Day 7: Language

Think About

Subject.

Object.

The way that “We”, “Us”, “They” is used in the news to name entire countries as people with feelings rather than governments.

How does the language of material, body, the unspoken play out in your work.

 

Play

Prompt One

  1. Create a performance lecture. Not a performative lecture, but a performance lecture.

Prompt Two

  1. Have a two-minute conversation about literally anything with literally anybody.

  2. Once alone again, set a time for fifteen minutes.

  3. Create a movement or sound score based on the conversation.

  4. Repeat with another conversation or one that you recall from memory.

  5. Document. Adapted from Rob Kitsos

Prompt Three

  1. Write a short text that speaks to two different audiences, without naming them.

  2. Perform this.

Prompt Two

  1. Select a homophone that you find interesting. i.e. gaze, gays / ball, bawl / dual, duel

  2. Use this word as a prompt for a piece.

 

Dig Deeper

Presidential Alert (America, Lip-sync for your life), Kevin Quiles Bonilla

I explore the action of lip-syncing as a strategy of embodiment and unearthing through multiple temporalities, using as context the song ‘America’ from the 1961 musical West Side Story, and multiple voices from the past and present, such as the current president of the United States speaking on the aftermath of Hurricane María in Puerto Rico in 2017, Young Lords member Pedro Pietri reciting his poem Puerto Rican Obituary in 1969, and Hawaiian activist Haunani-Kay Trask speaking on stolen lands in 1990.

Slap Talk , Action Hero

Speaking to each other and to the audience via a live feed from a camera to a monitor, the performers rant, insult and threaten each other in a scripted version of a pre-fight press conference crossed with a 24 hour rolling news channel.

The Violence of Language: Slap Talk, Text and Durational Dramaturgy, Catherine Love

An audio excerpt from bell hook’s The Oppositional Gaze

Expressive Language, Amiri Baraka

Baraka’s essay “Expressive Language” first appeared in Kulchur in the winter of 1963, and was published in his collection Home: Social Essays (1966)…Asserting that “words’ meanings, but also the rhythm and syntax that frame and propel their concatenation, seek their culture as the final reference for what they are describing of the world,” Baraka argues that the artist must use the language and semantics unique to his culture to create his art, and that the work should also be understood within the context of that culture.


Day 6: Gaze

Think About

 

Play

Prompt One

  1. Do a handstand or similarly ridiculous physical activity in a public place.

  2. How land can you “hold it”.

  3. Is it really you that is upside down or inside out?

Prompt Two

  1. Choose three random mailing addresses.

  2. Send each one a story of a time when you helped someone.

  3. Decorate the package and include something personal, like a recipe, or some seeds they can plant.

  4. Ask them to write back (if safe, i.e. a P.O. Box or impersonal mailing address) and share a similar story to provide inspiration for your art, and include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

Prompt Three

  1. Perform / make a self-portrait.

  2. Document.

Prompt Four

  1. Select an occupation that you’ve never had.

  2. Imagine a task that one in this occupation might do. i.e. shoveling, scanning products, chopping a tree

  3. Perform a version of this gesture repetitively until it now longer has or holds the same meaning.

 

Dig Deeper

Laura Aguilar, Nowness

Her gaze is unfazed but not exploitative; tender but not sentimental

Ways of Seeing Episode I, John Berger

A BAFTA award-winning BBC series with John Berger, which rapidly became regarded as one of the most influential art programmes ever made. In the first programme, Berger examines the impact of photography on our appreciation of art from the past.

The Oppositional Gaze

An audio excerpt from bell hook’s The Oppositional Gaze

The Oppositional Gaze, bell hooks

gaze, The Chicago School of Media Theory

Sissy Fatigue, nowness

Day 5: Body & Material

Think About

Relax a little today. Have you napped in your studio yet? Give it a go.

 

Play

Prompt One

  1. Write the alphabet in slow motion.

  2. Write it large and in slow motion, staring at the line. Pretend it is alive and you are just watching." (from What It Is by Lynda Barry)

Prompt Two

  1. Set a time for 10-15 minuets.

  2. Write an account of an event (fact or fiction) of an event that made you profoundly emotion (any emotion: sad, happy, furious).

  3. Now, while conveying the emotion of the story, recite your text as quietly as possible.

Prompt Three

  1. Find two rocks and can be comfortably held in your hands.

  2. Set a time for 7 minutes.

  3. While recording audio, begin to tap the rocks together in a consistent tempo of your choice.

  4. When the time is complete, play your recording and tap along with it at a completely different but consistent tempo.

  5. If you have another device, record this and repeat until you have a layered sound scape of rock rain.

Prompt Four

  1. Reimagine and perform 4’33” (see below) on your instrument of choice.

 

Dig Deeper

John Cage's 4'33"

A performance by William Marx of John Cage's 4'33. Filmed at McCallum Theatre, Palm Desert, CA.

Day 4: Space

Think About

How much space do you take up? How much space does your work take up? Is your work site-specific? Is your body site-specific? How does your work change when in different locations? How does the reading of your work change in different locations? What are your thoughts on the virtual space in relation to your work?

 

Play

Prompt One

  1. Move from one side of your space to another for 30 or 60 mins.

  2. Document

Prompt Two

  1. Be an egg:

  2. Sit on the floor and pull your knees into your chest and curl your head down to your knees.

  3. Try to become as small as possible.

  4. Then, move some part of your body so that you are in a new position.

  5. Come up with as many different positions as possible and see if you can come up with names for each one (Examples given include 'walking egg', 'jackknife egg', 'tall egg'.) (From The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life by Twyla Tharp)

  6. Document.

Prompt Three: Part One

  1. Have a notebook ready.

  2. Set a timer for 1-15 minuets.

  3. Close your eyes and listen.

  4. When the timer goes off, open your eyes and write down everything you heard.

  5. Repeat this inside or outside in different spaces.

  6. Option: keep your eyes open and write as your hear.

Prompt Four: Part Two

  1. Repeat Prompt Three, but with touch.

  2. Feel up your space.

  3. Pro tip: keep your eyes open as you walk around the room, but close them when you’re getting handsy.

  4. Document the textures of your environment.

 

Dig Deeper

Making Waves: A Conversation with Laura Anderson Barbata, Laura Anderson Barbata and Madeline Murphy Turner

In this interview, Mexican-born, Brooklyn-based artist Laura Anderson Barbata highlights the importance of reciprocity and shared knowledge in her community-based, trans-disciplinary practice.

Santiago Sierra: Performance and Controversy, Tate

Watch the provocative performance staged at Tate Modern in 2008 and find out more about the work of this controversial artist

Eric-Paul Riege: Hólǫ́—it xistz, icamiami

“Hólǫ́—it xistz” marks the first solo museum project for Eric-Paul Riege. Working across media, with an emphasis on woven sculpture, wearable art, and durational performance, Riege explores the worldview fostered by Diné, or Navajo, philosophy and its bearing on everyday experience.

Eric-Paul Riege: Carrying Each Other Up The Mountain, icamiami

Day 3: Time & Duration

Think About

What is the longest time that you have ever done one activity? What are your thoughts on durational performance? What is the longest performance you have ever done? What is your relationships between your body and durational performance? How do you practice and prepare for a performance? Does this differ depending on length?

 

Play

Prompt One

  1. You have one hour to create a one-minute performance.

Prompt Two

  1. You have one minute to create a one-hour performance.

Prompt Three

  1. Think of a durational work that you have a strong reaction to (positive or negative).

  2. Do it for at least 60 mins.

  3. Document.

Prompt Four

  1. Sit or stand for one hour.

  2. Document.

 

Dig Deeper

Test of time: Marina Abramović on the transformational power of performance art, The Calvert Journal

One of the world's most important living artists, Marina Abramović has been pushing boundaries and pioneering new forms of performance art for over 40 years. She talks to The Calvert Journal about her Method, role and legacy.

André Lepecki on Duration, In Terms of Performance

Duration is not time extended. Actually duration has little to do with extension or other spatial references—this was Henri Bergson’s insight in Time and Free Will (1889).

Ralph Lemon on Duration, In Terms of Performance

A physical meditation exercise. A body-placement task and event. Simply: Set up a thing, an idea, a place, and be there, in it. Stay in for fourteen hours.

Art About Waiting — and What It Takes to Endure, Andrew Russeth

In a time of crisis with no end in sight, durational performance, or endurance art, surfaces in our consciousness. Is this the art of our age?

Miles Greenberg, mentee of Marina Abramović, on televising his nightmare, Emily Dinsdale

LEPIDOPTEROPHOBIA invites viewers to witness the performance artist being locked in a perspex box with live moths

Questions of Practice: Ernesto Pujol on Durational Performance, Pew Center for Arts and Heritage

Performance artist and social choreographer Ernesto Pujol is known for creating site-specific, durational performances. We asked him how he thinks this extended passage of time affects our experience of an artwork. “It fights our cult of speed,” he says. “To do something over a span of time…puts us in another frame of mind and materiality. It immediately throws us into experiencing, rather than consuming.”

Day 2: Repetition

Think About

What role does repetition play in your practice? How is repetition used to construct and/or deconstruct within your practice and/or your own identity? Does repetition play out in your process or outcome?

 

Play

Prompt One

  1. Stand up or sit on the edge of a chair comfortably.

  2. "Invent" a simple dance movement. Perhaps the kick of a foot or the flick of a wrist. Simple. Repeat this movement five times at a self-determined speed.

  3. Now add to it another simple gesture. Repeat your sequence of two moves five times.

  4. Continue adding gestures to your sequence until it is 5-moves long.

  5. Now do it five times to a piece of music.

  6. Document.

Prompt Two

  1. Think of a five to seven word statement about yourself. It can be true or false.

  2. Hand write the statement 100 times or for at 60 mins. whichever comes first.

  3. Play with scale and material here.

  4. Document.

Prompt Three

From the Fluxus Handbook

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Dig Deeper

 

Ellen Gallagher in "Play", Art 21

Working with vintage magazines, Ellen Gallagher explores both the representation of ethnicity and the essential nature of identity. In a series of large paintings, she mounts page after page in a grid so that the viewer relates to the magazines in a spatial rather than a sequential way.

A Year in the Life of Tehching Hsieh: The Taiwanese artist captures the day-to-day on film, NOWNESS

New York-based Tehching Hsieh has undertaken 18 years of continuous performance. Known for dedicating long and precise periods of time to fully immersive projects, the Taiwanese-born performance artist's lengthy works span everything from spending a year locked in a small wooden cage to thirteen years making art not meant for public display.

Not What It Seems: The Politics of Re-Performing Vito Acconci's Seedbed (1972), Teresa Smalec, New York University

For seven days last November, Marina Abramovic engaged in a seemingly simple art experiment. The Solomon R. Guggenheim's program straightforwardly outlines her weeklong endeavor: "In Seven Easy Pieces, Abramovic reenacts seminal performance works by her peers dating from the 1960s and 70s, interpreting them as one would a musical score and documenting their realization".

Day 1: Documentation and Archive

Think About

What role does documentation play in your creative process? Has it always been this way? If not, how has it changed? How do you want the archive of your work to be experienced by future generations and artists? What is the difference between documentation and archive?

 

Play


This week I want you to Commit to a daily documentation of your process, and outcomes, even if never done before. This can be in any format (writing, photo, video, audio). I just want you to document what you do all week. These can remain private, or you can share them in our individual and group check ins. We will reflect on your experience at the end of the week. 

Prompt One

  1. Holding a camera, aimed away from you and ready to shoot, while walking a continuous line down a city street.

  2. Try not to blink. Each time you blink: snap a photo. -Vito Acconci entitled Photo-Piece (1969)

Prompt Two

  1. In 60 mins or less, create a performative piece of work in which the documentation alone is the artwork.

Prompt Three

  1. Photograph the areas within your neighborhood that you find visually engaging.

  2. Capture parts of your neighborhood that have changed since you have lived there and the parts that have remained the same.

 

Dig Deeper

Why It’s More Important Than Ever to Document Your Artwork, Artwork Archive

What do we know about art and history, and why do we know it? 

As we are experiencing a global pandemic—a time that we will record in history books of the future—we’ve been thinking more about the power of recording present events.

Largely, what we know about the past is constructed by what has remained from that time—whether that's records, accounts, or objects. However, our understanding of the past is limited. Not every perspective, event, and creation lives to tell the tale. 

In the 2020s, things are different.

Disrupting the Archive and Why it Matters to History, Artwork Archive

How have archives been constructed in the past?

Join us in critically asking how we remember and how we record history through artwork.

By looking through the lens of the “archive” and history-making, we can try to evaluate our present, account for gaps in the past, and begin to investigate alternative ways of writing history.

Traditional archives are not comprehensive. They are incomplete, inaccessible, and fragile.

Traditional archives tell limited stories and preserve select histories. Paper archives are housed in official spaces of authority and power like government buildings—or in an artist's case, a museum. Aside from being limited in their content, these archives are difficult to access and at risk for damage. 

The Performativity of Documentation, Philip Auslander

Document or Artwork? A Panel Discussion on Archives in the Art World, Dedalus Foundation

Panelists:
Anna Gurton-Wachter, Archivist, The Keith Haring Foundation
Kate Haw, Director, Archives of American Art
Melissa Rachleff Burtt, Independent Curator, and Clinical Associate Professor of Visual Arts Administration, New York University
Paul Ramírez Jonas, Artist, and Associate Professor, Hunter College, CUNY

Moderator:
Julia Pelta Feldman, Former Dedalus Fellow in the Museum of Modern Art Archives, and PhD candidate, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

Out Side In: In His Arresting Work, Lyle Ashton Harris Looks to the Recent Past for New Ways Forward, ARTnews, Maximilíano Durón

Over the course of a decade or so, Harris’s accumulation of photos and videos became so extensive—some 3,500 slides, countless hours of footage—that he eventually gave it a name: the Ektachrome Archive.

AKA Daddy, Lyle Ashton Harris

Lyle Ashton Harris returned to performance in 2018 for the first time in over a decade with AKA Daddy, presented at Participant Inc. (New York), which included a new experimental multi-channel video installation representing a highly personal engagement with loss through ritual expressions of public grief and mourning.