Kevin Henderson is a performance artist who also has taken in interest in documentary and what it means to document. We live in a culture now where having your own camera and sharing what you have capture is very easy to do. When we take pictures or video or even blog, what we are doing is documenting an event, a moment in time; this is my view of documenting.
Kevin spoke about his performances and how he engages his audience and explores ways in having them participate- and he spoke of an instance where a camera had been put into his face while performing. It made him question what that person was thinking and who gave them the right to be so intrusive. I feel this person, like many others, is in a near detachment from reality. The camera acts as this mask to hide behind and it gives a feeling of comfort where you can do things you might not necessarily do otherwise.
When I view objects or subjects through a lens or a screen, I feel their is this wall or barrier between us. There is a feeling over control and empowerment I have- strange now that I think about it, but it's true. I do not really understand why I feel that way- maybe that is something I too could explore.
Kevin and I can both agree that social networks like facebook or myspace are these queer little ways to communicate with people. But I do find them useful in other ways, like keeping contact with people from your past- BUT again, it's a very weird thing where I know things about someone who I haven't spoken to in years;I know who they are dating and what they did last night. It's situations like these where I question why? I have
Then again, social networks can be a great place to find people that have similar interests and you can discuss those interests and share ideas from vast distances.
A really interesting topic that was brought up (part to at 8 mins) was the question on control and how artists in their respective mediums tell their audience how they are to "act" on their piece- in other words how they should engage the piece, in terms of thinking and reacting. A film-maker wants to make the audience feel sad so he/she establishes a main character the audience will feel for and then they kill the character off.
I believe performance does the opposite of what painting does for an audience. To me, performance engages the audience and brings them into the piece- and whether they understand or know what is happening- the audience is creating the performance as well as partaking in it.
I find this concept of control interesting, something I am going to think about for another piece.
I liked this lecture, and it was interesting to hear the viewpoint of a fellow performer. And Stephen, at the end of your response you noted that performance is something which engages the audience and brings them into the piece - you are absolutely right. I went to a workshop a few weeks ago for a class in which Avner Eisenstein (a well-known actor) was presenting, and he said something very wise: that when one acts, you must not be interestING, but intrestED. That is, you can't worry about whether or not you're being funny, or dramatic, or whatever, because you can't play that on stage. Rather you must be extremely interested in whatever it is you're doing (because you wouldn't have motivation to do it otherwise), and you invite the audience to partake in that interest. If you tell them what to feel, they will resent you, but if you are doing something and they have the choice to join you in that experience or emotion, that is the key to a great performance.
However, I think that a painting could be the same way. Obviously the two mediums are vastly different, and this goes back to the issue of control that was brought up. A performer may have that kind of control over an audience (inviting them to feel their own emotions) if they are very talented. This is something over which the artist has direct control. Although I think that you can have the same experience with a painting if it is meaningful to you, you can invite yourself to be moved by it, I do not think that the artist has the same level of control over an audience member. I could stand in front of the Mona Lisa and not be moved, not be intrigued by the secrets the woman is keeping, not care about the aesthetic qualities and techniques employed in it. In this way, Leonardo Da Vinci has no control over me. He has control over what he places into his artwork, but no control past that point.
I found myself questioning what it meant to be an artist and how what I do relates to the world, both in a grand scheme and in the smaller scheme, and how media, and the lens of the camera has influenced the way that I look at the world as a person, and as an artist. I feel that I agree with you Steve about how some people use the camera to hide behind, and also how some people are completely ignorant of what it is that they are doing.
I remember doing a photo shoot for the Public Relations Department here on campus, at take back the night, and I was being respectful of people you know keeping my distance and not being intrusive in any sort of way, allowing people to have their space, and then out of no where, some kid with a camera from The Campus (our school newspaper) jumps up on the stage behind the group of people doing their performance and started to take pictures of them. This was just about the most outrageous thing I had ever seen, in the middle of these people singing and doing their thing for the people at this really kind of high stress highly emotional event this guy has the balls too go up behind them to get a picture, its really interesting how some people act when they think they are invincible because of what it is that they are doing it for, or the fact that they have a camera in front of them so that makes it ok.
Its not an art form, the ability to take pictures with a camera, just about anyone can do that, its more of an art of understanding when and where to take the pictures from with out being noticed, and without causing the situation you are photographing to change, that is where the art of photography seems to be in the hardest way to learn.
A topic that is commonly brought up amongst new media students is why today's society labels artists on a very slim spectrum i.e. just painters, sculptors etc. and why some experimental artists work is not seen as art. I only bring that up because Kevin talked about how he goes about mentally preparing for one of his peices. He says he knows when his peiece will begin, end, where he will show it and the likewise. He then says that if he were a painter this process would not change. He would know how big his paiting would be, which colors he was going to use, what the composition would look like, where he would show it off to ever minor details to how far it would be from the floow while hanging on the wall. This is a prime example of how Kevin, along with many other performance/experiemental artists are not properly labeled as artists even though they most all of their work was metally prepared the same as a painter or sculptor.
I'll have to agree with Kevin and Stephen in that social networks such as myspace and facebook are relatively useless. Sure, finding an old friend every now and then is nice but in no way do we need to know every detail about their life. This topic brings me to a point Kevin made about how we are the most documented generation. For some unknown reason we all want to keep up to date with people, whether its our friends on myspace or people we don't even know on a reality show. I agree with Kevin in that it is useless because at the end of the day we don't really NEED to know who got voted off the island, or kicked out of the house, or who broke up with who.
I'm always skeptical of documentary because in my opinion -- it does not exist (in the way that it is defined). Even though Kevin takes new approaches to documentary, I still am a very skeptical person when it comes to naming something documentary (maybe SIMULATION would be better haha). Regardless, Kevin's involvement to user participation is something very interesting. In some respects as I said documentary does not exist and involving the audience makes it even less of a documentary (by traditional senses) -- this is because a moment in time can never be the same inside of another moment of time, plus unless you recorded an entire event (from all angles) viewers get only a piece of the "truth" (which documentary tries to discovery) Agreed that they show you parts of a reality, but even when you involve people who had nothing to do with that experience into the experience -- you change it even further from the original sense of "documentary".
Now, though I am critical of the view on documentary, I think what Kevin is doing is really neat because I don't think documentary in the way it is portrayed will EVER exist -- so if we can get over that, then we can create some sort of sub-genre where we are "telling close-truths of stories" -- we'd need a better name -- but if people can interact with the "truth" -- or something similar, that is really quite shifting for the genre.
Also, performance to me is documentary for the mind. Obviously, neuronets also do not capture an event in it's entirety because memories are clouded with bias and cannot hold all the information forever of an event -- but it is closer than even documentary I would say because you intake all the information. I guess in some ways it is the same because your mind sort of "edits" what parts it finds pertinent, but at least you are not simulating the experience in a simulacra type of way.
Interesting shifts of looking at documentary though.
5 comments:
Kevin Henderson is a performance artist who also has taken in interest in documentary and what it means to document. We live in a culture now where having your own camera and sharing what you have capture is very easy to do. When we take pictures or video or even blog, what we are doing is documenting an event, a moment in time; this is my view of documenting.
Kevin spoke about his performances and how he engages his audience and explores ways in having them participate- and he spoke of an instance where a camera had been put into his face while performing. It made him question what that person was thinking and who gave them the right to be so intrusive. I feel this person, like many others, is in a near detachment from reality. The camera acts as this mask to hide behind and it gives a feeling of comfort where you can do things you might not necessarily do otherwise.
When I view objects or subjects through a lens or a screen, I feel their is this wall or barrier between us. There is a feeling over control and empowerment I have- strange now that I think about it, but it's true. I do not really understand why I feel that way- maybe that is something I too could explore.
Kevin and I can both agree that social networks like facebook or myspace are these queer little ways to communicate with people. But I do find them useful in other ways, like keeping contact with people from your past- BUT again, it's a very weird thing where I know things about someone who I haven't spoken to in years;I know who they are dating and what they did last night. It's situations like these where I question why? I have
Then again, social networks can be a great place to find people that have similar interests and you can discuss those interests and share ideas from vast distances.
A really interesting topic that was brought up (part to at 8 mins) was the question on control and how artists in their respective mediums tell their audience how they are to "act" on their piece- in other words how they should engage the piece, in terms of thinking and reacting. A film-maker wants to make the audience feel sad so he/she establishes a main character the audience will feel for and then they kill the character off.
I believe performance does the opposite of what painting does for an audience. To me, performance engages the audience and brings them into the piece- and whether they understand or know what is happening- the audience is creating the performance as well as partaking in it.
I find this concept of control interesting, something I am going to think about for another piece.
I liked this lecture, and it was interesting to hear the viewpoint of a fellow performer. And Stephen, at the end of your response you noted that performance is something which engages the audience and brings them into the piece - you are absolutely right. I went to a workshop a few weeks ago for a class in which Avner Eisenstein (a well-known actor) was presenting, and he said something very wise: that when one acts, you must not be interestING, but intrestED. That is, you can't worry about whether or not you're being funny, or dramatic, or whatever, because you can't play that on stage. Rather you must be extremely interested in whatever it is you're doing (because you wouldn't have motivation to do it otherwise), and you invite the audience to partake in that interest. If you tell them what to feel, they will resent you, but if you are doing something and they have the choice to join you in that experience or emotion, that is the key to a great performance.
However, I think that a painting could be the same way. Obviously the two mediums are vastly different, and this goes back to the issue of control that was brought up. A performer may have that kind of control over an audience (inviting them to feel their own emotions) if they are very talented. This is something over which the artist has direct control. Although I think that you can have the same experience with a painting if it is meaningful to you, you can invite yourself to be moved by it, I do not think that the artist has the same level of control over an audience member. I could stand in front of the Mona Lisa and not be moved, not be intrigued by the secrets the woman is keeping, not care about the aesthetic qualities and techniques employed in it. In this way, Leonardo Da Vinci has no control over me. He has control over what he places into his artwork, but no control past that point.
I found myself questioning what it meant to be an artist and how what I do relates to the world, both in a grand scheme and in the smaller scheme, and how media, and the lens of the camera has influenced the way that I look at the world as a person, and as an artist. I feel that I agree with you Steve about how some people use the camera to hide behind, and also how some people are completely ignorant of what it is that they are doing.
I remember doing a photo shoot for the Public Relations Department here on campus, at take back the night, and I was being respectful of people you know keeping my distance and not being intrusive in any sort of way, allowing people to have their space, and then out of no where, some kid with a camera from The Campus (our school newspaper) jumps up on the stage behind the group of people doing their performance and started to take pictures of them. This was just about the most outrageous thing I had ever seen, in the middle of these people singing and doing their thing for the people at this really kind of high stress highly emotional event this guy has the balls too go up behind them to get a picture, its really interesting how some people act when they think they are invincible because of what it is that they are doing it for, or the fact that they have a camera in front of them so that makes it ok.
Its not an art form, the ability to take pictures with a camera, just about anyone can do that, its more of an art of understanding when and where to take the pictures from with out being noticed, and without causing the situation you are photographing to change, that is where the art of photography seems to be in the hardest way to learn.
A topic that is commonly brought up amongst new media students is why today's society labels artists on a very slim spectrum i.e. just painters, sculptors etc. and why some experimental artists work is not seen as art. I only bring that up because Kevin talked about how he goes about mentally preparing for one of his peices. He says he knows when his peiece will begin, end, where he will show it and the likewise. He then says that if he were a painter this process would not change. He would know how big his paiting would be, which colors he was going to use, what the composition would look like, where he would show it off to ever minor details to how far it would be from the floow while hanging on the wall. This is a prime example of how Kevin, along with many other performance/experiemental artists are not properly labeled as artists even though they most all of their work was metally prepared the same as a painter or sculptor.
I'll have to agree with Kevin and Stephen in that social networks such as myspace and facebook are relatively useless. Sure, finding an old friend every now and then is nice but in no way do we need to know every detail about their life. This topic brings me to a point Kevin made about how we are the most documented generation. For some unknown reason we all want to keep up to date with people, whether its our friends on myspace or people we don't even know on a reality show. I agree with Kevin in that it is useless because at the end of the day we don't really NEED to know who got voted off the island, or kicked out of the house, or who broke up with who.
I'm always skeptical of documentary because in my opinion -- it does not exist (in the way that it is defined). Even though Kevin takes new approaches to documentary, I still am a very skeptical person when it comes to naming something documentary (maybe SIMULATION would be better haha). Regardless, Kevin's involvement to user participation is something very interesting. In some respects as I said documentary does not exist and involving the audience makes it even less of a documentary (by traditional senses) -- this is because a moment in time can never be the same inside of another moment of time, plus unless you recorded an entire event (from all angles) viewers get only a piece of the "truth" (which documentary tries to discovery) Agreed that they show you parts of a reality, but even when you involve people who had nothing to do with that experience into the experience -- you change it even further from the original sense of "documentary".
Now, though I am critical of the view on documentary, I think what Kevin is doing is really neat because I don't think documentary in the way it is portrayed will EVER exist -- so if we can get over that, then we can create some sort of sub-genre where we are "telling close-truths of stories" -- we'd need a better name -- but if people can interact with the "truth" -- or something similar, that is really quite shifting for the genre.
Also, performance to me is documentary for the mind. Obviously, neuronets also do not capture an event in it's entirety because memories are clouded with bias and cannot hold all the information forever of an event -- but it is closer than even documentary I would say because you intake all the information. I guess in some ways it is the same because your mind sort of "edits" what parts it finds pertinent, but at least you are not simulating the experience in a simulacra type of way.
Interesting shifts of looking at documentary though.
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