Although not something that will be necessarily called upon in the final site specific performance that I partake in, there are certain performance conventions that were brought to light from watching Marina Abromavić in The Artist is Present. Primarily there was the idea that performance is real, and for example in a performance it would be a knife and your blood if used, yet in Acting it would be a fake knife and ketchup. Bearing this in mind we must produce something that is real, and ensure that we are not merely acting within the performance, but that it is a genuine experience.
abromovic-art (2010) The Artist is Present (2010) [Online] Available from: http://www.pbs.org/art21/images/marina-abramovic/the-artist-is-present-2010 [Accessed 24th February 2015].
Following the development of ideas on what my group’s site specific performance will ultimately be has run into the problem of reproductions, and to an extent re-performances (again covered in The Artist is Present). As guiding someone to a picture and presenting it to the, then having them view it alongside a reproduction lessens the impact and can bring forward meanings and considerations that are not the intention of the performance. Hopefully this will create a sense of further contemplation in the audience, and make them consider the multitude of meanings that are present within each artwork, and how they are altered by the contexts of sound, location and the other artworks nearby. This is not merely applicable to artworks, think about if you put an item of western cultural heritage in a display case alongside those of eastern cultural items, it might change the interpreted origin or use of the item, even though singularly it would have a different meaning.
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