Final Project

J E N N Y



R E U B E N




M A R T I N A












P A T R I C K





Y O T A


Some used video as medium and others used performance. All differ by its own execution and meaning. Its holistic thematic played on a certain disconnect: Yota's presented exercise, Jenny's manipulation of sound, Martina's punning and Patrick's reading from a blank page.

This disproportion was an accentuation, the necessary impetus for meaning and conceptual currency. Physical movement was present but was not necessary to convey the idea. There was a present willingness to be read in different levels. This produced a certain willingness to conform with disproportion. And most, if not all have performed it with a strong influence of absurdity.

Proposal

"Slippery Assumptions"

This is a performance piece that entails the displacement of fantasy. Here i will attempt to study the audience's subjectivity. It is generally an experiment on how meaning is derived from traces; traces being marks for direction, location and meaning. I will use semiotics with my material to represent the slipperiness of assumptions.

Budget = 45 dollars

- 10 bucks for bananas

- 10 bucks for cigarettes

- 5 bucks for transportation

- 15 bucks for costume rental

- 5 bucks for feel-good-chocolate-milk

Tech= spot light and cd player

Location= Room 406

Resume: http://francisportfolio.blogspot.com/

( i will attempt to look like this)

Subjectivity in its slipperiness and its ambiguity carries attributes of displacement. Especially in the realms of phantasm, one will perceive it differently than the other. One of the few reasons is history (or personal history). History and its relation to perception is the lens in which we try to study, justify and make meaning. Traces are signifiers of history. In the realms of phantasm as a thematic, meaning is a plethora or meaning means none.

Smeared Mirrors

At times and as an observer of performance art, this being in the context of Emily Carr performances, I have noticed the tendency of the performer to lean on pieces that suggest an inward direction, a gestural enclosure that holds arbitrary value. This not often than most, self categorizes itself under Narcissism, the desire of the self.

To go further with my abstraction, i argue that some performance/ installation pieces posed a relationship not particularly with narcissism but with its fraternal twin, indulgence, a phantasmagorical one.



Reuben's heavy use of banal yet loaded signifiers locates himself into a highly charged or a mythologically neutral position, a position that confirms no responsibility of the heavy chains of morality, ethics and meaning.




Derya's zine and blog had a furtive characteristic to it. I do agree that its encounter must be non-confrontational and its number must be limited. This restrictive element of accessibility upholds rarity, an underestimated value of objects including its encounter.


Grant asked some help to carry this tub. I agreed and wondered "Is he really fascinated by this?". After his performance, i then realized it is not as much as masturbatory as one might have initially read but rather his strange engagement with confines, the play that has happened with in and the carelessness or naivety that one might have forgotten.


In summary, one might argue that some of the pieces that i have chosen are rather installations. I do agree that they maybe looked as installations but what makes these pieces intriguing is its performative element.

When one witnesses a person committing in the act of indulgence, response and reaction become crucial and interchangeable variables, a validation that perspective may differ and pose as neutral while inherently considering its possible bearing of ethically negative or positive connotations. I see the difference on perspective being subjective, in contrast when juxtaposed for meaning being more subjective.

Research 2

D U R A T I O N A L




Rachel Gomme's durational piece is auditory by nature. This piece started on May 27th 2007 and has no specific end date. The audio piece is composed of 100 ten minute interviews in which the interviewer and and the interviewee are both silent. She states that "My aim is to create a presence in sound that gradually gives the sense of an invisible gathering of people in the space, a presence both eerie and intimate."

The quality of silence in Rachel's piece can be referrenced from Joh Cage's 4'33. It is both solemn and poetic because silence in analogy to visuality is empty and transparent. In comparison 4'33 has a transient element to it. Its duration is signified by its title, meaning that sound is very much welcome after the piece has played itseld. Rachel's piece states a quality of permanence. An underlying statement that it cannot be reproduced simply because its duration is not bound by time.

Gome,Rachel. http://www.newworknetwork.org.uk/modules/project/viewpro.php?proid=199 Feb.9,2009




R E L A T I O N A L




Marc Mouci's "In Bed With Me" used the Internet as a means for pictorial documentation. This piece lasted for five months and about 20 persons participated with this piece. The invitation was dealt on the internet and progressed as the guest came in his bedroom and spent the night. He has made it clear that the piece was not a sexual invitation but rather a performance that studied human approachment and intimacy.

Prof. Dr. Georg Christoph Tholen. Approaches to Interactivity. Berlin:Birkhauser. p52




C O M M U N I T Y B A S E D






According to Lorna Brown and Barbara Cole, both public art curators, this community based piece entitled "Carrall" was the most controversial public art piece in Vancouver. Althea Thauberger the artist was once my teacher in a foundation class. It happened on October 2nd, 2008. The block of Carrall and Cordova was lit up in a movie -like setting. There were hired performers and those who resided in that area self willingly performed as well. It was thought to be problematic because it was showcasing the poor that lived in that area. I argue that eventhough it was showcasing the poorest neighborhood in Canada, it was not at all expoitative. I came and felt lost, tried to distinguish who was the performer and who was not.

SHADOW PLAY

Group 3 's used memorable section of the piece when an uncertain figure transformed into a pig. The music that accompanied the performance was composed of a drum beat and one note chanting.












Group 2 used the body as signifiers as important elements of the story. One memorable scene was when a big foot kicked the guy's face. Its use of scale worked well in terms of the context of the requirements of the assignment.







Group 1 used color, the face, bubbles to produce a cohesive narrative. The use of bubbles created this illusion of being underwater. An animal made out of steel came out the person's mouth and journeyed to colorful landscapes then retreated to where it originally came from.

WAITING

Genevieve invited me and my brother to perform a piece for the show "My Mother worked in the factory". I felt that the intimate nature of the performance worked accordingly in relation to the size of the gallery.

As much as i would have wanted its perception to be didactic, i realized that even with the title of the group show as a context, it still left its meaning nebulous.

On a Sunday night while we were brain storming; desperation, comfort, vulnerability and assurance were the fundamental elements that arose from our conversation.