FINAL PROJECT:
Biodrag
General Information
Independent study with three Digital+Media Graduate Students
Catherine D'Ignazio, professor
Google Group: performance_art@googlegroups.com
Course Description
The course covers the history and practice of performance art with an emphasis on issues including but not limited to gender, ethnicity, religion, politics and sex. Some preliminary questions:
- What we mean when we say "performance art?"
- How is it different from other types of performance such as experimental theater?
- What has been the impact of feminist theory on performance?
- What is the role of the artist in the performance? as body? as agent? as sacrifice?
- Someone is walking around naked cutting themselves up - why should we care?
- What is the role of ritual in performance art?
- Do we perform ourselves on a daily basis?
- How have digital technologies expanded or contracted
performance possibilities in
relationship to time, space and the flesh?
Requirements
We will work collaboratively to come up with readings and videos/media to review for each week.
Grading and Policies
Grades will be based on attendance, participation, quality of readings/meda selected and execution of the final performance project.
Calendar and Events
Wednesday, Sept 20, 2006
MEDIA: Gómez-Peña, Guillermo and Fusco, Coco. "The Couple in the Cage: Guatianaui Odyssey." (1993);
READING: Introduction, Goldberg, Roselee, and Laurie Anderson. Performance: Live Art Since the '60S, Thames & Hudson, 2004.
Wednesday, Sept 27, 2006
MEDIA:
- Undertone [videorecording] / Vito Acconci. New York, N.Y. : Electronic Arts Intermix, 1972.
- Seedbed [videorecording] / Vito Acconci. New York, NY : Electronic Arts Intermix, 2004.
- Public interventions [videorecording] / presented by The Institute of Contemporary Art.
Boston, MA : ICA, 1994.READING:
- Discuss - Introduction, Goldberg, Roselee, and Laurie Anderson. Performance: Live Art Since the '60S, Thames & Hudson, 2004.
- From Catherine: Adrian Piper calling cards & Vito Acconci performance descriptions
Wednesday, Oct 4th, 2006
MEDIA: I say I am [videorecording] : women's performance video from the 1970s / curated by Maria Troy ; [presented by] Video Data Bank. Imprint Chicago, Ill. : Video Data Bank, c1998.
READING:
- Introduction. Grosz, Elizabeth. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (Theories of Representation and Difference), Indiana University Press, 1994.
- Introduction to Performance Art. Stiles, Kristine, and Peter Selz. Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings (California Studies in the History of Art ; 35), University of California Press, 1996.
- Interview with subrosa. Thompson, Nato, and Gregory Sholette. The Interventionists: Users' Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life, The MIT Press, 2004.
Wednesday, Oct 11, 2006
MEDIA: Jenny Holzer "Public Art" lecture at RISD
READING: (further discussion)
- Introduction. Grosz, Elizabeth. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (Theories of Representation and Difference), Indiana University Press, 1994.
Wednesday, Oct 18, 2006
Midterm Critiques, no class.
Wednesday, Oct 25, 2006
READING:
- Coco Fusco's keynote speech at ISEA 1998: "At Your Service: Latinas in the Global Information Network".
- Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts & Gender Constitution". ed. Sue-Ellen Case. Performing Feminisms. Johns Hopkins, 1992.
- nettime "Gender & You" flame war
Wednesday, Nov 1, 2006
Catherine out of town, no class.
Wednesday, Nov 8, 2006
MEDIA: Adrian Piper Video.
Wednesday, Nov 15, 2006
MEDIA: Guest speaker Jaimes Mayhew.
READING:
- Dolan, Jill. "The Dynamics of Desire: Sexuality and Gender in Pornography and Performance". Theater Journal, Vol. 39, No. 2 (May 1987), 156-174. Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Gender Quiz. Bornstein, Kate. My Gender Workbook, Routledge, 1997.
Wednesday, Nov 22, 2006
Thanksgiving, no class
Wednesday, Nov 29, 2006
MEDIA: May I help you? [videorecording] : January 12-February 2, 1991 / written and directed by Andrea Fraser in cooperation with Allan McCollum. Imprint [New York, NY : Distributed by American Fine Arts, Co.], 1991.
READING:
- "'Presence' in Absentia: Experiencing Performance as Documentation". Amelia Jones. Art Journal, Vol. 56, No. 4, Performance Art: (Some) Theory and (Selected) Practice at the End of This Century. (Winter 1997), pp. 11-18.
- Interview with Hal Foster.
Hal Foster, Leigh French, Peter Suchin and Billy Clark. "Interview With Hal Foster." 1997. Variant Scotland. November 26th 2006. <http://www.variant.randomstate.org/3texts/Hal_Foster.html>.- Sworn Virgins in the Western Balkans
Sworn virgins (Serb. tobelije, ostajnice, virdžine; Alb. virgjinéshë) are women who, as children or dolescents, give up their female identities and vow to become male. Accepted and even revered in their communities, they take on the lifestyle, appearance, and rights of men. Geographically, sworn virgins are located mostly in the territories of Montenegro, Kosovo, Metohija and North Albania, i.e. in the areas where patriarchal way of life and clan-tribal social organization was preserved.- Rebecca Schneider, The Explicit Body in Performance, New York :Routledge, 1997. (Introduction).
Wednesday, Dec 6, 2006
READING:
- Brown, Patricia Leigh. "Supporting Boys Or Girls When the Line Isn’t Clear." New York Times, Dec 2, 2006, sec National: website.
Additional Resources
Websites
Orozco-Mexotica
Ethno-drag! A project by Guillermo Gomez-Peña. Create your favorite
ethno-techno cyborg.
Events
Oct 31 - Nov 5: Mobius International Festival of Performance Art. Boston, MA.
Tuesday, Nov 14th, 6:30PM: Feedback & Immersion in Video Art. List Visual Arts Center. Boston, MA.
Sept 21 - Dec 17: Balance and Power: Performance and Surveillance in Video Art. Rose Art Museum. Waltham, MA.
More Books & Reading
Amato, Toni, and Mary Davies. Pinned Down By Pronouns, Not Avail, 2004.
Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender, Routledge, 2004.
Deleuze, Gilles, Felix Guattari, and Brian Massumi. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, University of Minnesota Press, 1987.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, Basic Books, 2000.
Feinberg, Leslie. Transgender Warriors : Making History From Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman, Beacon Press, 1997.
Grosz, Elizabeth. "A Thousand Tiny Sexes: Feminism and Rhizomatics". ed. Boundas, C. & Olkowski, D. Gilles Deleuze and the Theater of Philosophy, Routledge, 1994.
Vincent, Norah. Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man, Penguin (Non-Classics), 2006.