Video Art- Human Race

Embracing Deconstruction-Performance Art

Paul Allen gives inside stories about Microsoft

 Paul Allen's new book Idea Man came out recently. In it he tells his version of the development of Microsoft and its progress as a company. This past week he was interviewed on 60 Minutes, revealing how one day he overheard a conversation between Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in which they were discussing how they could go about diluting Pauls share of the company down to almost nothing. This was while he was fighting a battle with stage 4 lymphoma. He walked in on them and they realized he had overheard their conversation so later that evening Steve came to his house to apologize.

You can watch the clip from 60 Minutes here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7363070n&tag=topnews

In his book Paul Allen reveals that Microsofts strategy was to closely watch the competition, quickly seize their ideas and run with them, making them seem to be their own. This isn't exactly surprising news since that seems to be the strategy that Microsoft was built on, scavenging ideas from any possible competitors and putting them out as fast as possible. It worked with windows and the mouse so why not keep doing it?

My Life in My Hands-Xerox Project

I started thinking about how I could relate xeroxed parts of my body to who I am as a person and it made me think about the interaction of my hands with objects during different aspects of my life so I decided to make a sort of tree of my life with branches of my hands and different items that have some meaning to parts of my life. In a way I felt like this was acknowledging the fact that I have a bit more life experience than most of the other students, something that often makes me feel a little out of place or out of time. I was going to explain all of the items on my tree but I think I should leave it up to the viewer's imagination. These are the objects on the tree: band-aid, rain poncho, car, joint, mascara, baby pacifier, baby bottle, condom-one opened, one in package, losing lotto ticket, screwdriver, laptop hard-drive, dice, white-out, pain medication, assorted bandana's, hot sauce packet, super-glue, pop rocks candy, a mini-light. At the top I have my eyes in their glasses mounted on my open hand with two hands covering the area where my mouth would be if the open hand were my face. You could take this as an expression of shock but to me I think it's more an expression of how I've gone through most of my life being a quiet observer, not saying a whole lot, so I'm watching but not contributing my voice. This is something that I'm working on changing even though it has kept me out of trouble at times.

Leigh Bowery

In 1988 Leigh Bowery did a show in  Anthony D'Offay's Gallery in London in which he was dressed in varieties of his ostentatious outfits and makeup and simply spent time interacting with himself and a lounge chair. He did this behind a glass that was mirror on his side so that he didn't see the audience watching him but only saw himself. While this was going on random street sounds were playing. This gave the people watching him from the other side of the glass the feeling that they were like voyeurs watching him primp and pose for himself in the mirror, things that most people wouldn't normally do in front of an audience. Watching the videos of his performance made me wonder what he was thinking when he was doing it, wondering if he became so self absorbed that he forgot there was an audience watching him or if the fact that he was on display for others to watch him was always in his mind and influenced every move he made. I also wondered if it would have influenced him at all if instead of not being able to see the people watching him if there had been maybe a small tv on his side of the glass that would show him the people watching him and their reactions. Would he have then played to the audience and would that have changed any aspect of his performance or would he have done everything exactly the same? From the opposite perspective I wonder if he had been able to see the audience and if they had known he could see them would that have caused people to react in different ways to what he was doing? It would be interesting to me to be able to see what people's reactions were at the time. I think someone should have been video taping the people viewing the performance. Since it ran for days I would be curious to see what the average length of time was that people stayed and watched and if very many of them returned to watch more than once. 

The Shock Value of Art-Orlan

Orlan likes to go for the shock value of art. Her work encompasses many things that people would find shocking, especially conservative Americans. She uses her own body in her art in ways that many people might say is degrading and irreverent. I'm pretty sure the Catholic Church would not like her at all. She is expressing herself and her work definitely provokes a reaction in her audience. I think the one area of her work involving surgeries might be considered by many to be a little over a line between art and absurdity. Of course, it is fairly shocking to have surgery done as a work of performance art. But for her it's kind of just an extension of the use of her body in her art. Some though, would see it as a desperate cry for attention. If a person were to go sit on a street corner or other public place and proceed to hammer nails into their feet or saw off a toe it is very likely they would end up getting locked up for a psyche evaluation. If that same person were to do the same thing in a gallery with witnesses and a camera rolling and call it performance art, does that make it art? One might say that Orlan did not cut off any appendages but many would see the things she did have done as a mutilation of a type. It's all a matter of perspective which is influenced by ones own moral values and life experiences. I choose to believe that a person has a right to do what they want with their own body and if they want to offer up themselves as an expression of art then they should do it. Some will see it and view it as art and others will see it and view it as shocking or possibly disgusting. Either way it will get attention and illicit a reaction and if provoking thought and reaction is the goal then it is a success.

The Artist as Provocateur

"To provoke means to evoke something. By making a sculpture with fat or a piece of clay I evoke something. I ignite a thought within me- a totally original, totally new thought that has never existed in history, even if I deal with a historical fact or with Leonardo or Rembrandt. I myself determine history- it is not history that determines me....every man is a potential provocateur." Joseph Beuys, from an interview with Willoughby Sharp, 1969, as quoted in Energy Plan for the Western Man, Joseph Beuys in America, compiled by Carin Kuoni, Four Walls Eight Windows, NY, 1993, p.86.

Beuys was involved in the Fluxus movement but was heavily influenced by Duchamp and the idea of readymade, taking objects and turning them into art by calling them art. Beuys believed that everyone is an artist and that art is not confined to the production of things that we call art and display in galleries but that art is the process of interaction that incites and provokes. His performance art was meant to make people think. His concept of "social sculpture" was the idea that the entire society should be seen as one artwork that every person should be contributing to.