Is a performance still a performance without an audience?
We discussed what actually makes something a performance and we came to the conclusion that a performance creates emotion, whether it comes from the audience or the performer. Some people consider rehearsals to be part of the performance and the reaction that would come from an audience comes from the performer themselves, even when they work solo. In some cases when the performer only has themselves as the audience it can be considered to be a performance. Many people believe that everyday acts creates the show that represents that individual’s life.
The techniques created when doing a site specific performance are those which cannot be used in any other theatre based productions, unless of course audience participation is used throughout. With the tasks that were set, it made us (as viewers of the art) really examine and try to get into the concept that goes into creating what we were observing. Some of the artefacts we studied helped with this idea of understanding the story behind them by being interactive. One piece actually encouraged us to create our own concept of art by having a large box of small different coloured cubes allowing us to make a mosaic pattern. It was interesting to see other people’s interpretation of art and compare how different my end piece was to theirs.
‘This concern to reassess the relationship between art work and its site is largely provoked by the ways in which the “site-specific” has been uncritically adopted as another genre category by mainstream art institutions and discourses.’ One Place after Another, Kwon, M.
The relationship between the artist and the art work has to be noticeable for people to understand why exactly it was created. ‘The Skeleton Clock’ (which was the object I chose for the individual tasks given) reminded me of my grandparents. It stirred up memories of my grandparents (particularly my grandfather) because every time I visited their house all I would see were new things that he had bought from a charity shop or a car boot sale that he wanted to fix. The clock brought back those memories because you can clearly see how the clock works and what would be needed to fix it, as if someone was fixing it.
Works cited:
Kwon, M. (2002) One Place After Another, Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. 1st paperback edition. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.