In this project, I wanted to show that endurance doesn’t always mean pain. There is a level of endured intimacy amongst individuals that can stem from seemingly nothing. My goal was to create a space specifically for myself and the volunteered viewer, thus creating a level of intimacy we would not have gotten anywhere else. Something that I think went well was creating that space. During the performance, I really momentarily forgot about the rest of the class. I believe a large part of that was due to the set up of the performance in the way we were closer to the back wall with the only light sources directly on us. This made it feel as if the rest of the room didn’t even exist. I was very pleased with the amount of participation I saw from my peers because one of my fears was that the set up would feel too intense or daunting. I think that something I could have done better was really sticking to the non-verbal aspect of my goal. I wanted to create that level of intimacy void of any verbal communication, but I found that to be very difficult in the moment. Overall, I had a lot of fun with this project. I was able to create a fun, lighthearted environment and to me, that was a great feeling. At first the thought of performance art was intimidating, but when I started to view the performance as a tool, everything else started to fall into place.

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When trying to come up with an idea for this performance piece, I kept coming back to Marina Abramovic’s performance The Artist is Present. In this piece, Abramovic sat herself in a chair across from an empty chair, allowing viewers to approach and sit in a space with her. I was initially drawn to the open-ended-ness of this set up and how it allowed for so much potential. This made me think about what points I wanted to emphasize and how would I get that meaning across? In the video about Christine Sun Kim, I remembered how she described performance art as a “tool” which made me feel more comfortable with the performance aspect of this project. This was simply just another form of mark making, but what mark did I want to make?

I decided to mimic the set up of The Artist is Present in order to have a similar aspect of the possibility for chaos. I also decided on making this more lighthearted by adding the element of water. I would hold water in my mouth and wait for the viewer in the chair to mimic me. Eventually we’d both start to laugh, spraying each other with the water in our mouths. I wanted to make an emphasis on the nature of human intimacy by creating this sort of bubble between myself and the viewer. The interaction itself soon turns into a game of who can make the other person laugh first. I wanted to express how just one silly interaction can bring together two complete strangers.

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For my performance art exercise, I followed Yoko Ono’s instructions for Map Piece by allowing myself– and a couple friends– to get lost. We started by pointing out random directions and started walking, loosely trying to keep track of where we had been. We ended up walking across campus through parts I had never been before. We got past the CU Denver buildings and almost onto 16th street. We circled back and went through the main parts of campus where the Fall Fest fair was taking place.

To anyone else, we looked like ordinary students walking through the fair, but to ourselves, we knew we were in the middle of a type of performance piece. Because we looked so ordinary and there was a lot going on, we were interacted with by a lot of different people. We ended up collecting assortments of free items ranging from pens to water bottles to condoms. I think that in a way, the things we encountered play a role in the performance piece itself. Many of my thoughts stemmed from things I was being given and from listening to the world around me. At what cost are these organizations advertising? What are they advertising for? Is there a sort of ritualistic tone or practice that goes into interacting with people in that way?

Something else that I found to be very interesting was the groups of people separate from the school fair that were handing out pocket Bibles to passersby. This sparked my thoughts on the implications behind religious texts and actions. It made me wonder if how the way I interact with these offerings could become art on its own. What if I accepted the copy of the New Testament and simply began ripping the pages and eating them one by one in front of these people? What would they do? Can I consider that to be art? How would their reactions play into that performance? I really thought about doing it, but I didn’t want to cross the line of disrespect towards them. But even that in itself raises a question– can offense be considered an art form?

• Where do you think the discomfort in performance art stems from? Is it possible that both the performer and the audience are uncomfortable?
• Christine Sun Kim discusses the “ownership of sound” and therefore the ownership of art. What are rules that either restrict or encourage your art? What do you believe that you can and can’t do?

For this project, I wanted to create a piece of interactive art that creates a light-hearted and dreamy tone and encourages the viewer to be optimistic and keep their head in the clouds. To create this piece, I deconstructed a framed mirror and painted onto it the phrase “keep you head in the clouds”. After that I painted clouds onto cardboard, cut them out and adhered them to the edges of the mirror. I specifically took the mirror out of the frame and placed the clouds breaching the edges because I wanted to emphasize that idea of creativity and being limitless with no bounds or constraints. The color scheme I chose was monochromatic blue with hints of contrasting gold. I think that these colors working in tandem both united the piece with the natural environment and made it stand out from its immediate surroundings because of the gold. I decided to use a mirror because I liked the idea of a nature collage where from afar the piece looks like it’s placing a piece of the sky in a place that’s more accessible– in this case, the piece was placed a short distance from a busy on-campus sidewalk. I also liked the idea of the mirror because it causes the viewer to identify themselves at an angle they normally wouldn’t have come across.

Something that I think that I did well was creating a clean piece that was successful in conveying a dream-like tone. I also had a lot of fun incorporating a medium I’m more familiar with (painting) with the interventional interactive aspect of this project. If I were to do anything different, I would reconsider the time and placement of the piece. When it’s so early in the morning– in this case it was around 10a.m.– the busy parts of campus aren’t as busy as I expected. Furthermore, a lot of people walk while looking down at their phones, so having the piece off to the side wasn’t very attention-grabbing. Ultimately, I’m very torn between liking the idea that only a select few people saw the piece versus wanting more people to stop and look. The few people who did give the piece a second look noticeably paused and smiled at their reflection before carrying on whereas the people who didn’t look just simply didn’t get that minor experience. Because this was my first 4D interactive piece, I’m happy with the fact that it was a more intimate piece that didn’t reach a large audience; I saw the piece and overall interaction as nothing more than a pleasant surprise as the viewer goes about their day.

In the environment…

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Detail shots….

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• How do you think it felt to be in Kristin Lucas’s shoes? Do you think that sometimes art or any idea is supposed to feel risky?
• How would you have reacted if you were in the judge’s position? Do you think any other judge would have been understanding in this situation?

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    One piece of artwork that stuck out to me was the collage of traditional Japanese art by Beanie. In her piece, she combined seven pieces of historical Japanese artwork ranging from the feudal to medieval time periods in order to create one cohesive piece of art. The original artworks themselves all featured natural elements such as the ocean, mountains, trees, birds, and even humans. The primary colors bringing all of these pieces together were deep blues, bright oranges, and reds. In her creative process, Beanie overlapped these images while making sure that there was a continuous horizon line linking the images together. For example, she cropped an image in such a way that the curves and linear forces of the picture were continued through the curves and lines of a separate piece entirely. By doing this, she was able to create a story by using the visions of various artists through different time periods. Though the storyline was unintentional, I thought that it made this piece of work exceptionally strong because it presented the viewer with a narrative. Specifically, the artwork shows above the horizon line where the sky is calm whereas below the horizon line, the tumultuous sea is depicted with various monsters. Her utilization of the computer itself as a tool was impressive because she found a way to create something new out of pre-existing images she found. Overall, I found this piece to be successful because it held the composition of a finished piece. I would like to see what kind of narrative could develop if even more images of artworks were added to the scene.