This week we were meant to research and have a presentation on a practitioner who did site specific performances. We all though Marina Abramovic was very interested especially her performance Imponderabilia. We found a lot of similarities between hers and our site specific performance.
How does Architecture/ archaeology relate to the choices made by the artists?
Marina Abromovic decides to make the audience feel uncomfortable in this piece as they have to make 2decisions, firstly they have to decide whether or not to enter the museum in the first place as to do so they would have to walk between 2 naked bodies. The second decision they make is if they enter the building they have to chose which naked body they would like to face whilst entering the space. The aspect of nudity is not foreign to Abromovic’s pieces-nude with skeleton, freeing the body and relation in space are just a few of her many videos that feature the artist as nude.” Therefore, you would presume that all focus would be places on the artist. However, this is untrue as Imponderabilia is a piece that focuses on the participation of the audience. this piece is performed in the entrance of a museum. the audience are expecting to see arts and sculptures, however they are unaware that the performance they are being part of is in itself a piece of the arts within the museum.
How does the work position the audience/spectator in relation to creating meaning?
The closeness between abidance and performer creates an intimate atmosphere that is also somewhat uneasy for the spectator to be a part of. The audience are unaware that they performance has started which enables them to have a spontaneous reaction to who they face whilst entering the space. If they were aware that they were being involvedin the performance some may have been unwilling to take part and the social experiment wouldn’t have been fulfilled. This piece is a social study that highlights gender, sexuality and societies ideologies. When watching the piece we noticed that the women didn’t really have a preference on who they turned to, whereas the males tended to face the women and some even stare at parts of her body. They were other males in the room too,so maybe most men decided to face the women as they could have been afraid of judgment by other males.
How does their final performance relate to space?
This space is important to this particular performance, if they were not standing at the entrance of the museum the piece would have been unsuccessful. For instance, if the performances were stood in the middle of the space although the spectators may still feel slightly uncomfortable they would not feel pressure to decide in front of other people which way they had to face to enter the place. Therefore, they would not have been involved in the performance and the social experiment.
How does their final performance relate to space?
How does it get documented?
This particular piece was recorded and is available on the internet via YouTube and within Abromovics Book (The artist is presented).