Drama360/Site-Specific Performance: an Introduction ***

INITIAL RESPONSE: KE CHAI

1.	Irwin, Kathleen. The Ambit of Performativity: How Site Makes Meaning in Site-Specific Performance. Vaajakoski, Finland: University of Art and Design Helsinki, 2007. [PAGES 17-49]

1.	Body is the prime signifier and site 2.	Place is profound in connecting artists and spectators 3.	Physical environment is an extension of the human body

Kathleen Irwin in this article reviewed the historical development of site-specific performance art. All the way back to the middle of last century, starting with the rupture in art practices, “a profound shift in consciousness” (p17) and “a shattering of the optimism that defined modernism” (p17). The rupture of art practices marked the undermining of traditional modernist aesthetic values and ideologies, especially the “domination and repression” hidden in the traditional art ideologies. The transformative period was around 1945 when avant-garde practices was raising globally to fully broke with the past values (as well socially and economically). According to Lippard, the dematerialization of those avant-garde art practices developed an anti-authoritarian and iconoclastic pattern.

In 1949, Pollack’s spattered canvases performance marked the birth of action art. It also indicated in the article that according to Lippard “an overlay of an ‘art context’… the element of space and the relationship of the work of art to its environment took focus” (p20). The art performing location and proxemic relationships became an attribute of many later art works. It is also important to remark John Cage’s compositions in early 1950s, they destroyed many artistic preconceptions. According to Cage, every single element of regular life that takes place in anytime and anywhere can be presented to the audiences as performance. The boundless of “space” Cage identified profoundly signified the birth of “space” (not only physical) as an indispensable performative element. Later in 1960s, the exercises performed by some pivotal practitioners in European and US such as Lebel, Vostell, George Brecht and Ken Dewey claimed the centrality of venue in art making, one of the most remarkable was Barry Le Va’s time-based event-sculptures.

In addition to the 'marked birth of action art', it was due to Pollack's reaction to his newly created piece of art that held more importance than the final product itself. No longer is the product the wanted goal but rather the process of getting there. In the Happenings, it was the environment that was altered in order to achieve varied audience reactions. Usually a happening was only performed once to preserve the spontaneity as well as the live, real essence of the action. Oft times, Kaprow would use fragmented sentences and actions which would leave the audience to decipher the code as to what just happened. This adds another element of watching a performance that people may or may not enjoy; using their brain!

According to Irwin, it was in the field of dance “that the notion of site as an extension of the body was fully considered” (p23), the works of Ann Halprin, Robert Morris, Merce Cunningham, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Lucinda Childs, Trisha Brown and Joan Jonas embodied space using strategies “derived from sculpture, performance and so forth” (p23). Influenced by the field of dance, many conceptual artists like Denis Oppenheim, Chris Burden and etc created art works that are more visceral by embodying space “as a logical consideration that radically revisioned the performing body as means” (p25) according the Irwin. After the period described above, Irwin argued the creation of “exhaustion or surfeit surrounding intimate body/space-centered performance and a turn towards the theatricalized spectacle” (p28), exemplified by the area of rock performance.

In the parsing the city section, Irwin identified the importance of the understanding of the city as a “mappable” surface and the function of it, in order to fully apprehend the relationship between space and performance from the spectators’ subjective stand. According to Irwin, the “subjectiveness” of each and every viewer can trigger dialectic self-conscious perceptions between the physical space and the conceptual space, like Kaye says in the article: “in the process of viewing, the concept and features of site are continually annulled, displaced or surpassed by the spectator’s own perspectives.”

In1980’s and 90’s, some art works, especially Laurie Anderson’s eclectic media-heavy performances symbolized the shift of site-specific practice from minimalism to “media enhanced spectacle devised around the contingencies related to specific locations and their adjacent communities” (p33), and from pure art into the commercial world, according to Irwin.

Overall, this article provides us with an historical outline of gestural and site-specific practices in art works of different fields. Explained and traced how “space” developed from physical, non-institutionalized sites to ungrounded, then later specific and generative sites. Most of Irwin’s evidences and ideology frameworks come from postmodernism and avant-garde practices, which is fundamentally random, (sub)conscious and improvisatory in nature.

Performances and/or displays that take place in found places involve the relationship between space and gesture. Placement of performance was described as gesturality in the article, such that consideration was given to location, the placement of the performer, and the level of interaction from the spectators. Conversely, the inexistence of placement is deemed space, which is equally important to outcome of the work. Spatiality is, to an extent the necessary element to complete the scene. Thus, in the presentation at a found site, gesturality and spatiality must be coexistent and are essential for meaning to be discovered from the overall performance.

The Space that was performed became an important aspect to the performance, the site would inform the action that one could take as well as the amount of space that was available to take action in. this was actually put ahead, in term of importance, of the materials at hand and the performers themselves. As such the was no audience only spectators or witnesses that became participants in the work just by being present in the space. An example of a site informing the action that takes place is on pages 28 and 29 where the performance "Man Walking Down the Side of a Building" is described. That fact that the performer was on the side of a building greatly restricted the movement he could engage in.

Response: Yibin Wang

I think this article is talking about the importance of site in performance. Site involves space, location, and gesture. Space can influence performance a lot. Imagining on the stage, the first performance is about policeman and thief, and the project is pistol. If the project changes a little bit to rifle, the performance can be changed to counter and terrorist. In addition, our outside class is a good example for location. We have more projects outside like trees, grass, and branch. And the hallway between trees gives us more space to play and also gives us more space to imagine. All of these come from the differences of location. There is no denying that different gestures can bring totally diverse performances.

Response: Nathan Hunt

I agree with Yibin on this point. I think that through our in class demonstration, in which we were told to attempt to make a site specific performance and sent to different locations, we were really shown clearly how a site can bring about different performances. Truly sites communicate things to an audience defined by their intended purpose, be it 'Male Bathroom' or 'Work Area'. Beyond this sites also communicate things indirectly through what they lack. For example, a club that lacks a handicap ramp/entrance could be communicating 'We have no interest in having handicap people as patrons'. As such, any location that can be chosen represents something, and as such creating performances determined by site is a powerful tool in expressing deeply imbedded meaning. The article really seemed to hint at that a majority of the meaning that comes about from these performances was dependent on audience experiences and perception. Thus, the question I am currently left at when considering site specific performance is 'How much of the meaning and substance coming about from site specific performance can be accredited to meaning inherent in the site and how much can be accredited to meaning inherent in the audience?'.

In the article, the author discusses how it is important to notice that the physical environment can be seen as an extension of the human body, that space connects back to the body in various ways. When dealing with site specific art, it is important to realize that the body is not the prime site and that the environment which the body finds itself in is constantly performing. Therefore, when one is viewing a site performance, it is important that they take into consideration the site itself as a performer, and that without it the performance wouldnt exist as the performance was created to bring the site to life. Every member of the audience will leave with a different experience, however; it is the site that needs to be credited for its key importance in the structure and foundation of the performance.

Response: Ping Yu

I do agree with Yibin and Nathan too. As what we have learned in class, location is important for the site performance and different locations have different physical things that we can use. Also, the history and story behind the specific site needs us to do more research about it and develop the site performance to tell audience. As Eric mentioned to our group, the site performance to one place is totally different than another location, what we can do to be specific to this site and only thing we can do here but not other location is an important element when develop a site performance. To me, site performance is a kind of art which reminds people there are lots of great things around us and we can use the location itself to create lots of different performance to show how beautiful they are.

Choosing site is very important for a design of a performance. Every performance involve using of space, background, tools. In our class room, we can not perform a action very well since the space is just a classroom. We can only use our image to think the space is what we want. If we change the place which is suited for the performance. Every one will get the feeling of a activity. Although some artists do not care about site, personally I think the site is very essential for a good performance.

Response: Xiaochao Ma

I think each location has its own meaning. When we create our performance in a site, that site just becomes to a part of the performance. It is true that different things happened in same place will be make it different. However, the same thing happened in different places will change the meaning of it. On the other hand, the site performance tells people that do not ignore what the environment can bring to the performance. Sometimes, people do not go that far to feel the site around them. They will miss a lot of good things which can make their performance better off. We should open our eyes. Do not only focus on our bodies or texts. Feel around the place you are in.

Response: Sijin Chen

Pearson think that the reading of site as a kind of performative text involves a recognition of the complex overlay of narratives that encourages inscriptions of performance that might be fragmentary, partial, subjective or discursive. The relationship between fragmented inscriptions needs an open reading that deals with the host site in many ways, and involve with many aspects like history, character or narrative. I think he is telling us that in order to put text into a site performance, the text itself need to have interconnection with the site thru history, character or narrative point of view instead of using pure randomize text. Furthermore, the way of using text also needs to be considered. The technique should be creative and able to be performative.

Response: Meng Shi

This article mentions a different kind of performance than others which we learned before. It is no longer random and illogical because we have to create the performances depend on the specific site. During the class, we were divided into four groups and created performances at different site. In addition, I knew that even though by the same site, people may have totally different ideas because we have various experiences and minds at the same site. Site performance is a new challenging project for us because we have to create the logical performance in order to coordinate with the site. In other hand, we also should change our ideas about the performance when there are some changes for the location, space and gesture.

Response: Huibing Wu

I disagree with Mengshi’s point that we have to create a performance related to the site and have to be logical. I remember one of our groups creates a site-specific performance not related to the site they chose, and I even don’t know what’s the meaning of the performance. Also, we have applied Dadaist and surrealist elements like wearing plastic bags, using a carrot as a microphone in our performance. All those things seem illogical in our daily life. As the article mentioned “site-specific practice suggests that there were ample precedents throughout the neo avant-garde, for art, frequently linked with specific locations, that focused on the relationship of body as the locus of identity and the site of performance.” (P27) Therefore, to create a site-specific performance is not necessarily to be logical and relate to the site itself. The point is how you use your body and everything in the site to create a performance.

Response: Jingyi Chen

I do agree with Meng that site performance is a big challenge to all of us. I want to compare our avant-garde project and site-specific performance project together. When I did the first project, the first impression was our performance did not make senses. There was almost no connection between anyone’s performances. The entire project was consisted of several subprojects. And we did not consider any elements of site. But when we did the second project, the whole thing was changed. We did research about our site. We made a lot of efforts to let our performances connect with chosen site. Does not like avant-garde, we must give our performances meaning, the specific logical meaning with site. In the mean while, our movements connected with each other.

According to Irwin, space has a strong relationship with performance. Through the whole article, the author doesn’t mention anything about how performers could limit the side-effect by changing of space. As audiences would love to watch some classic shows in its original way, too many influences on performance could not be accepted by them. I understand there are many limitations, such as the size and layout of the stage, alternation of actors, interactions with different group of audiences. In this case, I would love to ask you how performers could do to minimize the differences when needed

response: jiachen wu

"Place is profound in connecting artists and spectators"and"Physical environment is an extension of the human body" i really like what Ke mentioned at the beginning of the summary. any i want add one more into them: somehow human body is an another form of site. in Chinese philsophy, human body and physcial environment(universal) are consistent. we usually say the site effects the performance. on the other hand, why don't we say performance also effects the site. for example, the famous tiananmen square is just a site if we put everything aside. human creates a special meaning for tiananmen square and it becomes a well known site."place is profound in connecting artists and spectators" sometimes is really hard to distinguish who is artists and spectators in the same dimension.

Response:

What are the most important elements of the Site- Specific performance, I think that should be how to create a site for performance. The performance artists totally change the traditional way to site stage .In the stage of Site-Specific Performance, people have to imagine what will happen in this specific area. There has the extremely huge imagination though the stage of Site-Specific Performance, the Site-Specific performance artists use some exaggeration and symbolic means to guide their audiences to the creative world, where the audience will be available to imagine what a specific site they are in. Possibly, there could come some different response from the audience , but it dose not matter how they imagine .Due to everyone has the different feeling about one same thing , like there do not have the same leaves in the world. All in all, the Site-Specific Performance will always bring us some pleasantly surprise, and it’s its figural room will has huge potentiality.

Response: Chao Jiang

The importance of site in performance is what the author wanted to tell us. I think the hardest part about site is to find relation between the site and the performance, to find the connotative connection that people usually ignored or didn’t pay attention to, such as the performance our group did in the base floor of MFH. When we investigate it carefully and emotionally, we ask questions to ourselves like what happen is lights are off, what happen if there are only one light source, are people going to walk to where the fainted lights? I found that there are no good site or bad site because every site have its own story or identity, and all it matters is whether you can find the interconnection in between.