sgallo – EXPERIMENTAL STUDIO 1

1 Kilometre

The ukulele has been a passion of mine for about one week now. As I play the ukulele for the entirety of a kilometres walk, I repeat one verse nonstop. Learning and experimenting new things is extremely difficult as it takes a great amount of patience and perseverance. In this kilometre, I have messed up the verse multiple times as it begins to sound scrambled, my fingers begin to hurt, and I am exhausted from walking. However, I will continue to play despite how frustrated I am with failing, and how frustrated you are watching my abilities for 8 minutes. The idea of music is created to express and activate emotion through rhythm, beat, harmony, etc. I contradict this idea of perfection and expose how mentally destructive it can be to fail, and push beyond my limits. I interpret a kilometre as a distance, in which there is not necessarily progression from the place you start and the place you finish although, the circumstances have changed.

A way I measure my kilometre is through a walk around my local high school track, in which one lap is equal to 400 metres. To complete one kilometre, I walked around the track for 2.5 laps. This is both comical and frustrating as I play an instrument in a setting where people are using a track for its essential purposes. As I walked this track, there was a man in front of me for the entire walk, this was definitely the longest kilometre of his life.

Marina Abramovic

What are some of your first impressions of Marina Abramovic’s performance works, based on the documentary? Use an image/example of one or two works2. to describe aspects you admire, and aspects you might agree are problematic?

Marina Abramovic’s use of nudity and aggression in some performances causes a feeling of uneasiness in the way she is exploiting and pushing herself, however, it is her ability to take risks that successfully brings out the most emotion within. Much of her performances consist of displaying uneasy emotions, in which she confronts these feelings, thus normalizing them. The performance art, AAA-AAA in 1977 with performance artist Ulay, demonstrates the two yelling at each other and syncing their voices. I admire how this performance is so simple as she exposes herself in such a pure form to highlight vulnerability. The performance challenges the idea that art should be aesthetically pleasing, in which this can spark a rise in being problematic due to just simply two people harmonizing their voices in an aggressive way, causing controversy in how this can be considered art.

AAA-AAA (performance RTB, Liege), 1977

What have you learned about features of performance art based on Abramovic’s work? Name a few key features according to her precedents. Include an image to illustrate. Consider her quote “When you perform it is a knife and your blood, when you act it is a fake knife and ketchup.”

In Abramovic’s performances, she uses other performers to demonstrate her work, as well as a significant amount of discipline on herself and performers. Prior to the group performance, she gathers the performers on a journey of discipline within the mind and body in preparation for the final performance. This is a key feature that highlights performance art is beyond the final performance, but requires a lot of hard work physically and emotionally to truly connect to the performance. Abramovic highlights in this quote that performing is undergoing personal emotions that are a connection between the performer and performance, whereas acting is superficial emotions with no deeper connection. The comparison between blood and ketchup demonstrates the relationship between artificial and pure life. In The Artisit is Present, she demonstrates the extremities she disciplines herself to to endure to perform genuine emotion.

The Artist is Present. 2009

Discuss the ways performance art resists many museum and commercial artworld conventions. How does Abramovic solve/negotiate some of these challenges, and do you find these compromises add to, or undermine the ideas at play in her work?

Museum and commercial artworld conventions are more focussed on having artworks on display and then selling that art. Performance art shifts away from expressing art through selling or owning tangible objects and focuses towards being in a moment in time, where art becomes reality. It resists artworld conventions through uncomfortableness and confrontation, and uses a new perspective to interpret art such as through the use of movement. Abramovic negotiates these challenges through her use of engaging the audience, and documenting her performances. Engaging the audience is more effective in her work because the audience is able to live through the emotions she is conveying through an inside lense rather than on standby. Although performance art is live in the moment, Abramovic records and documents her work just as a conventional artworld would. This neither adds to nor undermines her ideas, however, it can be considered to go against the idea that performance art is traditionally in person and allows people to watch through the internet rather than experience it.

Pipilotti Rist

Post an image from one of Rist’s videos that you are most interested in. Summarize the action of the video. Who is performing, and how? Describe the images – including framing, colours, and movement. How did she shoot and edit the video? Describe the sound and how it interacts/enhances/competes with the images. How is it installed in a gallery – in terms of projection/scale/presentation in a context of other things? How does the work strike you?

Pipilotti Rist – Ever Is Over All, 1997, audio-video installation, Glenstone Museum, 2019

In Rist’s video, End is Over All, it depicts a woman in a blue dress and ruby heels taking a leisurely walk through the city as she causes chaos. The woman is seen walking down the street with a smile on her face, as she smashes all car windows in her path with a flower. A woman police officer approaches her with joy and salutes her for her actions which is also unrealistic. The camera uses a frontal view of her walking directly towards the camera, capturing the woman smashing the car windows. In the video, there are multiple angles that include side, front, far, and close up angles. Flipping between the multiple angles demonstrates one viewpoint being the full reality of her actions, and the other a personal connection to how the woman feels. The video is shot using a saturated colour/filter that has a green tint to enhance a mysterious and dreamy concept. The saturation enhances the colour of red in her shoes as well as the cars, highlighting the contrast between beauty and chaos. There is a slow repetition of a woman humming in the background as well as a slowed down mesmerizing sound. This also contributes to the idea of a dream where the video feels almost as a haze. Rist projects the video in the gallery along with slowed down video of nature beside, where both projections fade into each other. Although the woman is committing a crime, Rist swaps out realistic actions and behaviours with fantasy – shifting our perspective and feelings of violence.

Rist has had a long career in video art making – how do you relate it to the kinds of video that you might see all the time on Tik Tok or You Tube, in our time? Reflect on her performances and also – on her ideas (particularly about women’s bodies, and sexuality, exposure, behaving strangely or subversively…) and how they play out from examples in her works.

Rist produces videos that are short, entertaining, and informative all in one. This relates to the type of music videos you would see on You Tube in our time through using the same aspects that are used in performance art to convey a meaning — sound, performance, and framing techniques. Tik Tok is also informative but to actually engage the viewer, the video must catch your attention quickly. Rist successfully informs viewers on femininity through new and creative ways that grab the audience’s attention just as any video on mainstream media would today.

Experiment: While still at school – put on your sweater/shirt INSIDE OUT. How does this change how you feel? Is it changing how others are treating you? If you can wear your sweater/shirt inside out all day – make a few notes about the results of this very small change in your presentation in public. Is this a performance? Why?

Performing this experiment felt as though it was a waste of a day. Instead of being able to wear what I wanted to wear, I had to sacrifice a day of not feeling confident in my clothes. Others did not seem to notice me, as fashion today is so broad, anything can be stylish if you make it work. I also do not feel anyone truly cared enough. Most people who walked by me were too caught up in their own thoughts or talking with friends to take the time to stop and think about what a stranger was wearing. The only person who noticed was my mom because she is very observant compared to my dad who is very oblivious and did not notice. It evoked a feeling in her, in which she was embarrassed for me to go out in public and her comment also made me feel insecure to go out in public as well. In this, I would consider this a performance because it generated a reaction in my mom and myself, and I was performing the art to generate a reaction in others.

One Feat, Three Ways video project

The One-Shot

In the one-shot video Tempting, Sage and I are sitting on the ground as we casually eat and share a carrot between. While we share this carrot, taking one bite at a time, Sage’s dog, Cyprus, lays on the ground expecting a bite as well. It is almost that we purposely sat down to enjoy a meal together and share amongst all of us, however, we completely ignore Cyprus and give him no attention. This action contradicts the reality of being an animal owner, in which it is teasing to not give your animal a piece of your food or not play with them. We feel a sense of guilt towards Cyprus, however, he calmly accepts it and continues to move his head back and forth between Sage and I, still hoping for a little compassion from his owner.

The Sequence

The video The Sequence displays a series of shots that flip back and forth between Sages dog, Cyprus, and I. Flipping back and forth highlights the contrast of behaviours between dog and human. As Cyprus’s owner, Sage, commands him to do a trick, Cyprus unpredictably and hopefully obeys her in return to obtaining a treat after completing it. The shot then switches to me, where I obey the same command except I do as I am supposed to do. It is very normal that a dog obeys commands which makes it easy to watch. A person taking commands from another person to ‘roll over’ and ‘shake paw’ is a bit absurd and odd to watch and perform.

The Loop

Lick, was not a planned video. In between shots, Sage decided to do something unexpected as we were still recording. Sage kneels down to be in level with Cyprus and begins to stare at him. Cyprus, showing love for his owner, leans in and unconditionally licks Sage’s face as she does not move a muscle. Cyprus licks inside her lips, her chin, cheek, and nose, which sparks in all of us a sense of uncomfortability. Dogs lick their bodies and who knows what else…and for Sage to endure this intolerable feeling does not compare to the joy Cyprus felt being able to give her kisses. This concept works perfect for our loop as the licking never stops, and the longer you watch the more you feel yourself in this position begging for it to stop.

Audio Art

Shh, I’m trying to sleep

This audio piece is a representation of how nerve racking constant noise when you are trying to sleep can feel. In the piece, the peaceful and serene music allows you to feel relaxed and ready to sleep until, you unexpectedly hear loud coughing and you’re not sure when the next outburst will happen.

My neighbour enjoys to have a very early morning smoke on his porch, in which I have no problem with. My room is diagonal to their porch, and the excessive coughing that accompanies this startles me, causing me to be unable to fall back asleep. The constant outbursts of coughing brings out a hyper-fixation of anxiety where although I am closing my eyes, at the same time I am on edge just waiting for another one to strike. Although the coughing is something so little, its repetition drives you insane. The thought that it may never end is frustrating especially in this audio because you are trying extremely hard to feel the music and instead you just want it to end.

Conceptual Portrait

6 photos, 6 songs, 6 decades

As part of this project, I selected my dad to do my conceptual portrait on. The first thought that comes to mind when I visualize my dad is his love for music, specifically Rock music. My dad is 60 years old, in which I wanted to highlight his style and vibe during the specific time period, along with his favourite rock song from that decade. Each song is written in his own hand writing to signify the personal importance of the song to himself.

I originally hoped to do this project on his hair transformation throughout the decades in correlation to his favourite song from the same decade, however, I feel demonstrating his entire style and his process of aging holds much more value. Presenting these photos in a timeline is profoundly significant because it reflects on each stage of life evolving from 0-60. Maintaining individuality in each photo captures the beauty of each milestone rather than life as a whole.