more nights with weird art people

it's easy to fall out of touch with a world--you need only to allow yourself to hang out by cliffside and fall away--half-accident, half-voluntary, with a hint of relief that you are no longer committed to it. the fall-out sheds friendships as well as responsibilities tied to all those things, like love. no pain, no stress, but no pleasure either. just null. then try to get used to the limbo, or find another world temporarily, then hang out at cliffside, repeat.

some are born drifters, some aren't. when people asked me what i wanted to be when i grew up, i told them "artist" on one day, "writer" on another. a long, toxic, ecstatic, tumultuous romance with both has created strings so numerous, vast, stubbornly clingy that they can no longer be called strings but a net, a world that never lets me free--gives me the illusion sometimes, yes, but invisible chains are perhaps the most powerful of all.

sometimes i find it's easier to deal with something by not dealing with it at all. detach the problem from the real source and tack it onto an external but also subjective one. my own pain is more tolerable when it is removed from me and visible from a distance--just like the sublime, nietzsche's tragedy, when i can contemplate it, like a tortured sculpture.

so i can hate and blame the people there--artists are full of shit, art is a bunch of bullshit, why care about writing, why care about art when… 

but when a fall-out is never a true one, when you already have bound yourself to a world--willfully or not--the fall-in, the shameful but intoxicating return is more painful than the accidental feigned escape. 

probably because love sometimes resembles pain when it takes you by surprise.

and for me, the regular returns to art come as love for people, too.

when i love the people living art, i have no choice but to fall back in love with it.

this time art is more forgiving and more generous than ever, because the people do not exist separately from it, but they are it. because every moment is their work.

through a performance art community in brooklyn, i encountered the necessary urgency of a writer, that necessary fuel to placing words on paper and to putting them out.

that drive--i had forgotten, it has been too long--in which i feel no choice but to speak and share. not an "i guess i could," but "i need to or i will go insane."

a writing classmate once described this as a feeling of "responsibility."

i think that is right too--

i sit and listen to a handful of artists tell horror stories about their performing, and throughout most of the talk, a guy next to me ceaselessly (or so it seemed) muches from his bag of tate's white chocolate chip macadamia cookies and later pulls out and drinks from a bottle of red wine he brought with him. and the play of shadows against the wall, passersby gawking and shouting through the glass windows.

or another time another handful of people (some the same ones from the other occasion) fix their attention on an electro music duo at an artist's closing party and suddenly a woman, face invisible under multiple long black wigs, clad in a fur coat and a pair of disposable underwear, bursts through the door waving a white cane. when she bounces, squats, dances to the irregular sounds and yells out to people at random intervals, "what the fuck ya lookin' at?!" the countenances of others do not express surprise.

that sort of thing.

and i'm thinking, someone's got to document this.

can an "isolated" study of that woman's persona do full justice to her as a performance artist? or others gathered there?

or to even think about whether all of them would consent to their being labeled "artist," or otherwise…

the initial elation feels higher, especially when a realist cynic is propelled into space.

all this will come down--

but i had to, 

i had no choice but to,

speak

out loud.

naive optimism: performance art in public space

in continuation of my thoughts on the potential of performance…

- performance evades documentation and therefore stabilization. it creates possibilities of collective memory and myth-making. or erasure from history.

- it holds greater potential for blurring the lines between "art" and "life." because it is not something that can be isolated as an object (and therefore deemed completely external to ourselves) but takes place as an event in space over time (what people do everyday with more or less degree), it can directly address our definition of "normal behavior" and perhaps subvert it, redefine it, or at least reconsider it.

on tuesday, july 23rd, performance artist dovrat meron moderated a roundtable discussion called from site-specific performance to hit and run interventions in the public realm at glasshouse in brooklyn. also part of the bipaf (brooklyn international performance art festival), the discussion followed a presentation by meron on her work, untranslatable words, in which the artist (with a giant plastic ear held to her head) asked people on the street for words they found difficult to translate into other languages. 

around 13 artists and curators were present for the roundtable--many perform or organize performances in public spaces and shared some of their past experiences. for example, rafael sanchez, who often does traveling performances, spoke about the reception of back to africa, 2000, in which he chased buses (in new jersey?) in white face, asking people whether it was the bus back to africa. some, he said, would think him a(nother) crazy person, stand back, and watch in amused or fearful silence. others engaged more actively with the work by responding that yes, the bus would take him to africa, but he has to get off at some point and take another bus.

his anecdote related to other topics raised during the talk, including that of response, censorship, and city regulations. meron opened with an observation that, unlike berlin, where she is based, new york city has very clear distinctions between private and public spaces. but there are those "public" spaces that are semi-private--legally, they may be the city's property, but the locations fall under the semi-control of residents and other private sectors. this was perhaps the most disconcerting (although expected) part of what the participants brought forth as a difficulty of performing in public:

#1. by law, performers do not necessarily need a permit to perform in public, as long as they do not a sound device such as a speaker, megaphone, etc. and do not perform in or next to a park. however, laws of "public disturbance" apply. these appear in several different forms, but they are similar. an act may be considered "disorderly conduct," for example, when the doer has the intention "to cause public inconvenient, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof:

1. He engages in fighting or in violent, tumultuous or threatening behavior; or

2. He makes unreasonable noise; or

3. In a public place, he uses abusive or obscene language, or makes an obscene gesture; or

4. Without lawful authority, he disturbs any lawful assembly or meeting of persons; or

5. He obstructs vehicular or pedestrian traffic; or

6. He congregates with other persons in a public place and refuses to comply with a lawful order of the police to disperse; or

7. He creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose."

many of the "definitions" for the laws utilize subjective modifiers such as "obscene," "threatening," "offensive," and "unreasonable." the most striking phrase in the last example is "any act which serves no legitimate purpose." who sets the criteria for a "legitimate purpose?" or any of the other qualifiers for that matter? 

if anyone present considers a performance to fall under any of those descriptions, he/she is free to report the performer, who then risks being arrested.

#2. the disturbing part: those who have the power to judge and determine criteria for the "legitimacy" or "threat" of a performance in a public space are the residents, police/law, and possibly most powerful of all, private sectors with money (corporate shareholders of some sort). if one performs on the sidewalk outside of the shiny citigroup center in midtown east, for example, one can be kicked out--maybe more forcefully than if some residents in hell's kitchen complained about some crazies "causing inconvenience." thus the interpretation of various laws--including those on "selling expressive matter" as maria hupfield put it--changes according to those who hold power. in this society, it is probably those who have financial influence.

cara starke of creative time, who was also present at the discussion, noted that budgets are generally set aside for obtaining permits. however, ultimately, as jill mcdermid offered, the issue is not about permits and law, but reception by those at the site. is a work "crazy," "cool," or "art?" to the artist, it probably doesn't matter how the work in interpreted, as long as it creates an effect during its course and hopefully after. but the modes of interpretation sometimes play significant roles in whether or not the artist can present the work at all. it is disheartening to realize that people will be harassed for their expressions--and silenced--if those with money perceive them as inappropriate.

to work around this for larger projects, some try to go through institutions and other parties associated with the location to receive the ok--that is, depend on these powers for the legitimization of the work. however, this method, too, inevitably has its restrictions--these parties have the final say in what can be shown and what cannot. "politically sensitive" material may be censored if the decision-makers do not wish to be aligned with those views. receiving legitimization requires compromise. some artists at the discussion voiced their preference for the "hit and run" route--they may risk getting arrested, but better that than compromising their art for an elite that fears what they do not know.

fear is another topic that was raised. essentially, the interpretation of an act as "threatening," "violent," "disturbing," etc. stems from fear. of what? many artists don't perform with the intention of harming strangers.

the source of fear seems to be a surprise encounter with the unfamiliar. like high school kids picking on someone who likes to hide in a corner and read comic books instead of going to house parties or playing basketball after school. difference causes a "disturbance" to a "norm" and "general order." seeing a stranger suddenly come into their neighborhood to do things they haven't seen people do there (whether it is just asking passersby questions or rolling on the ground flailing their arms about), people who respond in fear probably feel something akin to having an "intruder" in "their" space. 

thus the importance of prior research. starke elaborated that this may not necessarily be an academic read-up on the history of the area, but interaction with the residents, gaining a feel for their "cultural literacy" (that was someone else's term but forgot who said it). acceptance (regardless of what the law or big financial powers say) will depend on this trust--the performer not being a "colonizer," but someone who hopes for mutual exchange on an equal footing.

artist geraldo mercado's statement toward to the end of the discussion is apt here: "is there art here and do people want it?" perhaps the responsibility of the artist is to break open the desire for art through trust. once you have that, you have the potential to transform another person--maybe an entire community or the world.