Performance Art Part 4

Jordan Swartz
Performance Art Activity

One of the two peoples stands with their hands between their legs, while the other partner just holds their hands straight out, the two participants join hands. On the count of three, the partner with their hands between their legs jumps and throws their legs over while at the same time the other partner pull up forcefully. This makes the one partner completely flip.
In order to complete my activity, the partners need complete trust and must work off of each other. I'm really glad the people I chose were able to complete the task, they even did it more than once.

Conceptual Art

I liked the activity we did in class. I find it interesting how many different pieces could be created from just eight original 2x3 drawings. If there weren't the cross hairs pieces the overall work would look rather cohesive. I find it interesting that Sol LeWitt can send out these detailed instructions to various companies and institutions and all these works will be original Sol LeWitt pieces because he is the original creator and are all based off his works. All the drawings are based off of his originals so these works are his originals, which I find very interesting.

Performance Art Part 3

I participated in Britney's activity. Fran and I walked five steps apart and either threw, bounced, or rolled a tennis ball, but the same action could not be repeated more than twice in a row. We could move in different directions, towards each other, closer, farther apart, or opposite directions; the person with the ball being the one who decided. I found it an interesting and fun activity. The first few passes and movements were easy, but after the fourth or fifth pass, you had to begin to think what direction to move. You didn't want to continuously move in the same direction, causing a static state. I believe Fran and I completed the task well though. We varied between throwing, bouncing, and rolling and kept our movements varied as well.
I really enjoyed Casey's activity. For her performance art, she had two people repeatedly draw the star of David. The star could be altered as long as it was still the star of David; the participants could color it in, stretch it, shrink it, distort it, anything to alter its state as long it stayed some what true to the original shape. I found this activity to be extremely interesting. I'm fascinated by the power of symbols and this project only helped fuel that. The star of David was altered in multiple ways yet it still resembled the original. I love how something can me changed in multiple ways to express different meanings and evoke a wide range of feelings, while at its core is just a simple image. I'm glad she chose this activity because I think it is an extremely good performance piece in that it really makes people think in some form or another. While every ones pieces made the participants think and react, I think Casey's was good because it related back to one of the simplest forms of art.

Performance Art Part 2

The Fluxus group was a group of artists, composers, and designers who mixed mediums and medias through out the 1960s. They created kits called Fluxus boxes which contained "scripts" or outlines of how to perform various "do it yourself" art activities. These activities were meant to blur the lines between performer and audience. Most of what they did was to mock or upset high culture.
I really like their work, in that it was created to attack high culture, something i approve of. I also like that they wanted audience members and performers to be one in the same, I believe to many people think of art as some out of reach unattainable form, but art is whatever you want it to be. I like that the Fluxus group made that evident.

Performance Art Part 1

I performed Allan Kaprow's shaking hands activity with my roommate. It was interesting because it was a little awkward. Usually with a handshake it lasts at most a few seconds if not less, but with this project we continuously shook and while I don't know exactly how long it took for the activity to be accomplished, it was definitely longer than a normal handshake. I rather enjoyed this activity because I tend to really enjoy awkward situations. Most awkward situations really aren't that bad, it's just that our entire lives we've been taught that these situations are out of the ordinary, so thats how we perceive them.