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Performance

From CT4CT: Creative Tools for Critical Times

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Banned Book Display

Banned Book Display, 2008

Banned Book Display is an installation and performance piece created by the Twin Hickory Public Library in Glen Valley, VA in which volunteer readers sat in a window display and read (silently) banned and challenged books. Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read takes place during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA (American Library Association) event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted.

According to the Twin Hickory Public Library:

"We've created a 'live' Banned Book Display at our library [Twin Hickory Public Library, Glen Allen, VA]. We have volunteer readers who sit in the display and read (silently) banned and challenged books. So far it's gotten a lot of attention – we hear a lot of 'Mom, what are those people doing in there?' The best part has been hearing parents explain to their kids what the display is all about which is exactly what we wanted to happen!"

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Bikes Against Bush

Bikes Against Bush, 2004

Joshua Kinberg's Bikes Against Bush is a bicycle-based graffiti writer that uses soluble chalk to print political messages on the sidewalk sent by visitors to his website.

According to Kinberg:

Bikes Against Bush is an interactive protest/performance occurring simultaneously online and on the streets of NYC during the Republican National Convention. Using a wireless Internet enabled bicycle outfitted with a custom-designed printing device, the Bikes Against Bush bicycle can print text messages sent from web users directly onto the streets of Manhattan in water-soluble chalk.

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Billionaires for Bush

Billionaires for Bush

Billionaires for Bush is a culture jamming political action group that utilizes street theater to satirically support George W. Bush (and other politicians) for those activities which are perceived to benefit corporations and the wealthy. The group was formed during the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

According to Billionaires for Bush, the group is:

a grassroots network of corporate lobbyists, decadent heiresses, Halliburton CEOs, and other winners under George W. Bush's economic policies. Headquartered in Wall Street and with over 60 chapters nationwide, we'll give whatever it takes to ensure four more years of putting profit over people. After all, we know a good president when we buy one.

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The Cellist of Sarajevo

Vedran Sailovic in the National Library, 2008

In 1992, Vedran Smailovic (the Cellist of Sarajevo), braved sniper fire to play his cello in commemoration of fellow citizens who were killed by mortar explosions while waiting in a bread line. Mr. Smailovic returned to play in the same spot for 22 consecutive days - one for each person killed. He chose Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor, a composition reconstructed from a manuscript found in the ashes of Dresden after the Second World War. In so doing, this brave cello player showed the world that the sounds of humanity and peace could still be heard. This courageous and creative act of compassion inspired hope in thousands of people within and beyond the battle-sieged streets of Sarajevo and served as a poignant and shocking reminder for many around the world of the insanity and absurdity of war.

According to the Times Online:

For 16 years Vedran Smailovic has been feted as the Cellist of Sarajevo, a musician who defied the city’s snipers by playing for 22 successive days in the rubble of an explosion that claimed the lives of 22 of his fellow Bosnians as they queued to buy bread. Dressed in evening tails and perching on a fire-scorched chair, the photographs of his grieving face became a searing global image that made artists such as David Bowie, U2, Pavarotti and Sir Paul McCartney clamour to perform with him.

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Cherry Blossoms

Cherry Blossoms, 2006

Alyssa Wright's Cherry Blossoms is designed to raise awareness about civilian deaths in Iraq. It consists of a backpack that utilizes a microcontroller and a GPS unit that is regularly updated with news of bombings in Iraq.

According to Wright:

Cherry Blossoms addresses the disparity between human suffering and perception of that suffering. The project starts in a backpack outfitted with a small microcontroller and a GPS unit. Recent news of bombings in Iraq are downloaded to the unit every night, and their relative location, to the center of the city, are superimposed on a map of Boston. If the wearer walks in a space in Boston that correlates to a site of violence in Baghdad, the backpack detonates and releases a compressed air cloud of confetti, looking like a mixture between smoke and shrapnel and the white blossoms of a cherry tree, completely engulfing the wearer. Each piece of confetti is inscribed with the name of a civilian who died in the war, and the circumstances of their death. With Cherry Blossoms human loss resonates beyond the boundary of conflict.

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COMMONspace

COMMONspace, 2006-07

REBAR's COMMONspace (2006-2007) is a project that explored, evaluated, and mapped San Francisco's privately-owned public spaces.

According to REBAR:
In an effort to provide more public space downtown, the City of San Francisco has partnered with private developers to create a number of privately-owned public spaces. Some of these spaces are open and inviting - activated by public use. Others are under heavy surveillance, difficult to find, appear private, or are fundamentally inaccessible. To date, these spaces have not been systematically evaluated. The goal of COMMONspace is to evaluate, activate and reclaim these spaces as a critical part of the public realm and as a valuable component of San Francisco's intellectual and artistic commons.

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dead-in-iraq

dead-in-iraq

Joseph DeLappe's dead-in-iraq is an online performance, memorial and protest. DeLappe has been frequenting the US Army’s online recruitment game and propaganda tool, America's Army America’s Army, since March of 2006. Using the login name “dead-in-iraq,” he has refused to play the game, opting instead to access the system’s chat interface — a communication device intended for gamers to strategize with one another. By methodically typing out all of the names of U.S. service personnel who have been killed in Iraq, DeLappe has co-opted the Army’s own technology to undermine official representations of soldiers and military service, thus reminding players about the very real consequences of war.

According to DeLappe:

This work commenced in March of 2006, to roughly coincide with the 3rd anniversary of the start of the Iraq conflict. I enter the online US Army recruiting game, "America's Army", in order to manually type the name, age, service branch and date of death of each service person who has died to date in Iraq. The work is essentially a fleeting, online memorial to those military personnel who have been killed in this ongoing conflict. My actions are also intended as a cautionary gesture. I enter the game using as my login name, "dead-in-iraq" and proceed to type the names using the game's text messaging system. As is my usual practice when creating such an intervention, I am a neutral visitor as I do not participate in the proscribed mayhem. Rather, I stand in position and type until I am killed. After death, I hover over my dead avatar's body and continue to type. Upon being re-incarnated in the next round, I continue the cycle.

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Domestic Tension

Domestic Tension, 2007

Wafaa Bilal's (2007) Domestic Tension was an installation and performance at Flatfile Gallery in Chicago, IL. Over the course of 30 days in May, 2007, Bilal lived inside a room in the back of the gallery. The defining feature of Bilal’s sparsely furnished room was an ominous paint gun, which was connected to the Internet via direct feed. Anyone who visited the exhibit’s website could take control of the gun and fire at will. The piece can be described as an artistic rumination on the interconnections between technology, killing, entertainment, morality, and the global war on terror.

Motivated by a television report about a soldier remotely firing missiles in Iraq while sitting comfortably in Colorado, Bilal devised this piece as a response to the abstractness of contemporary war and its consequences—consequences that are intensely personal to him, having lost both his father and brother in Iraq as a result of the ongoing U.S. military campaign. By the end of the installation, more than 60,000 people from 130 countries shot at him.

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Dow Does the Right Thing

Dow Does the Right Thing, 2004

The Yes Men's Dow Does the Right Thing (2004) was a media hoax in which a member of the Yes Men impersonated a spokesperson for Dow Chemical on the BBC World and discussed the company's position on the 1984 Bhopal disaster (on its 20th anniversary). Using the pseudonym Jude (patron saint of the impossible) Finestera (earth's end), he claimed that Dow had agreed to clean up the site and compensate those harmed in the incident. Immediately following this interview, Dow's share price fell 4.2% in 23 minutes, for a loss of $2 billion in market value. It later recovered after Dow issued a statement denouncing the compensation package and clarifying that Finestera's statements were part of a hoax.

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Homeless Polar Bears

Homeless Polar Bears, 2008

Mark Jenkins' Homeless Polar Bears (2008) is an artistic intervention consisting of a series of human-like polar bear sculptures being placed in public spaces. It is a collaboration with Greenpeace. Jenkins added polar bear heads and ragged clothing to human figures to convey a sense of displacement and homelessness. He then placed them in highly populated areas of Washington DC. According to one MSN Report, the bomb squad was called to "take down a "hobo polar bear" that had commuters alarmed outside a train station.

According to Jenkins:

We made a series of human-like homeless polar bears and installed them around DC to get people to think about the issue (of melting arctic ice) with more empathy. it seemed people liked them a lot and took pictures of their kids in front of them, etc. but most were removed pretty quickly by the authorities. the last image is one that was met with ill-fate after being deemed a "suspicious package" so the whole thing ended up have a touch of irony to it when compared to the actual situation.

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How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare

How To Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, 1965

Joseph Beuys's performance How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965) is one of his most famous pieces. It is also his first solo exhibition in a private gallery. In this performance, Beuys sits behind glass in a bare room. He holds and urgently murmurs to a dead rabbit held in his lap. With his face covered in honey and gold leaf, and with an iron slab attached to his foot, he is surrounded by felt, animal fat, wire, and wood.

Such materials reference Beuys's experience in WWII. As the story goes, his plane was shot down over the frozen Crimean and when he was found, his rescuers, nomadic tribesman, covered him in fat and wrapped him in felt to warm his body and bring him back to health. This story has been at the center of the artist's controversy, as apparent eye witnesses claim that no tribesmen were on the scene where Beuys and his plane were found. Nevertheless, the mythical origins story played an important role in his work and in his own self-narration of becoming an artist.

Referencing his own past, Beuys's performance was positioned as a reaction to what he saw as an over-valorization of Dada art and what he called the "silence of Marcel Duchamp." In this sense Beuys's piece can be understood as an attempt to recover his own artistic voice and find truth and honesty in personal experience, however damaged.

See Also

It would be nice to do something political

It would be nice to do something political, 2002-2007

Toril Goksøyr and Camilla Martens' It would be nice to do something political (2002-2007) was originally produced in 2002 and was shown in various cities including Venice during the 2007 Biennale. Taking the form of a billboard advertisement behind a larger store front window, the piece features glossy portraits of the artists posing seductively. Less apparent is the ongoing presence of an African-immigrant worker continuously cleaning the glass. The work can be understood as a commentary on contemporary European life and immigration policies where former colonial subjects who are lucky enough to be granted residence in the old world are required to continue serving their European masters by doing the manual labor jobs that no else wants to do.

According to Goksøyr & Martens:

It would be nice to do something political is a performance presented in a window display. Goksøyr & Martens is exhibiting a single poster, which has the same dimensions as the window, and is mounted directly behind the plate glass. The poster shows a close-up on Toril Goksøyr and Camilla Martens. The artists are depicted in conversation, with the following dialogue printed on the photograph; Goksøyr: "It would be nice to do something important." Martens: "Something political?" Outside a window cleaner is located. This is a man originally from an African country. He is cleaning the window continuously each day throughout the duration of the exhibition.

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PARKcycle

PARKcycle, 2007

REBAR's PARKcycle (2007) is a human-powered park on wheels. It was built in collaboration with the kinetic sculptor Reuben Margolin.

According to REBAR:

While its physical dimensions synchronize with the automotive “softscape” of lane stripes and metered stalls, the PARKcycle effectively re-programs the urban hardscape by delivering massive quantities of green open space—up to 4,320 square-foot-minutes of park per stop—thus temporarily reframing the right-of-way as green space, not just a car space. Using a plug-and-play approach, the PARKcycle provides open space benefits to neighborhoods that need it, when they need it, as soon as it is parked.

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Refuge Wear City Interventions

Refuge Wear City Interventions, 1993-1998

Lucy Orta’s Refuge Wear City Interventions (1993-1998) combine urban architecture and social activism with fashion design. Her wearable shelters can be described as “survival suits” that function poetically and politically to provoke dialogue and awareness about the connected issues of poverty, homelessness, war, and migration. Her first Refuge Wear prototype “Habitent” (1992-1993) is a tent-like shelter/garment, designed for displaced people who are forced to carry their belongings and shelter with them as they migrate between or within cities.

Through her research with the homeless, Orta learned that many of them were fearful of living in permanent housing or shelters as a result of “traumatic and alienating circumstances they had experienced living with other people." This inspired Orta to appropriate the street itself as an extension of the home by designing mini-environments that people can wear, relocate, and live in without relying on permanent and institutional shelters.

Over the course of five years, Orta produced a series of works she dubbed “Body Architecture,” that doubled as clothing and temporary shelters—often for multiple inhabitants. These works focused increasingly on diverse communities of people displaced by poverty, famine, and war. By fusing fashion with architecture, art, performance, philosophy, and politics, Orta’s work functions as a social provocation—a symbolic and political protest that artfully exposes public indifference and excess while also revealing the isolation and indignity endured by those trying to survive in our invisible culture.

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Salt March Online

Salt March Online, March 12-April 6, 2008

Joseph DeLappe's Salt March Online (2008) is a virtual recreation of Gandhi's 1930 Salt March in Second Life that utilizes a treadmill to control an avatar.

According to DeLappe:

Over the course of 26 days, using a treadmill customized for cyberspace, I reenacted Mahatma Gandhi's famous 1930 Salt March. The original 240-mile walk was made in protest of the British salt tax; my update of this seminal protest march took place at Eyebeam and in Second Life, the Internet-based virtual world. For this performance, I walked the entire 240 miles of the original march on a converted treadmill at Eyebeam in New York City and online in Second Life. My steps on the treadmill controlled the forward movement of my avatar, MGandhi Chakrabarti, enabling the live and virtual reenactment of the march.

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To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond

To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond, 1997

Zuang Huan's To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond (1997) was a performance work in which approximately 40 migrant laborers stood in a Beijing fishpond in order to raise the level of the water. This work symbolizes the flooding of Chinese cities with migrants from the countryside and is a critique of the assimilation of individuals in a society without basic democratic rights.

According to Zhang Huan:

I invited about forty participants, recent migrants to the city who had come to work in Beijing from other parts of China. They were construction workers, fishermen and labourers, all from the bottom of society. They stood around in the pond and then I walked in it. At first, they stood in a line in the middle to separate the pond into two parts. Then they all walked freely, until the point of the performance arrived, which was to raise the water level. Then they stood still. In the Chinese tradition, fish is the symbol of sex while water is the source of life. This work expresses, in fact, one kind of understanding and explanation of water. That the water in the pond was raised one metre higher is an action of no avail.

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What Would Jesus Buy?

What Would Jesus Buy?, 2007

What Would Jesus Buy? is a documentary film by Morgan Spurlock starring performance artist Bill Talen in the role of Reverend Billy. The film follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as the tour the country in an effort to save Christman from what Talen describes as the Shopocalypse.

According to Warrior Poets Releasing LLC:

From producer Morgan Spurlock (SUPER SIZE ME) and director Rob VanAlkemade comes a serious docu-comedy about the commercialization of Christmas. Bill Talen (aka Reverend Billy) was a lost idealist who hitchhiked to New York City only to find that Times Square was becoming a mall. Spurred on by the loss of his neighborhood and inspired by the sidewalk preachers around him, Bill bought a collar to match his white caterer's jacket, bleached his hair and became the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping. Since 1999, Reverend Billy has gone from being a lone preacher with a portable pulpit preaching on subways, to the leader of a congregation and a movement whose numbers are well into the thousands.

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