Introduction to Art Making: Motion and Time
Based:
A question of the body and its reflections as gesture.
VIS 2 Winter 2009
WED: 7:00 p.m. to 8:50 p.m.
PCYNH 106
Professor: Ricardo Dominguez
Email:rrdominguez@ucsd.edu
Office Hour: Wed. 1 to 2 p.m.
Room: 2501 CALIT2/Atkinson Hall (2nd Fl. West Side of Building)
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 modernist, contemporary and post-contemporary,
contemporary work by Chris Burden, Ulay and Abramovic, Allen
Kaprow, Vito Acconci, Coco Fusco, Faith Wilding, Anne Hamilton,
William Pope L., Tehching Hsieh, Revered 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 performance action a week, for 5 weeks,
for a total of 5 actions (during the first part of the class),
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 an 8
page Final Paper (*MLA - Manuel of Style*) on a performance
artist, performance art, or the 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 and La Jolla, CA.
2) Final Paper (8 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 18th, 2009
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, quinceaneras 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.
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 and in your Class Essay
CATALOGUES:
Performa - New Visual Art Performance by RoseLee Goldberg
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:
Performance Art from Futurism to the Present, Roselee Goldberg
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
Let's 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,
CLASS ONE
Jan 6th - Introduction to the Class: (The W(hole) Body) and its
Rituals
Opening 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.
WE ARE ALSO RESPONSIBLE: CESAR CHAVEZ 1971/2008: Public reenactment of a speech given by Chicano labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez at a Vietnam veterans memorial rally at Exposition Park in Los Angeles on May 2, 1971.
Gesture One:
Choose a site where you can engage in a performance activity in a Public Space for
at least 2 continuous hours. You can move for this exercise or be
still. If you move, don't 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. Do not 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.
Thursday, January 15 2009 - Reception 6:00 pm, Lecture begins at 7:00 pm
The event is FREE for all UCSD faculty, students, and staff and FREE for all MCASD members.
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, Sherwood Auditorium, 700 Prospect Street La Jolla, CA 92037
Sophie Calle is a renowned and influential artist based in Paris, France. She is an established photographer, writer, and installation artist. In her conceptual and poetic works, Calle consciously conceals the borders between art and life, fiction and reality, and the private and the public. Calles artwork plays with the concept of voyeurism and many of her pieces find her following strangers and investigating their private lives.
"L'Hotel" by Sophie Calle
In 1981, Sophie Calle spent three weeks working as chambermaid in a hotel in Venice. This allowed her to spy on the guests. http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/hotel/
"He loves me not"
When a boyfriend dumped her by email, French artist Sophie Calle asked 100 women to read it
- and became the star of the Venice Biennale, reports Angelique Chrisafis
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/16/artnews.art
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 everyone.
CLASS THREE: NO CLASS LECTURE
YOU SHOULD ATTEND THIS LECTURE IF YOU CAN:
Talk by Performance Artist/Visual Studies Scholar, Tina Takemoto
Title: "Mourning, Malady, Memoirs of Bjork-Geisha"
A presentation of work by Tina Takemoto
WHEN: Wednesday, January 21, 2009
TIME: 12:30 - 2:00 p.m.
WHERE: Media Center/Communication Building
The Herbert I. Schiller Room 201
This presentation considers the traumatic impact of illness on artistic
collaborations in performance. Takemoto will present Her/She Senses
Imag(in)ed Malady, a collaborative project with Angela Ellsworth,
documenting the shifting physical and psychological effects of cancer
within the dynamic of a long distance relationship and artistic
collaboration. She will also discuss her recent appearances as
Bjork-Geisha in theater, at art openings, and on youtube.
Tina Takemoto is a performance artist and Associate Professor of Visual
Studies at the California College of the Arts. She received a PhD in
Visual and Cultural Studies from the University of Rochester and holds a
MFA in Visual Art from Rutgers University. She has received grants from
Art Matters, Inc., the Irvine Foundation, and the NEA, and her articles
appear in Art Journal, Women & Performance, and Performance Research.
Her work can also be viewed at:
Using any type of camera record a performance of your making
something.
Many performances involve making, from concrete objects to
ephemeral or immaterial things, to traces of actions, to records
of actions, to waste products resulting from actions. Choose one
of these approaches and develop a performance that is organized
around the act of making.
BRING DOCUMENTATION TO CLASS. Each TA Block will review and
discuss everyones work.
CLASS FOUR: Jan 28th - Becoming Gender(s), Performing Gender(s) - Lecture by Artist Micha Cardenas
YOU SHOULD ALL GO TO THIS PERFORMANCE (IF YOU CAN):
The performance of the apology and
The separation of sex and state
West Coast Premiere
Admission: Pay-What-You-Can
Thursday - Saturday, January 29 - 31 @ 8pm
Post-performance discussion on Thursday
Looking at the sexual psychodrama of our political leaders, this work is inspired by
New York Governor Elliot Spitzer's 2008 confession and apology for patronizing prostitutes.
Finley's latest spoken word text includes an examination of Spitzer's confession, his
underlying compulsion, the role played by his wife Silda, as well as imagining the
sexual encounter and the married couple's therapy sessions. Finley sees the agony
of the son's need for approval from the father and the ancient wrestling of the
feminine archetypes of mother and whore.
Karen Finley is an innovative and controversial New York based performance
artist/literary figure/visual artist. She has created countless installations,
drawings, performances, and public sculptures all over the world. Finley gained
notoriety for her show We Keep Our Victims Ready, which premiered at Sushi in 1989.
The show drew the ire of Senator Jessie Helms who used her performances as a focal
point in the culture wars. She has also been featured on many television shows and
has been a semi-regular on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect". She has posed for
Playboy magazine and collaborated with many artists including Sinead O' Conner.
She currently teaches at New York University.
Gesture Four: For this gesture use any type of camera/or docmentation to create a
performance of you as another gender, create; a disguise-as-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 in public space.
BRING DOCUMENTATION TO CLASS. Each TA Block will review and
discuss everyones work.
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! Which does not mean that you
have to be nude. One can be over dressed and still completely
naked and raw.
BRING DOCUMENTATION TO CLASS. Each TA Block will review and
discuss everyone's effort.
CLASS SIX:
Feb. 11th - Photographs as Gestures, Gestures for Photographs
Gesture Six (Make Up Gesture for those who MISSED ONE class):
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, or perfomrance tha uses the photograph against the
photograph as performance and then photograph it.
Critical Regionalism: Mexico's Performative Range-of-Motion in
Madre por un dÌa & the RodrÌguez/Felipe
Wedding. by Amy Sara Carroll http://hemi.nyu.edu/journal/2_2/carroll.html
