“When you perform, you have a knife and it’s your blood. When you’re acting its ketchup and you don’t cut yourself” This statement, taken from the documentary, ‘Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present’ has finally helped me toward an understanding of the difference between the two, although I still find the idea considerably challenging. Site Specific has not been straightforward to any degree, especially since my past experiences with performance had usually involved some sort of characteristic approach. To perform, from what I had previously been taught was to essentially act and therefore being told that the two are not one in the same slightly threw me off. Now I have come to an understanding that performance is life ‘almost a state of mind’ (Abramovic, 2010). We are not aiming toward a representation of the real, our aim is to create a performance piece that is real. So the first thing that came to mind was the use of the body. Marinas piece ‘The Artist is Present’ was an intense work but not only because it involved her staring into the eyes of the opposite person but because as a performer she was testing her own body and her own will to sit for hours each day and do nothing. How can I use my own body? Could it be used as an art, a thing to be viewed by an audience? This could create questions amongst the themes of objectification, whilst also causing the popular question, what is art? Who decides? These are all questions I want to take into consideration as I approach creating a performance piece. I want the audience to think critically about what art is, what it does and most importantly what it is that we feel when we look at it?
Akers, M. (dir.) (2010) Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present. [DVD] USA: Music Box Films and Submarine Entertainment
© 2014 Stephanie Newell
