Utopic Visions of the World:
Artists as Social and Political Agent
By Leah Oates
Performance and interactive art would not exist without an actively involved audience and the work is not dependent on the “art market” to exist. The art and the act of performance itself is ephemeral and the end result is a mixture of the artist (who generates the performance and concepts) and the audience (who adds their input and who in the end adds meaning to the final result.) All art requires some sort of connection to others but many of the exchanges are mingled within the “art market” and are passive in nature.
Performance or interactive art often has an aspect of giving and collaboration while the artist is performing or the work is being observed. Often an audience or viewer participates passively but in some instances the viewer is actively involved and is required to have the artwork come to realization. In some instances the performance is the art itself without a definite outcome in mind and the involvement of others and their intangible energy is required to set the “art” in motion.
However, participation and collaboration are not the same thing. Collaboration asks more from an audience and makes the audience part of the piece. Participation is a bit more passive anddoes not necessarily require a fully engaged audience.
The artists who I will write about are not all specifically performance artists but all absolutely require an audience or collaboration for their ideas to become authentic. All of the artists are also working as “social agents” or even “activist”. They use art (rather than direct political action) to communicate views about power, sharing of information, memory, the environment and politics.
Each artist or collaborative team is attempting to create change in the world and the audience for their work is not only the art community but also the world. They all work collaboratively with others to make their work, require an audience to set their work into action and are advancing views to make beneficial changes to the world.
Andrea Polli
"Art is visionary by its nature and artist are always presenting a new way of looking at the future…. artists can create projects that actually impact society…"--
Andrea Polli, 2005
Heat and the Heartbeat of the City
Andrea Polli is a digital media artist who addresses issues related to sciences, technology and the environment in contemporary society. Polli has worked together with scientists, musicians, city planners and historians and her work combines seemingly disparate fields to create visionary views of the future.
The Queens Bridge Wind Power Project investigated how clean, renewable wind power might be integrated into the cities energy systems. Polli collaborated with Markus Maurette on the creation of a computer model of the bridge to be fitted with various wind turbines and also with climate scientist Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig on the effects of global warming on the
New York region. The end result is an innovative and beautiful solution to changing the regions climate, which is clearly being altered by global warming.
In a related project, Heat and the Heartbeat of the City, Polli worked with scientists Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig, David Rind and Richard Goldberg to create a series of sonifications that are composed by translating weather data into sound. The works focus on the heart of New York City and Central Park, which was one of city’s first locations for climate monitoring. According to a report published by the Environmental Defense Fund, New York City will be dramatically effected by global warming in the near future. Average temperatures in the city could increase by one to four degree farenheight by 2030, and up to ten degrees by 2100. Heat and the Heartbeat of the City allows viewers to travel forward in time at an accelerated rate and experience an intensification of heat in sound. The piece uses actual data from summers in the 1990’s and projected data from summers of New York City in 2020, 2050 and 2080 made using one of the most detailed models of an urban area.
By using sound as a metaphorical medium for weather, Polli has created an innovative method for experiencing the damaging effect of future weather. A viewer then understands the information on two levels, intellectually and viscerally. Bodily memory is deeper than reading data on global warming and once one absorbs the information it cannot be forgotten. This is the radical part of Polli’s work. She uses a corporeal method to reveal hard data about a subject that will put the earth and humans into danger and passes this data into our memory through sound.
PRAXIS
We would like to be venture capitalist for dreams that can never be realized…we are fantasizing about a world we haven’t seen and cannot be achieved through ordinarychannels. We are looking to an answer to many ills that face our world and our personal lives…All our artwork is a determination to find a new answer, a place in the mind and a new social structure.
PRAXIS, 2004
From “Manifesto for a New Economy Campaign”
First presented by Curcio Projects/ Scope, New York 2004
In 1999, PRAXIS (husband and wife team Brainard Carey and Delia Bajo) opened a storefront space in the East Village of New York City. There they offered services such as a bandage for a visible or invisible wound, or a hug, or a dollar bill or a foot washing. Their ongoing series of projects titled The New Economy aims to bring new modes of exchange that can be incorporated into everyday life. They believe that we live in an extreme era where most people are consumed by work, money and imaginary class structures. The end result is that many do not realize their strength, that mediocrity is adopted to withstand crushing economic pressures and that there are no deep connections between people. PRAXIS attempts to bypass all of this and create new way of exchange and collaboration between people and to foster connections beyond money, status and class.
The New Economy series spans several years and has been performed in different locations. Most recently PRAXIS gave a performance at Scope New York where they recreated the Bed- In’s for Peace that Yoko Ono and John Lennon performed in Amsterdam and Montreal in 1969.
PRAXIS added other layers to the recreation by weaving a quilt of contributed dollar bills during the fair and offering marijuana to participants during the opening night to help them relax. PRAXIS created a manifesto for the piece along with a newspaper similar to Yoko Ono’s editions with their own philosophical framework and information. Yoko Ono’s performance pieces where created to be performed by others and PRAXIS makes the Bed-In’s their own. They added original levels of meaning to the work by commenting on commerce at Scope which is plainly about transaction of money, value and status. Much of the work they created for the fair could not be sold and was specific to the fair and location. PRAXIS also commented on various exchanges of capital (either of money or marijuana) and the performance reordered the status of money, class and the body and stripped it of its invented significance. The performance was a playful and thoughtful interpretation on the over commercialization of the art world and the greater world. The performance ultimately tried to bring peoples focus away from wealth and position and to a place where one can connect more genuinely to art and to others.
Peter Walsh & Deidre Hoguet
"I am interested in ideas of language, place, and collective memory. I create projects that ask for the participation or interaction of others to complete the pieces. "--Deidre Hoguet
"I am interested in creating a personal artistic practice that allows me to enter into complex political dialogues with complete strangers in public spaces. To do this, I’ve been working with several forms including street actions, gift exchange, political activism, community events and the trickster/political jester form." --
Peter Walsh
Peter Walsh and Deidre Hoguet work both separately and collaboratively in their artwork and performances. Their performances together create inventive connections between their ways of working and the finished outcomes and actually make their collective work more layered.
Tongue:Jezik was created by Walsh and Hoguet and shown at Gallery P74 in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2003. The piece was produced through a series of “street actions” or “public performances” during which both interacted with many people during the day. These exchanges became the matter for the finished show. Walsh attempted to learn Slovene in three weeks and created a mobile language cart that had a dictionary, writing utensils, and paper as a sort of roving language reference library on wheels. He tried to speak Slovene to the people he met and to learn the language from them. He soon discovered that they where several dialects of Slovene being spoken and that the accepted language was just a staring point for communication and exchange. The languages spoken and accents reveal where people fit into society. However, Walsh is not from Slovenia so his performance was an authentic interpretation of language as it relates to power, value and class. He did not have any preconceived notions of any particular person he would meet, as he was a visitor.
Hoguet created a visual glossary where she drew from the local landscape and invited people to write words in their native language for the objects in the drawings. The annotated images became a document of the different languages spoken in those areas of the city at that time, as well as a translation between those languages and the images/objects depicted. Hoguet bound the resulting drawing into a glossary/guide to the various areas and languages of the city. The finished piece and the transactions that Hoguet had with people reveal a difference in national character through language and in the act of naming. Hoguet had languages in her piece as varied as French, Italian, English and of course Slovene in its various dialects. People selected what to label without direction from Hoguet and some objects have many labels in various languages and others have none.
The “street actions” that Walsh & Hoguet performed in Slovenia in combination with one another reveal more about language as a signifier of class and status. Hoguet created a list or archive of the languages and she documents the variety of languages spoken. Walsh had a less tangible document of his experiences with the local people and language but acted as an advocate for an open discussion about power and language. His presence was an attempt to have an open discussion about language with a non-judgmental outsider and revealed how it can limit people in society. Walsh & Hoguet created with Tongue:Jezik a concrete memory of place at a particular time in the culture’s history and a record of the evolution of their language. Potentially they revealed aspects of the language to the local people and the regional arts community that began an ongoing, open dialogue about class and power.
All of the artists approach to collaboration is as varied as their work. Polli collaborates with scientists and musicians and her work is not directly performative but rather interactive. After research and working in a team with others, her final piece is often in the form of web sites, interactive installations or future public works. Her work requires deep knowledge of data, statistics, science and the environment and is highly structured work that then can be navigated by a viewer. Working with others to gather data for her work means that the outcome is not predetermined before a collaboration has transpired.
PRAXIS performance work is loosely considered before interaction with others but once their performance begins the work takes on a life of its own. For instance, PRAXIS offered “healing” services in their East Village storefront such as a hug or a foot washing. Each person who came into the space brought a different request within the parameters of the performance but each interaction was singular and yet familiar. Through a series of continual rituals PRAXIS revealed the individual character of each participant and without judgement offered their time and energy. In essence each interaction was a particular and transitory piece.
The New Economy performance by PRAXIS at Scope that recreated Yoko Ono & John Lennon’s “Bed-Ins” is an explicit commentary on money as the storehouse of values and the dominant means of exchange. This had more meaning due to it being hosted at an art fair where the main means of exchange is money and status. PRAXIS made this clear by creating a “bed” of bills that reduces all our actions, including sleep, to a monetary exchange. This work required less “participation” from an audience and the collaboration was rather between the artists in PRAXIS.
Tongue:Jezik by Deidre Hoguet and Peter Walsh is the most “cooperative” work in that theyhad not been to the Slovenia, did not speak the language and did not have any expectation for what the outcome or the work would be. They both set up “drawing” stations and where in asense much like the “traditional painter” who is outside on location making their work.
Tongue:Jezik is a contemporary “landscape” work that records the behavior and values of the Slovenian people rather than creating an actual image of the place. Tongue:Jezik is in direct response to location and regional questions dealing with language and class. However, the final work comments on universal issues on status and how language is use to classify people.
Andrea Polli, PRAXIS (Delia Bajo & Brainard Carey), and Peter Walsh & Deidre Hoguet are not all specifically performance artists but all require an audience orcollaboration for their ideas to become authentic. These artists also work as “social agents” or even “activist”. They use art (rather than direct political action) to communicate views about power, sharing of information, memory, the environment and politics.
