Final performance: lost tooth (treadmill)

Wow. What a doozy. Such a crazy day it was. I am happy it is over. Besides having to pay for a new tooth I am actually very happy and proud of my performance as well as upset I did not get to discuss the performance in a regular fashion. 

The performance itself, I felt, went quite well. The space was as good as I could ask for. I felt that both Elliot and i's wardrobe was perfect. I was wearing the grey sweats of a worker and Elliot wore the black authoritarian sweats. It was obvious what my point was I felt. I hope everyone got it. Sometimes you are forced to go as hard as you can and past it. You will fail but you can at least smile when you are bloody and toothless. I also felt that the sounds were great. The treadmill getting louder and louder as well as the quickening of my footsteps must have really built the tension and my fall was a nicely climactic ending. 

As far as inspiration goes it was a lot for

 My wrestling past as I actually came up with this performance one of the first days of class and developed the subtleties as I learned from my work. I was inspired by the struggle of my athletic past as well as in life. Also Chris Burden was someone I looked at although I am not nearly as masochistic and crazy as he was. 

Overall though, I really am proud of this work. I think it was the strongest of the block. I wish I could have done it for live art night. 

Laurie Anderson response

I have mixed reactions to Laurie's lecture/presentation/talk/whatever it was. On one hand, the woman is obviously very talented, charming, and intelligent. This intrigued me and throughout the talk I kept picking up on little things that she said that I could twist and use for my own work as well as in my own life. On the other hand though, boy can she talk. Laurie had a lot of trouble staying on one topic and consolidating all of her points into one cohesive takeaway. Maybe this is what she wanted; maybe she wanted something uber-informal, something a little different that big Laurie Anderson fans would really enjoy. Fans that have seen everything would enjoy. But for myself, the talk seemed fragmented for much of it.

performance #4: today is sundae

For our forth performance we were required to use food in some way shape or form. Ideas that immediately came to mind were something like "food for thought" or making some sort of meal. Ideally I could do both. Once I decided on making some sort of food, I had to think of why/how I would do it as well as what I would do with it and what I would make... if that makes sense. I first thought sandwich and eat it myself but then I realized that that would be boring and pointless. After discussing it with a roommate I decided on a cliché and ideal ice cream sundae on account of the really cool ice cream dishes I have in my cupboard. The next decision concerned what I would do with the sundae. The choices were: eat it, destroy it, or give it away. I decided to give it away using Cage-like chance operations. The mechanism for chance was something I needed to figure out as well. Eventually I decided on flipping a coin to, one after the other, eliminate half of the class from contention until I was left with one person. Sadly though, that one person was Corissa who cannot eat any of the ingredients in the sundae, oh well.

The performance did some things right but as Sandy said, it was not complete. There was not enough of the "food for thought" idea involved. The sundae though, looked fantastic and cliché and ideal. It made everyone desire it (except Corissa). And flipping the coin did exactly what I want as it nicely built tension as the recipient was incrementally narrowed down to one person.

Afterwords though, Sandy had Corissa come up to the stage and read the ingredients to each part of the sundae while I (who missed lunch that day) ate nuts and maraschino cherries out of their containers. While she read and I ate I felt this kind of loss, like I felt bad for eating all these terrible chemicals in the ingredients but it of course did not stop me. This is when the light bulb went off in my head a little bit. If I were to do this again I would make a delicious sundae that the whole audience wants, then give it to an audience member making the rest of the audience jealous but then I would read the ingredients to each part of the sundae which would hopefully make the person eating the sundae a little less happy eating it and make the rest of the audience who did not eat it feel some relief for not putting 1,927,312 carcinogens in their body. Maybe for live art night, maybe not...

performance #3: suiting up

For my third performance I decided to do a sort of transformation piece. I went from my shlubby college clothing: tattered jeans, boots, and drug rug into a dapper black suit with all the assorted accoutrement. Besides being once again, nervous as hell and shaking throughout the performance it went surprisingly well. I am not necessarily comfortable undressing in front of my classmates but that was fine. I even buttoned my collar in record time; that usually does not happen.

The comments were really what encouraged me. My classmates really got to almost every particular point of my performance that I made conscious decisions for. From my clothing I began the performance in to all the accoutrement a part of my suit including me deciding to keep the watch of my first outfit into the latter one. Sandy spoke of a transformation out from boy to man which is what I was going for but she also included that transformation being the idea of leaving college. This was not my thought going in but it does make sense thinking about it as a 6th block senior.

Watching it over I realize a few of my mistakes. One being that the suit was filthy. Another being that the performance itself was too long. The former being an easy fix, the latter not so much.

Overall, I do think this was my best performance. The best idea, it went the most smoothly, and I got to wear a suit. It was a good 7 minutes.

performance #2: untitled

The first performance was nerve racking because it was my first performance. My second performance was nerve racking because I knew it was an absurd idea and we only had a rough outline to what was actually about to happen. It was better that way though. It built the tension of the performance and kept Maddie and myself on our toes. 

When Maddie suggested the idea for the performance to me I was a bit confused and a frozen by the idea but something concerning sandy's ideas about absurdity and expanding our borders came over me and I agreed. I'm glad I did as I consider the performance a success as the class seemed pleased and pulled some relatively deep meaning from it. 

The performance could be improved, I think, by total overhaul and restructure. The peanut butter eating part of the performance was the most interesting part for both the crowd and myself so the best idea, I think, is to make that performance. To feed my partned peanut butter completely straight faced. This would probably be impossible for me as one spoonful was way to funny for me but for another, this could be a wonderful, intimate, and hilarious performance. 

artistic bio

i am an experimental and spontaneous artist. i try to do things i do not know how to do and generally do them without much practice and without knowing the result. it has come out well in the past. i am an idea driven person. i am an inspired person. i draw from what i see and what i have experienced and tweak these things to create something original. i hate to copy, i try really hard to draw the line between inspiration and copying. i try to be concise, i don't like to drag things on. i am a sensitive person and want to please people. this means that whether i am motivated or not, i end up working hard on pieces just to please other people for better or worse. but at the same time, i have my own specific taste and i don't compromise it. i just try to work hard.

performance #1: pickle jar renegade

this first performance was an interesting experience for me. i have never performed in my life and am in all reality, terrified of it. watching everyone else's performances which were seemingly really well thought out and performed made me more nervous. i did though, know i had a decent idea as long as it went well but of course, it didn't go well, at least to my standards.

i wanted my performance to feature the idea of a struggle while poking fun at it and satirize that cliché experience. i was honestly most afraid of not being able to open the pickle jars but the opposite happened, the jars were far to easily opened. 

some things did go well though. the first jar opened with a splash which i thought was good as it got some laughs from the class. i also think the pickle eating was well received. so all in all, it went reasonably well but there are definitely many ways to improve the performance. i should open many pickle jars... 10, 20, 100 whatever. the more there are the more absurd and funny the performance is. also, i cannot end performances the way i did. i didn't plan to end it the way i did but it just happened. cut me some slack, i was nervous.