The word art could have multiple meanings for every person. This word brings to my mind the Idea of creativity and uniqueness. Also in the past years, I faced challenges in recognizing the true meaning of what people call art. I saw people insisting on the importance of being in our societies, seeing all these art pieces sold for millions, all these artists getting the intentions from different people.
So, What do we mean by arts? What is art all about before starting the class, I tried to search for a definition on my own, so as a typical student, I used the internet as my main source. Unfortunately, all my research led just to more confusion, so I decided to wait for my class to see if the professors could define art. Maybe my obsession with having a definition is wrong. Some people could just do what they love and call it art, but for me, I could not start doing something without knowing what I am doing exactly, maybe this is just how the engineers think, or maybe I used this as an exude to avoid my falling to int properly with art. When you fail something it is easy to make excuses rather than to find the real reasons. I do not spoil the fun events but the class did not give me a real definition for simple words with one syllabus.
It seems that artists are the ones who are more confused concerning the definitions of their domain, and the debates are more intense at the academic level.
My whole cycle is to try to find solutions, get confused, try again, get more confused, and so on. Personally, if I waste a lot of time and effort creating art, I don't want someone to just paint scribbles and call it art too, this may be why I look for a clear definition.
Regardless of my difficulties in knowing what we mean even by art, I hope this class to help me to be more creative understand the work of others better, and try to have a more open mind.
The thing that scares me the most is being required to perform in the class, I don't think that performing in front of people is my thing. I find it hard to express myself with actions rather than words. Without forgetting that I hope do not need to perform something that does not represent me.
-Reflection on my first art class:
I entered this class expecting that we would discuss the work of different artists, talk about a method of creating art, or discuss general topics about art. However, what I experienced was quite different. We start our class by discussing performing arts and trying to find a reasonable definition of this term.
We watched a video talking about performing arts and giving multiple examples of words that could be defined under this section of art. The video was very strange for me since I was not sure that the images and scenes in front of me could be considered pieces of art, but just like I was advised I kept my mind open.
After watching the video titled "An Introduction to Performance Art | TateShots " I could resume three key ideas :
Performing art is a result of artists testing the limits and passing the boundaries of traditional art.
The goal of this kind of art is to reflect the modern conditions better.
The rise of the performance invoked the question of what is performance and what is not. The discussion that followed in class was also interesting. Where the first point that was discussed is why we as humans love to test our limits and push the boundaries of our normal. I understood the motivation of that artist, as someone who is majoring in engineering, the love of going beyond the norm that is set by society and bravely facing the fear of the unknown should be something that is born in every human being, the outcome should not necessarily positive, but this is how development processes, and this how art did develop during the entire history.
The video enemies about the goal of art. This kind of art wants to create pieces that are hard to sell and have a living element when int to reflect better on the real world.
Performing art has enforced the question of what is performance and what is not. What could lead us to watch a performance and say that art, in the end, is our life a sort of multiple performances that were tighter together as memories? A woman who gives birth to a child, a chef who cooks something delicious, or even a cat that moves its tails, is not all that performances that could be described as performing art. One of the most shocking sayings that I ever heard is the horrible phrase of Stockhausen that described the terrorist event of 9/11: "The greatest work of art imaginable for the whole cosmos ." An awful way to describe such an event but the correctness of this statement depends on your definition of the word art. When I first heard this, I thought about the explosions or murder scenes that people like to watch in the cinema. If these kinds of scenes could be considered an art that would make such a tragic event even greater, where the performance is the explosion, the performers are those who died in the event or even those who were nearby, and the audience is the whole world. It is hard to describe something tragic as a great piece of art, but it all depends on your perspective. You could not describe a different set of actions expressing different feelings as a pure work of art and then refuse to consider this kind of event art. Someone could say that Hitler after getting refused by the art school went to share his creativity and art with the whole world and the Holocaust was his greatest work, or describe what is happening now in Palestine as a piece of art expressing a strong injustice. Those who support the idea that everything that has life as an element is a performing art could argue that no one could come up with better images of injustice or the conflict between good and evil from the current events in Palestine. In addition, someone could argue that all pornography is an art that expresses love and shows the beauty of the human body in creative ways. Accepting this idea would also depend on our definition of performing art. In my opinion, art is any work that wants to send an idea to an audience in a creative way that respects the boundaries that Allah decided. With all the different opinions about performing art, who am I to give a definitive definition of a big word such as that, you could also have a different definition of art and believe that there is an appropriate work of art and an inappropriate one. Tutoring animals to get information is considered an inappropriate way to do science but no one will argue that science is bad because there is a wrong way to do it. Ignoring all this complexity if you find yourself in front of a performance that uses moving elements and sounds to reflect on the idea you are in front of a performing art
Examples of a performing art :
1- dance show
2- orchestra
3- the play of Antigone
example from the video :
1- The photograph of Mouna Hatoum
2- The flux olympiad games invented by George Maciunas
Performance Art
Performance art is a work that represents itself, it doesn't need a living element to express its idea. A panting doesn't need movement to send its message. Performance art is the original format that humans use to express their creativity and communicate. Like sculpture, even if they are just a bunch of rock that was shaped into different formats, people appreciate it as a sign of beauty and the peak of art in the Greek and Roman civilizations.
Example from the video :
1- Wooden cube by Rasheed Araeen.
2- Painting
3- Sculpture
Performing Art vs Performant Art
-While performing art as described by Marina Abramovic the moment when the performer interacts with the audience with his physical presence presenting something real, contrary to the cinema or the heart, every element of art is real, the blood the weapons, and the tragedies. The performant art tries to give a real reflection about the world by using a nonelement that could give a better picture than the real stuff.
I prefer the performant art that the performing, maybe because I was more engaged with this type of art even for a long time even if I did not realize it. I think working in the darkness and shocking the audience with my work is in my personality, but trying to perform in front of an audience and thinking about their reaction is frustrating. Without forgetting that performing art is limited to what is real, and does not employ for the trad art. In performant art, the only limit is your imagination, if you can imagine you can express it creatively, either by using words or groups of symphonies.
Let's imagine an event that occurs somewhere, in this case, the event is the performing art and the reports that occur are the performant art. Using the right word could lead the reader to have a better experience even more than the one who witnesses the event.
In the class today, our professors gave us a note that we need to perform it or either to explain it in, this case if I choose to perform, I would be creating a performing art but if I choose to expand by using a creative style of pressing, my representation would be considered as a performant art.
In the Arabic culture, we have a famous saying that I love that confirms; that if all the people have some way of seeing things there will be no commerce.
Me, I can say with all confidence after my first section in this class, that it was very different from what I expected. Every class that I took in University tried to search for answers to very starforwad questions. On the opposite, this class was about sharing different perspectives on very vague problems where there is no wrong or true answer. Unfortunately for me we were asked to give a performance , but lucky me the time ran out and I survived, but it looks like that is absolute to make a performance in this class, well you can not take an art course and expect to not do art
Sources:
We were given multiple reflexive music scores to perform as a final performance in our art class. When I was scrolling down to look for the music score that I would perform, I found a music score named Search / Find it. Since my enrollment in this course, I have only been searching for answers to my questions. I thought this score was the perfect one. Now that I found the music score that I will perform, it is time to brainstorm for the performance. This step is very important, I want to create something that has meaning and is easy to understand. I had two difficult challenges, the first one was that I had to practice performing it in a place different from the place in which I was going to perform my last performance, and the second was how I would try to communicate my thoughts. Before this week, I did not communicate with others except with words, whether through my voice or my writing, but I have now realized that there are different kinds of people. They love signals and movement and understand them more than other means of communication. The idea that came to my mind was to start the presentation while I was in my normal place where I sit every class, then I would try to organize my possessions, whether pens or other items then move to the middle of the class, and after that, I would try to make a change in the hole place, so that all the chairs were organized into rows. I try to organize it in a circular form in the section and try to get the audience excited. I'm thinking of making the first part of the performance slow, where I'm just arranging my things while making little sounds. Then, when I move to the second part, I'll try to be more mobile and more active, and make this part fast and perform more loud sounds. The meaning that I am trying to convey through this performance is that we always live in an imperfect place, so we need to try to make the place more ideal. This is why I plan to carry the personal computers of the students and put them away. and I want also to carry plastic bottles to say that these things have ruined our atmosphere. I will say with this movement that our relationship with others was better before the invention of these computers, and that our water and environment were purer before the introduction of these plastic bottles. At the end of the performance, I plan to make everyone stand and start clapping, and they follow me as if we were applauding ourselves for making the place more beautiful. I also plan to move my chair, during the show, and make it in different places. Whenever I place it in a place, I make sounds differently through my mouth, and the stronger the sound is, the more the place fits me. When I make a loud noise, I place my chair there, then sit down, and then try to look around to see if it is possible to make the place better. It was as if I was saying that the music should tell me how to organize the place. I finished planning and now it is time to rehearse. Here there is another problem: how will I rehearse this performance, especially since the place is important in performing it? I was thinking at first that I would go to a class and try to perform there, but I did not do that. What would the security guy think if he saw me doing this? I just decided to practice my performance in my room and I didn't have the option of entering a fake audience to practice as I didn't think my friends would accept, so I started and tried to change what was in my room and make a strange voice. Of course, my roommate noticed it and started laughing at me and saying what are you doing? I told him that this was for my final performance in art class and he started asking some questions, but I wasn't interested in answering his questions in a real way, as all I cared about was finishing the practice, and I knew that he would not understand what I was doing, so the best short answer is that I am doing this to get the grade. The big day has come, the day in which I perform the last performance in the class, and the last performance that I had been practicing for a whole week. Many indicative thoughts were running through my mind with mixed feelings of fear, enthusiasm, and pressure, but what I could do it is just move forward, I left my room and all I could think about was the performance and what others would think about my performance. After finishing the first class, it was time for the art class. When I entered the class, I was surprised to find that German artists were there. I did not expect that they would be among the audience. This put more pressure on me, as my performance included interaction with the audience. I also found that the chairs are arranged in a circular shape, and this is what I did not expect, as I expected that the chairs would be organized as they usually are and that I would try to organize them in a circular shape to finish my performance, but nothing seemed to be going well. During the presentation, one of my classmates was presenting when I entered. I did not understand What was happening. I thought that we were all performing, but it seemed that someone was presenting the results of his research. I was hoping that it would not end, as I would not be able to present my performance, but I knew that presenting my performance on this day was happening for sure, so I started thinking about adapting to the new classroom.I started to look around me. I was thinking about what I could change in my performance, and I found that it was no longer possible to start my performance in the middle of the audience, I had to start in the middle of the class, where everyone had to see me. I also found that it was no longer possible to change the way the chairs were arranged to a circular shape, so I thought quickly that I would place the chairs in a random arrangement to demonstrate creativity. Perhaps the best shapes may be random, and we should not worry too much about the organization. Also, I thought that I could take things from my bag and try to organize them into several shapes on the table that will be in front of me, and try to change the shapes time and time again, and then I will throw everything on the ground as an indicates that I did not found the perfect shape for my belongings. I also saw several plastic bottles and I thought I might throw them out the window. Others started performing their shows. Some of the performances were wonderful, which made me worry, as it seemed that their preparation was better than mine, but as the performances passed, everything began to change. I wanted to finish, so all this pressure would go away from me, and now it was my turn to perform. I went to the middle of the class and I was afraid. But in the first moments, I forgot about everything in front of me, and I focused on myself. As I had planned, I also took the phones, although I did not plan to do this, as I forgot that I could find them on the other students' desks. The point of the performance is that these electronic devices are bad for our nature and communication, so I decided to take them. During that time, when I was putting the phones in my schoolbag, I saw one of the phones was broken, so I was terrified, thinking that I was the reason for that, and I continued the presentation in this state, afraid of the reaction of the person who owned this phone, but it turned out that the phone had a broken screen in the first place.I finished the performance as I had planned, interacting with the audience. I believe that everything went well, but I did not achieve what I wanted, especially with the sounds. I failed to make the sounds that I wanted during the performance because I felt a lot of pressure during the show, and secondly, when the audience was laughing during my performance, I did not know whether those laughs were positive or negative. Anyway, my performance ended and I think I left an impression, whether positive or negative, that will be unforgettable in the minds of those who were watching.