FIRST ASSIGNMENTS
PERFORMING TECHNOLOGY BEGINS
I was very curious about this class. I was trying to, and maybe i still am, figure out if it involves specifically people's as performers, or maybe performance in its broadest sense, or maybe technology as performance and performer. Regardless of what shape the class will take, all of the above have been interests of mine for quite some time. I stopped dancing and performing on stage in 1999, because after about 10 years, it started shaping up as a career choice, more than mere physical exercise and fun with friends. I wasn't ready , at 19 years old, to make that kind of commitment. Not only i stopped acting and dancing, but i changed country all together and moved to the states. I then studied photography, video and took a particular interest in the history of Cinema. Once i moved to installations and interactivity as a necessary medium for the concepts i was dealing with, i seemed to naturally come back to performance to recreate certain experiences, interactivity being performative, why not put myself back into the picture? I believe right now there are certain things that i could only express by using my own body and movements. I generally shy away from any type of definition. Definitions actually irritate me nowadays, and sometimes seem completely useless and futile to me. Everyone has one. I don't know how to define performance, i only know in this specific instant what i think my performance will be defined as, and maybe even that definition is bound to change in the course of the night. Representation. Sharing. Empathy. Those are the reasons that brought me here.
Yoko Ono's Cut Piece Critique
I am not really a fan of Yoko Ono's work, i have to admit, and let that be my disclaimer for this assignment. I know i should probably motivate it, but i don't think this is the context to do it in. Rather there is something extremely intriguing about Ono's Cut Piece. She is sitting on a stage in a meditation-like position and is allowing the audience to cut (and possibly take) a piece of her clothing, leaving her almost naked. The beauty of this piece, i believe, it's that it challenges the concepts of performance and possibly pushes the boundaries of what should and should not happen on a stage, as location. She is at the same time performing, and being performed. She is acting in a passive way and also she is been interacted upon. The scissors are almost the medium that connects these 2 aspects of the performance. It confuses the performer with the performed and lets the viewers become the protagonist without whom this even would not take place. Something that highly works for me is the format of this performance, it's her passivity and her allowing strangers to take a part of her, leaving her vulnerable. I read many different significants in that, from the fact that people are capable of exposing out most vulnerable sides as well as countries that have been exploited in history through colonialism. I also appreciate the location of the piece, Carneige Hall as a very important and traditional-looking performance space is a very interesting location for such a happening. The documentation of the performance is also very important, it almost shows in-camera editing and specific focal points to accentuate the ritual. Something that doesn't work for me is her body language, her complete immobility or and the fact that her eyes are scanning the space in front of her without making any direct eye-contact with the audience who's performing on her. I wish she had looked at them as if she was to remember those faces forever.
Performing Map
