Drama360/Site-Specific Performance and its Cousin: Public Intervention ***

INITIAL RESPONSE: YUAN LI

1.	Lacy, Susan. "Seeing Mud Houses." Accidental Audience: Urban Interventions by Artists. Ed. Kim Pruesse. Toronto: off/site collective, 1999. [PAGES 68-75].

Suzanne Lacy, in article of Seeing Mud House, mentions some opinions for “interventionist art” although her interesting memory of mud house in her children hood. In the opinion of Suzanne Lacy, she thinks “interventionist art” is the art developed in public spaces, and it could consist with the viewer’s ideas of worth, appropriateness, and significance. However, it has to make me think that the “interventionist art” could have a bearing on the Stress Art, such as traditional graffiti artwork, stencil graffiti, and sticker art. People sometimes think that there have some motivations and objectives, and there is also a strong current of activism and subversion in urban art. Street art could be a powerful platform for reaching the public and frequent themes.

In addition, there are some relationships between public art and “interventionist art”. For both public art and “interventionist art”, they are Site-specific art, and the artists take the location into account while planning and creating the artwork. That could be the Outdoor site-specific artworks, which often include the Environmental art, and that could be the choreography, which is generated through research and interpretation of the site’s unique cultural matrix of characteristics. Whether architectural, historical, social or environmental, people go to discover the hidden meaning in a space and develop methods to amplify it. Indeed, some artists make a point of music created by a local composer especially for the dance site, but Indoor site-specific artworks may be created in conjunction with the architects of the building. All in all, it is sometimes used for artwork, which is permanently attached to a particular location. In this sense, a building with interesting “interventionist art” could be considered a piece of site-specific art.

As Suzanne Lacy says “Many people make interventions in their daily lives similar to those by artists, it really dose not matter where happened, inside door or outside door, as long as it should be the art, people will go to appreciate it because the art actually happened in our daily life, and there is no circumscription of location for that.

Based on the article "Seeing Mud Houses" it becomes evident that the major difference between site specific work and interventionist art is pretty much the anonymous effect the interventionist artist has. It seems the artist is strictly making art for their own pleasure and if people notice or not is the 'audience's' concern. Or there are other cases where the artist knows the audience will come across his or hers art but never know it was intentionally placed there (or that the action was planned etc.) It is an interesting debate about whether or not interventionist art is actually considered art, since the audience is completely unexpecting or ignorant. But really, as long as the artist is happy with what they have created, and regardless if the audience reacts they way it was intended, that in itself could be considered art or performance creation in its most natural form because it just 'happened'.

My interpretation of “interventionist art” is that it is much like a piece that is never fully completed. The artists themselves seem to regard their pieces that way, as the author had hoped that another interested person may continue to build upon her original work (the mud piles) and create something extraordinarily different. This allows us to acknowledge the changes in each piece of art work establish greater value than the original, even if the outcome of the “intervened” piece is completely different than the original artist had intended. This also extends to the plane collision drawing that was intervened with text; thus, interpreted with the antiwar sentiment. Without the text, the hotel room-drawing could take on different meaning to different observers; however, the added text limits the thought process for the observers. While on the other hand, if another artist was to intervene again and do something different to the plane drawing, then maybe a new meaning or interpretation may result.

One of the most intriguing aspects of interventionist art is the form on which is taken. Often, it appears to be a result of a spontaneous anonymous gesture, it could come from and be addressed to anyone. With this anonymous approach, the audience finds themselves questioning who the work is for and who created it. It can come in the form of a spur of the moment act and cause those who come across it to try and see what the artist was trying to say and who the message was left for.

There can be cases where the artist uses interventionist art to either express a political point or position. Known as 'Guerrilla Art', its purpose is usually to make an overt political statement and is often through a sudden creation or installation of unauthorized art in public places. Guerrilla artists tend to reclaim spaces and change its dynamics through the construction of images or counter images. A famous technique that guerilla artists use is creating irrational or ironic messages through the alteration of original advertising on billboards. The title of the article "Accidental Audience" Is an intriguing one. First it bring forth the notion of the unknowing or unexpected audience that is subjected to the art. However as the article went on it became apparent to me that perhaps that there can also be an accidental artist. That is someone who does something within the realm of this interventionist art and creating an impact. It was also very interesting to note that many of the peices of art involved no performer. Each certainly needed an architect, but most of the time the image was left to perform art on its own. I find the absence of the artist intriguing as it adds yet another question for the audience to ponder. "who created this?"

INITIAL RESPONSE: SIJIN CHEN AND SILIANG LI

1.	Cardiff, Janet. "Louisiana Walk #14." Janet Cardiff: A Survey of Works Including Collaborations with George Bures Miller. New York: PS.1 Contemporary Art Centre, 2002. [PAGES 63-69].

2.	 Cardiff, Janet & Bures Miller George. Louisiana Walk #14 (Audio Recording). 1996. PS.1 Contemporary Art Centre, New York.

INITIAL RESPONSE: Sijin Chen

First of all, this article talks about Louisiana walk #14. Louisiana walk #14 is a 13 minutes binaural audio piece that guides visitors through the sculpture park of the Louisiana Museum with a walkman. If we listen to Louisiana walk, it is necessary for us to use headsets. The headsets and binaural sound create personal space in order to let the sounds enter into our mind and body. Thus, we can totally immerse into scene. We mainly listen to what the Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller say. We can also hear soundscape, the sound of the body, footsteps, and voice of the person giving instructions and thoughts. Secondly, this article introduces the processes of using Louisiana Walk #14 if we visit the park. The first step, we should use a piece of ID to get a Walkman. Then, we wear the headset, carry the player and press “play”. After that, we follow the sound of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller brings us into the scene. As well as, it tells us that we should pay attention to breaking the time and place concepts in our mind so as to quickly immerse into the scene. The last part of this article gives us a script about using Louisiana Walk #14. The script describes the whole scene from the beginning to the end. Janet Cardiff and Geoge Bures Miller apply the form of dialogue to describe what they see, what they hear, and what they feel. The audience is walking on this park while listening to them. They totally immerse into the scene. Imagine another scene, when we enter into a park, a tourist guide just use his or her voice to introduce everything, there is no other sounds like soundscape, sound of the body, footsteps, and so on. How boring it is! Therefore, Louisiana walk #14 use binaural audio makes us feel different. Overall, this article introduces us the Louisiana Walk #14 and gives us a script about using Louisiana Walk #14 in order to let us appreciate audio walk well.

Initial Response: Siliang Li

Louisiana walk #14 is a piece of audio work recorded by walkman, accomplished by Canadian artist Janet Cardiff and her partner George Bures Miller. Louisiana walk is the first walk that became a filmic soundtrack. For this walk, we were taken on a jouney to the sculpture park of the Louisiana Museum, followed by Janet Cardiff’s footstep. She used her own sounds and words to create actual human experiences. So when we listen to this piece of audio, we will also have these experiences in our minds. However, by just hearing these sounds and words, we may not have exactly same experience as Janet Cardiff, because we can only use one part of our sense to experience these sounds and words. As a matter of fact, Janet Cardiff created a virtual world for us to imagine. Everyone who listens to this piece of audio may have different images and feelings. Some people may experience Janet Cardiff’s views and feelings. Some people may have their own thoughts and feelings but temporarily merge with Janet Cardiff’s will and thought. Some people may not get what Janet Cardiff experiences and totally have no idea about what she was doing in the audio. For instance, a male said in the article “They put a visor on my head. All I could see on the video was you walking along this path but I couldn’t see what was in front of you, to see what was to come.” From my own experience on listening to Louisiana walk #14, I feel like in the park with Janet Cardiff. One scene after one like a film had gone through my mind. I was totally into this "Louisiana walk".

Response:

I closed my eyes to enjoy this piece of site specific. To me by listening to Louisiana Walk #14 with eyes close, initially I felt I was situating myself in a horror movie, with Janet says: “I wanted to bring you here because I think that something strange has happened to me walking along this path” and later the “little girl reading on the bench to the right”, “a man hanging from a tree in front of a fire”. It was until the audio hitting that Janet says “I like that sculpture over to the right” it all made sense what kind of path is she walking on. The visionless of the walking makes my thoughts escape from the “cage” in my brain, and it certainly feels like Janet has walked into my body. It feels strange, intense and uncomfortable with unknown (un-seeable) events happening by pass the body, without sight it feels like nothing could be foreseen. I believe there is an ultimate importance of the “unforeseeability” in this art work, which is by using the unforeseeable method, the “spectators” are drawn into the environment by their own curiosities, and results in varies imaginations; also when the environment is unforeseeable anymore, it forces the “spectator” to only observe and experience each and every single moment of the current environment(the sound of the walking, the surroundings, the touching of the cloth the wind...), which reveals to the “spectators” the absolute truth of the specific space at that time. “Do not ask why”, maybe humankind is born with fears and awes about the absolute truths? That to me, is the spectacularity of this site-specific.

Response: Yibin Wang

I can imagine that people can enjoy Janet Cardiff’s performances through her direction, because she has lots of ways to make audience comfortable. For example, she uses her own sounds and Louisiana walk #14. These are exactly natural performances. There is no extra describing or portraying and people cannot feel anything false. In addition, these ways she uses can make her performances more interesting and colorful. Normally, this kind of performance is sole, like the sound. However, people can have more feelings in her performances because there are lots of different sounds. Also, people can feel these more interesting than others.

Response: Huibing Wu

Janet’s performance reminds me the childhood experience in a small village. I don’t know if any of you have lied down on the grass at the highest point of a mountain and listen to the sounds from the nature. I often did that when I was a child. The birds singing, the sound of water flow from a bourn, and the sound from trees, the combination of all those sounds like a symphony. The nature sounds to me, sometime it is silent like a gentle man, sometime they express feeling with howls. I think the purpose of Janet’s performance was to make people feel the nature with a sense of hearing. Of course, different people have different feelings with the same experience. To me, I feel a sense of peace and calm.

Response: Nathan Hunt

I found 'Louisiana Walk #14' to be very powerful. It is interesting to see that this feeling has as well been echoed in the experiences of others posting. I would like to actually experience the walk with the audio recording. Through reading and listening to it and imagining it I was pleasantly surprised by how much the performance interacted with me the audience. Through the manner it was presented it finds a way to at the same time externalize and internalize itself with the listener. This is to say the individual walking the said path will have their own sincere experiences while engaging with the environment, and as well have the experiences shaped by Cardiff flow over them. The two different experience intermingling to bring about a genuine sense of feeling in the participant. I imagine feeling like this would be very close to taking a walk with a close friend keen on sharing some valuable experiences with her audience, one with warm intent whom you would not want to turn away from.

Response: Jingyi Chen

I am surprised how text can be transformed and transferred to people. Not only through visual and touching senses, but also through every organ, text can be transmitted in a lot of ways which you may or may not image. I am curious that what would happen if I do not follow Janet Cardiff’s direction or do an opposite way. But lacking of awareness, I follow her anyway at last. It feels like “Louisiana Walk #14” has a magic power which I cannot reject. Therefore, for my understanding, no matter how text is presented, when people have any kind of touching with it at first time, an imagination has existed and be very hard to be erased.

Response: Meng Shi

people make interventions in daily lives is the environment art. For example,different experiences at the same place by different voice, communicates and image. when people create performance, they should know that the audience will come across the art but never know it was intentionally placed there. It is an interesting debate about whether interventionist art is actually considered art or not, since the audience is completely unexpecting or ignorant.Louisiana Walk #14 (Audio Recording) is a good example to explain my opinion.To make different voices enter into audience mind can help artist makes different experences in the same image for the audience.

Response: Ping Yu

I think almost every person has those kind of experience to feel the differences between wearing a headset to listen what you wanna to hear and listen it without a headset. From the article, it mentioned that the different image you would have by sitting in the dark cinema with many people around you and the solitary walk with a headset and player. From my experience, wearing a headset means to separate myself from the outsiders and focus on what I am going to listen and also full of imagination about it. It is like a psychological text. It might bring me back to my childhood or it might help me to image what the future looks like not only due to my experience, what I have seen, but also image because of the concentration.

response: Xiaochao Ma

I can’t believe that Louisiana Walk # 14 is just a 13 minutes audio. I used to have that experience; I was walking in dark, I could not see anything. There was a sound in front of me, but I did not know who made that sound and I could not touch anything in there. Then, the sound told me that what I should do to get out of this place. On that time, I thought if I did not listen to what he said, I was not able to leave. After I came out, I told my sister that I just knew one thing: “this is the first time that I find the way out by listening.” Then, we just left that theme park. So, today, this article just reminds my childhood, but Louisiana walk # 14 seems more powerful. I guess that feeling must be so real. sometimes, sound is also an art thing.

When a director choose a public for his next performance. He think about public intervention. Sometimes, intervention is good for a performance. Audience feel more reality when they watch a performance. Sometimes, intervention is not good for a performance, especially for a live art. Intervention break the rule or order of a performance. Generally, a director does not like the intervention during his performance. In a pubic performance, a director spend some funds and time to control some intervention. However, if a performance attract passerby to join performance or watch it. It tells the performance is successful.

response: jiachen wu

"louisiana walk # 14" is so great. it is a 13 minute binaural audio that guides auidences went through the scuplture park of the louisiana Museum with a walkman. aduidences can hear the natural sound of park and the sound of footstep,voice of the person who gives a instruction. museum, the sound of footsteps and voice of a person creat a whacky dimension for audiences. it makes me image that i went to a person's mind and saw all different types of whacky things. sooner and later, audio helps audience completely engaging in a part of the musuem. i also wonder what is going to happen if there is not such special audio in the louisiana walk # 14.

Response: Chao Jiang

I can almost see the scene by just listening to the audio clip she made, she assume the guy in the audio was the audience. She created an emotion to audience, an emotion that she intended to make audience feel. Every minute of the 13minutes audio clip was entertaining. I like how she put many events into her performance, and I feel there are lots of different aspects of people around there. The content of this audio clip is solid, there wasn’t even a second of blank in this performance, and this is what I like best about this performance because it can keep the audience keep listen to the end of the 13minutes.