I found our workshop challenging initially as the scope for ideas was so broad that we as a group had no idea where to start. I also immediately had the sense that, had I known the emphasis on props and situational interventions beforehand, I would have prepared ideas and objects to maximise the success of my outcome. In our group stagefright was also prevalent, as many didn't want to appear directly in the video whatsoever, which restricted the diversity of our footage. The majority of our interventions involved Jake, with his identity concealed in an unexpected way; a colourful upturned bucket on his head. He then moved through crowded spaces and interacted with both members of the public and other living things.
Initially we intended this footage to be subversive in the public domain, however a lot of the responses we recieved were either passive aggressive or mocking. Therefore, when we edited and reassembled the short clips, it felt neccessary to change the tone of the piece from artistic edginess to one of melancholic as if this new bucket-headed character, try as he might, could find no place of acceptance in this unhumouring world. At one point Jake sat at the foot of some mannequins in an art exhibition at the Undercroft which, when viewed from this new standpoint, appeared contemplative as if the character was breaking the fourth wall in reconsidering the value of art and therefore himself.
Having never used this video editing software before it took a few minutes to get to grips with it, but I had done similar work with different programs in the past so I picked it up quite quickly. I added a colour pass effect to all of the footage which included Jake which was set to only preserve the red tones of the bucket. This enhanced the sense of this character as a misfit, the only colour in an otherwise bleak scenario, and was also an interesting effect to play with. Additionally I reversed time and slowed the speed of some of the pieces of footage to make the scenario appear further detatched from reality. I also spent a while guiding other members of my group, who had no video editing experience, on how to continue to edit the footage. Through this I not only made sure others were able to have a go, but I also learnt a few new techniques myself and got to know the members of my group a bit better too.
Although my typical artistic practice in no way involves performance art, I found this workshop interesting and definitely learnt a lot about the ways in which media can be edited and manipulated to entirely change the artistic direction and feel of the piece.
Later in the week we had our first guest speaker, a performance artist, Vivian Ezugha, who employs costume and enviroment to challenge stereotypes associated with her Nigerian background. She was keen to emphasise the distinction between performance art as an art form and as 'entertainment' by encouraging her audience to either commit to the entire performance or not attend at all. She also emphasised the importance of collaboration, an essential skill no matter the media, and spoke about the struggles of bringing conceptually challenging art to an unwilling community and the struggles she faced to be respected and heard, something I have had to deal with on a lesser scale previously in my own practice.
Although performance art isn't something I would typically be interested in, I found a lot of her ideas and responses as an artist very relatable and interesting. A quote which stuck with me in particular was "We are all performance artists in our own right, whether we call it performance art, or just living." which definitely prompted me to feel differently, and respond more receptively, to the concept of performance art whereas previously I might have more readily brushed it off as irrespective to my own practice. Throughout this week I have learnt a lot about a media I otherwise didn't have a lot of experience in and feel I have expanded my appreciation for it and learnt that, although it is contrasting to my own work, there are still valuable lessons to be learnt and added to my own practice.
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