Francis, Genevieve, Jenny, Lindsay and Victor expressed concern with nature of ideas and how they come into fruition through language. Francis installed a voice recording at a spotlit podium. His voice recording struggled to put thoughts into language, humming and haaaing, unable to find words. Jenny dressed in white and projected the subtitles of her Spanish voice recording. She spoke of the origin of ideas and the space of potential before their arrival. Genevieve talked about the inspiration from her performance coming from a dream. She insisted that she was being "used" by the small ghost to tell the stories of red pears. She refered to them by their first names, while talking about their career status and personal life. The name she used referenced famous female writers, such as the ghost"Sylvia", aka Sylvia Plath. Through language, Genevieve created fictious personal histories for inanimate objects. Lindsay constructed a drama on her blog by asking others to report any information about her missing lover. Victor similarly created a fictious senario through language. He exited the classroom leaving a note explaining that someone in the room was a threat to his heath. Futhermore, he stated that we only had 3 more hours to live. The class was left to question the implications present within his note.
Jenny, Andy and Anna presented performance as a practice and a skill. Andy brought in a video installation of a rap performance that he did at UBC. The video positioned Andy as a performance artist through his career as a emerging hip hop artist. Jenny invited the class down to the concourse Gallery to visit her sewing installation where she was holding workshops to teach people sewing skills. Anna built on this idea in her "practice space", where she encouraged people to practice activities such as skipping rope, playing yoyo, meditating, and writing. She encouraged participants to record what they practiced and how long they practiced for in a notebook on the installation's corkboard.
Mariana also suggested endorsed performance as a practice by asking two men that she knew to lend their clothing to her installation. She selected these men because they represented two different economic status': one was a businessman, and the other man was homeless. She gave us insight into their personal lives by explaining that the businessman was into street performance on his days off. She also revealed that she bought her homeless friend a new pair of clothing because the set he lent her was the only one that he had. She invited members of the class to try on the clothing of these two men. Mariana's exploration brings us to the next topic of interest which is gender and the male body.
Ruben, Skunk, Francisco, Grant, Derya's performance all worked within this realm of interest. Fransisco stripped down to his underwear, laid himself down on the flooer and covered himselve in maple syrup with a paint brush. The syrup acted as an adhesive to which he applied sheet after sheet of golf leaf onto his body with a roller. Francisco's body became a painting, a sculpture and an object of spectacle. Ruben also made himself and object of spectacle by covering himself in white powder, and posing as a sexualized crucifix. Signs on his body read "super sexy" and "xxx". He seemed to imply the interrelated nature of sex and sacrafice, religion and sexual repression. Patrick explored mating rituals and their ties to Easter in Pegan religions. He made a dramatic enterance into the spotlite wearing an easter bunny head and a long red robe. He expressed his virility through a Jackson Poluck like expression of spraying silly string all around him. He then made a padded "nest" where he laid his egg. Therefore his Easter bunny became androgenous and multigendered.
Grant performed an the ambigious ritual of sitting inside of small painting sink while his classmate poored flour over his head. He than played with a tube, sucking in and blowing out water. As a full grown man, Grant returned to a moment of childishness and boyhood. The tube could be seen as an exploration of the phallus, while being caught inbetween the states of man and boy. Lastly, there was lots of phallic material in Derya's blog and zine which explored the construct of identity and fiction through images and language.
i like your really thorough approach to this assignment- your commitment to trying to determine common themes in each piece is evident. it made me think that perhaps all of the "gender/male body" pieces actually fit into your first two broader categories?
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