materials, such as paint and the human body. He also creates sculptures with the same esthetic. Bolin documents all of his pieces with strong photography, this is vital do to the impermanence of his pieces. Bolin also uses spaces that are recognizable and changes their everyday mundane appearance to create a different reaction from his viewers.

I looked at Carolee Schneeman's Meat Joy piece, I know it's a pretty popular and highly debated because she's rolling around in meat with guys and girls in very little clothing. I thought it was successful- weird, but successful knowing her feminist background. The dominant male objectifying women similar to a piece of meat. Something that consumerism of products really makes women feel-especially in the 80's. So many ad's of what women are like it brings picking out the right woman to level of picking out the right piece of meat from the deli. This piece was not only interactive in that you could feel apart of the space of the art, but it also used sense usually not even used in performance like tasting and smelling. The smell of the raw meat-and the fact that some of these people are putting the meat in their mouths. It's a sexual piece and was obviously risky for the time period where sexuality was a taboo subject. I appreciate her feminist approach-and I'm glad she made it into the moma and other prestigious museums because women's work should never be labeled "womens art" it is just art and should be represented no different than mens-but included just as often as mens. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw_wW2v45eI

HW # 3: Grace Won-Janine Antonio ("Touch")

Grace Won :Janine Antonio "Touch" Janine Antonio’s Touch that was completed in 2002 is one of her most famous performance pieces that she created. She uses her body as her main component and combines dance in her work. "Touch" explores the ideas of balance, desire, and the horizon. In this work, Antonio take lessons in rope walking because she wanted to know what it would be like to actually walk on the rope she was making. During her training, she finds how that she was not becoming more balanced. Rather, she became more comfortable with being out of balance. In her real performance piece, she goes to her hometown in the Bahamas and sets up a wire that rest above the water and walks through. From this performance work, Antonio notices how people are always trying to have perfect balance in their lives. However, this idea of perfection is impossible. Walking on a wire with perfect balance is not possible either. Additionally reaching the horizon is not possible. She believes that people should be comfortable with the imbalance and imperfections in their lives. here is the link

hw#3-Yoko Ono

       I have chosen Yoko Ono for my research on performance art. Specifically, "Cut Piece". It is a fairly well known piece, and automatically where my mind goes when I think of performance art. The piece was performed in 1965 at Carnegie Hall. She is sitting casually on the floor dressed in a black dress and stockings. There is a pair of scissors and audience members are invited to come up to Yoko Ono and cut a piece of cloth from her dress. The piece has been filmed from the audiences perspective and then from behind Yoko Ono's head. There is no music or filler, just the sounds of the audience and some white noise.
      This piece always stands out to me because it is so telling of the human condition. If you choose to watch the film it really sets you up for some true disappointment. Most of the audience has been quiet, respectful, taking small snips. Her top slowly disappears and she sits in her bra. Yoko Ono remains stoic. Then, a man comes up on stage and flourishes the scissors. He tells the audience, "this is going to take some time". He quite methodically and aggressively cuts the camisole off of her bra. She remains mostly impassive but the audience laughs some. When he snips her bra straps the mood changes and the audience hisses as Yoko Ono covers herself with her hands.

       This piece is disturbing to me, but it is not the inherent intention of the piece, rather the audiences response. It is an uncomfortable reaction to a fairly vague art piece. Having the piece so hijacked by an audience member changes any potential viewing openness. It is too strong to not react to, and makes me really reevaluate how much control you might have over performance art.


 

HW#3: Matthew Barney by Maria Shin

Research on Matthew Barney

Matthew is an American artist born in 1967 who works in drawing, sculpture, photography, and film. In his early works, he combined performance and video with his sculpture pieces. One of his most famous works includes the “Cremaster Cycle” (1994-2002), which is a series of five films that explore processes of creation. The films feature Barney in multiple roles, such as a magician, a satyr, a ram, Harry Houdini, and even Gary Gilmore, a notorious murderer. The order of the film begins with “Cremaster 4,” then “Cremaster 1,” “Cremaster 2,” and lastly “Cremaster 3.” Each sequence also has a title, which refers to the muscle that raises and lowers the testicles according to fear, temperature, or exterior stimulus. For example, “Cremaster 3” is called Consumption. Consumption took place at the Saratoga racetrack and at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Barney makes use of the space by transforming a group of horses into racing corpses at Saratoga, in which the horses race through a dream sequence. He also transforms the Guggenheim Museum into a set for an obstacle course video game. Barney has his own crew as well as artists who help him out with his films. For example, Richard Serra throws hot Vaseline down the Museum’s famous spiral ramp in Consumption. 

The “Cremaster Cycle” also consists of a mix of history, mythology, and autobiography. It is amazing how Barney is able to come out of his shell in order to perform in his own artwork and convey symbols and images that are intensely integrated together. In a way, his performance and acting has more depth and beauty than actual actors.

Here are some links of his film online:

Making of "Cremaster 3: Consumption":
http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/segment-matthew-barney-in-consumption

The actual "Cremaster 3: Consumption" film:
Part 1
Part 2

Carolee Schneemann: Homework #3

         Carolee Schneemann, Interior Scroll, 1975

The role of the artist’s body in their performances is to portray the sexuality she felt in general and from her divorce. Schneemann wanted to introduce that creativity and imaginative energy comes from her being a female artist. As a painter she believes that the body can be used as a canvas and therefore uses hers to portray her thoughts and creativity. With this performance piece in particular, Schneemann was focusing it towards women, where against the traditional ways of the ‘male’ notions of order. The subjects this performance explore are feministic and creativity with the female, human body. She uses a film scroll written with other bodily functions on it with a reading describing how Schneemann feels about the vagina. “I thought of the vagina in many ways – physically, conceptually: as a sculptural form, an architectural referent, the source of sacred knowledge, ecstasy, birth passage, transformation.” Is the first sentence from the passage of Interior Scroll.

 Overall, this performance piece is a commentary on the woman’s body and how she uses it as a canvas to portray her imaginative mind on. She uses the space that she’s in by standing on a table and performing it at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado. She then proceeds to stand with her legs wide apart and her back hunched over, painted in mud, pulling the scroll out of her vagina. The scenery, I am guessing is dark and dirty like. This particular performance was documented with black and white photographs, unlike some of her other pieces of artwork that were films. There is currently no footage of Interior Scroll online, just photos and documentation of her work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmgERKy210o