Performing for the Camera (4 units)

Introduction to Art Making: Motion and Time Based:

A question of the body and its reflection

Art

VIS 2

Thursdays: 6:30pm to 8:20pm

CENTER 115

Professor: Ricardo Dominguez

Email: rrdominguez@ucsd.edu

Art as gesture has almost always been anchored to the body, the body in time, the body in space and the leftovers of body. The body has a long history as a site of aesthetic experimentation and reflection. This class will focus on the history of these bodies in performance art. An additional objective for the course will be a focus on the question of documentation of technologies in order to understand their relationship to performance as an active reflection.

We will look at post-contemporary, contemporary and classic work by Chris Burden, Ulay and Abramovic, Allen Kaprow, Stelarc, Vito Acconci, Coco Fusco, Faith Wilding, Anne Hamilton, William Pope L., Yesmen, Rev. Billy, Nao Bustamante, Ana Mendieta, Cindy Sherman, Adrian Piper, Sophie Calle, Patty Chang, James Luna, Surveillance Camera Players and the work of many other performance artists.

Students will develop 1 short performance gesture a week, for the first 5 weeks, for a total of 5 gesture,individually or in collaboration with other students. The class will view and discuss each students performance documentation with the specific Teaching Assistant Block they are assigned to for the quarter. Students will also be expected to Write a 8 page Final Paper (*MLA - Manuel of Style*) on a performance artist, performance theme, or performance genre. The paper should compare and contrast the above with your own gestures.

Course Requirements:

1) 5 performance gestures (10% each): You will be required to construct a performance gesture and document the gesture. All gestures will be done beyond UCSD. NO GESTURES ARE TO BE DONE ON THE UCSD CAMPUS OR IN LA JOLLA.

2) Final Paper Eight Pages (30%): In the Final Paper students will frame the work they have made in class by comparing and contrasting it with the work of Performance Artist, theme or genre covered in class. (MLA).

FINAL PAPER DUE MARCH 19th, 2007

3) *Students who have to miss any classes due to an emergency (with documentation) will be able to take a cumulative make-up exam during the last week of classes (dead week). Note that social events such as weddings, anniversaries, quinceañeras or barmitzvahs, though important, are not considered emergencies.

4) Attendance and participation (20%): TA's will be taking attendance every time our class meets. Aside from counting toward your overall grade, attendance and participation will be crucial. Students who do not show up to class and are unaware of the material and discussions covered in lecture are not likely to obtain a passing grade.

Course Website:

http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/performance2.html

            This website is a crucial component of this course. The site will include the syllabus and links for review. I strongly urge you to review the Class Site on a weekly basis.

Grading Scale:

100-97           = A+

96-93             = A

92-90             = A-

89-87             = B+

86-93             = B

82-80             = B-

79-77             = C+

76-73             = C

72-70             = C-

69-67             = D+

66-63             = D

62-60             = D-

59 and below = F

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

PERFORMANCES

Commitment/Risk
Creativity in Presentation
A General Understanding of Performance Art/Art History
Application of Critical Connections in each of your performances

REQUIRED TEXT

Buy This Text for Class (You will save lots of cash if you order it on-line at

Amazon or Powells Books rather than have the bookstore get it). But get it!

Performance Art from Futurism to the Present by Roselee Goldberg

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0500203393/ref=pd_bxgy_img_b/102-4818180-4832106?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Or At

http://www.powells.com/s?kw=+Performance+Art+from+Futurism+to+the+Present&x=0&y=0

Access to a PDF of First Chapter of *Performance Art From Futurism to the Present* can

be found here:

http://va-pharkawik.ucsd.edu/pub/vis2/

CATALOGUES AND BOOKS THAT ARE RECOMMENDED:

CATALOGUES:

Art and Performance: Live (TATE U.K)

Out of Actions (LA MoCA)

Outside the Frame: Performance and the Object (Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art)

Performance Art (edited by Roselee Goldberg)

Body and the East: Form the 60s to the Present, (Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia)

BOOKS:

Ethno-Techno; Writings on Performance, Activism and Pedagogy, G. Gomez-Pena

The Twentieth Century Performance Reader, eds. Michael Huley and Noel Witts

Performance, Marvin Carlson

Contract with the Skin, Kathy Odell

Performing the Body, Amelia Jones

The Explicit Body of Performance, Rebecca Schneider

Happenings and Other Arts, ed Mary Ellen Sandford

Unmarked, Peggy Phelan

Acting Act: Feminist Performances, eds. Lynda Hart and Peggy Phelan

Let¹s Get it On: The Politics of Black Performance, ed. Catherine Ugwu

Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas, ed. Coco Fusco

Greenwich Village 1963, Sally Banes

The Blurring of Art and Life, Alan Kaprow

Imaging Her Erotics, Carolee Schneeman

The Citizen Artist: An Anthology from High Performance Magazine

Liveness, Philip Auslander

Dada Performance, ed. Mel Gordon

Futurist Performance, eds. Michael Kirby,

Jan 11 - CLASS ONE : Introduction to the Class and A History of Gestures:

Opening lecture and discussion on the nature of the class, what will be expected from each of you and the grading process? Explanation of contexts for presentation and documentation of your 5 Gestures.
A History of Gestures
Reading and View:
Futurist Performance

http://www.unknown.nu/future
Dada Sound Poems
http://www.ubu.com/sound/dada.html
Surrealism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism

Jarry, Joyce, Duchamp and Cage

CLASS TWO
Jan 18 - Gestures in Public Space and Time - Lecture by Artist Robert Sanchez

Read and View:

Theory of the Dérive

Guy Debord
http://www.ubu.com/papers/debord_derive.html

Suzanne Lacy
http://www.suzannelacy.com/

Border Arts Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo
http://www.borderartworkshop.com

Notes on crawling piece William Pope L.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0425/is_n4_v56/ai_20544728

Rev. Billy
http://www.revbilly.com/

Yesmen
http://www.theyesmen.org/

Gesture One:

Choose a site where you can engage in a performance activity for at least 2 continuous hours. You can move for this exercise or be still. If you move, don¹t leave the site you have chosen. Choose and develop a means of recording your actions/inaction AND the events or non-eventfulness around you. Try to be as aware as possible of the smallest of changes in your own body, mind and immediate environment. Don't just wait for something really noticeable to happen. Do not use any cameras or electronic recording devices. Limit yourself to what you can commit to memory, write down or otherwise record with some part of your body. Once you have completed your action, chronicle the experience in writing if you have not already written it down. Keep in mind that while writing is PERMITTED, it is not the ONLY way to make a record of actions, so consider other means too!

BRING DOCUMENTATION TO CLASS. Each TA Block will review and discuss everyone's performance and non-traditional documentation.

Jan 25th - CLASS THREE - Other as Gesture, Gesture as Other - Lecture by Artist Emiko Lewis Sanchez

James Luna
http://www.jamesluna.com

Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Juan Ybarra and Michelle Ceballos of La Pocha Nostra

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/liveculture/excentris

NaoBustamente
http://www.naobustamante.com/

Chiharu Shiota
http://archiv.hkw.de/deutsch/kultur/2001/translated_acts/shiota.html

Gesture Two:

Using any type of camera to record only segments of your body doing the same performance you did last week.

BRING DOCUMENTATION TO CLASS. Each TA Block will review and discuss everyones work.

Feb 1 - CLASS FOUR - Photographs as Gesture, Gestures for Photographs - Lecture by Artist Felipe Zuniga

Read and View

Some Thoughts on the Work of Hannah Wilke

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/zoebrigley/entry/deconstructing_the_feminine/

Naked truths: Hannah Wilke in Copenhagen
Art Journal, Summer, 1999 by Debra Wacks

"Look At Me: Self-Portrait Photography After Cindy Sherman"
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/lookatme.pdf
Mariko Mori Images

More Mori
http://www.mcachicago.org/MCA/exhibit/past/Mori/

ALICIA KURI

http://hemi.nyu.edu/gallery/exhibit2_eng/alicia_statement.html
Gesture Three:

Most of the history of performance actually is known through photographs. Many performance artists rejected the use of photographic documentation in the 50s and 60s, and also elaborated a critique of the objectification of performance through photography. On the other hand, many artists create performances exclusively for the camera. For this session, you should choose to create one of two kinds of performance: either a performance that incorporates the process of photographing the artist into the act itself (other students can act as photographers) or a performance that is presented as a photograph or series of photographs.

Feb. 8^th - CLASS FIVE - Naked Gestures - Lecture by Artist Michael Cardenas
Carolee Schneemann

http://www.caroleeschneemann.com/

franko.b

http://www.franko-b.com/gallery/g_performance.htm
Liminal Spaces Within The Transgressive Body
by Colleen Walker, U.C. 2004

http://www.franko-b.com/text/cw_introduction.htm

Vanessa Beecroft

http://www.thing.net/~vanessa/screen.html

http://www.vanessabeecroft.com/

Gesture Four:

For this session use any type of camera to create a performance of your naked self. Use the camera as a confession machine or as a disciplinary machine. You could tell us secrets, show us your tattoos or sit naked eating lunch. Just be naked!*Naked* does not necessarily mean *nude.* Remember the sign *naked* can also suggest: a raw gesture, to open one's your up completely, to tell a secret about your self etc.,.
BRING DOCUMENTATION TO CLASS. Each TA Block will review and discuss everyone's effort.

February 15^th - CLASS SIX - Gender Gestures - Lecture by Artist Nico Herbst
Judy Chicago

http://www.judychicago.com/
Guerrilla Girls
http://www.guerrillagirls.com/

Digital Drag Kings

http://www.technodyke.com/drag/default.asp

Gender as Performance
http://www.theory.org.uk/but-int1.htm

Gesture Five:

For this gesture use any type of camera/or docmentation to create a performance of you as another gender. Create a disguise, go in drag, become a *third or forth* gender, build an object that reflects your sense of gender in a public space, become a dream gender...become gender.

START TO DRAFT FINAL PAPER (MLA).

PRESENT ONE PAGE ON WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO COVER IN YOUR PAPER TO YOUR TA BLOCK.

CLASS SEVEN - February 22^st Movement and Sound Gestures - Lecture Artist Nina Waisman

John Cage
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/cage

Nam June PaikNam
http://www.paikstudios.com

From Objecthood to Subject Matter:
Yvonne Rainer
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/18/rainer.html

Merce Cunningham
http://www.merce.org/about_video.html

Troika Ranch
http://www.troikaranch.org

CONTINUE TO READINGS

CLASS EIGHT - March 1st - Queer Gestures - Lecture by Artist Stephen Remington

Tim Miller

http://feastoffools.net/archives/2005/07/fof_121_-_tim_m.php

Tim Miller

http://hometown.aol.com/millertale/timmiller.html

Dyke Action Machine

http://www.dykeactionmachine.com/

Critical Regionalism: Mexico's Performative Range-of-Motion the Rodríguez/Felipe Wedding

http://hemi.nyu.edu/journal/2_2/carroll.html

START WRITING YOUR PAPER - 8 PAGES

March 8th - Pain/Erotic Gestures

Marina Abramovic

http://www.eyestorm.com/feature/ED2n_article.asp?article_id=38&artist_id=108

Subjective Made Object: Pain in Contemporary Art

Colin Fernandes, MD

http://www.ampainsoc.org/pub/bulletin/jul04/path1.htm

Bob Flanagan

http://www.suspectthoughts.com/flanagan.html

Pain Journals

http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/terminals/flanagan/flanagan.html

Ron Athey

http://www.ronathey.com/
Ron Athey¹s Artful Crown of Thorns
by C. Carr

December 9 - 15, 1998

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/9850,carr,2061,4.html

Valie Export

Tap and Touch cinema

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/tapp-und-tastkino/video/1/

Frank Moore

http://www.eroplay.com

Annie Sprinkle

http://www.bobsart.org/sprinkle

FINISH YOUR READINGS

SHOULD ALREADY BE WRITING YOUR PAPER

March 15th - CLASS TEN - Techno_Distributed Gestures Lygia Clark

http://mitpress2.mit.edu/ejournals/Leonardo/isast/spec.projects/osthoff/osthoff.html

I know of no other artist
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_5_37/ai_53590127
Stelarc
http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/

Orlan
http://www.orlan.net/

Life_sharing
http://www.0100101110101101.org/home/life_sharing/index.html

ON-LINE DOCUMENTATION OF PERFORMANCE ART - MORE TO COME.

Linda Montano

http://www.bobsart.org/montano/

Translated Acts: Performance Art from East Asia

http://archiv.hkw.de/translated_acts.html

Lick and Lather

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/antoni/clip2.html
Loving Care

http://digitalconsciousness.com/artists/JanineAntoni/
Media Art Net

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/mediaartnet/

The Practice of Everyday Life

Michel de Certeau

http://www.ubu.com/papers/de_certeau.html

Art and Advocacy

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/sl1.html

e-misferia (Latin American Performance and Politics)

http://hemi.nyu.edu/journal/2_2/splash.html

Art and Commitment

http://artandcommitment.umn.edu/webstream.html

International symposium took place as part of the Live Culture program of Live Art performances, debates and presentations.

http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/archive/live_culture/live_conference.htm