Francis Alÿs - Paradox of Praxis 1 (Sometimes Doing Something Leads to Nothing)

Francis Alÿs Paradox of Praxis 1 (Sometimes Doing Something Leads to Nothing) 
1997

In 1997 Francis Alÿs pushed a block of ice through the streets of Mexico City until it had melted to nothing, nine hours later. The act is at once absurd and poetic. This strenuous and also fruitless act of self-enforced labour has no output as such - the work is entirely ephemeral, all that remains is this 5 minute video.

The work is intended as a meditation on the life and economic situation of the people of South America; a parody of the massive disproportion between effort put in and outcome achieved. The ice block itself acts as both a reference to the hyper-materialist practices of modernist and minimalist sculpture (and their disapearance in post-conceptual contemporary art) and a mundane day-to-day object plucked from the environment the artist works in.

Alÿs has yet to make Parodox of Praxis 2 (Sometimes Doing Nothing Leads To Something) though he intends to when he finds an action that demonstrates point suitably succinctly.

Santiago Sierra - 3 Cubes of 100 cm On Each Side Moved 700 cm

Santiago Sierra - 3 Cubes of 100cm on each side moved 700cm

Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland, 2002

Santiago Sierra's '3 Cubes of 100cm on each side moved 700cm' was performed in a public art institution in Switzerland in 2002. Employing six illegal Albanian refugees with out work permits to move by hand three large cement cubes from one wall of the gallery to the opposing one.

Although using clear references to Minimalist sculpture Sierra's work is more-over an exploration of arts relationship to labour and politics. Understanding people as he would any other material, "Persons are objects of the State and of Capital and are employed as such". Paying a tiny wage to the six Albanians for their exhausing work '3 Cubes of 100cm on each side moved 700cm' illustrated how easily the human body can be exploited for labour.

There is a good article written about Sierras work and the surrounding notions of labour by Heidi Kellett which can be found here. 

Solina Hi-Fi - Campfire

Solina Hi-Fi - 'Campfire'

Performance at Open File; 'Echoes (disambiguation)'

Nov 2011

Solina Hi-Fi performed Campfire as part of Echoes (disambiguation), Open Files' first event in the Grand Union series, 2011. 

The performance consisted of mapping the resonant frequencies present in the gallery space using a sensitive microphone, and playing them back through a sound-system. As the same frequencies resonanted in the space and multiplied it creates a strange density of sound and pressure whilst not becoming loud. Five Hanterex monitors were positioned in the space and programmed to shift colour as the pitch and density of sound altered. 

For more information about the Solina HiFi and the performance please visit our website here 

"Camp Fire looks simply to weave, inextricably, aural and visual elements into a cohesive momentary experience. An experiment using oscillations, sound as well as colour, of varying pitches and playing the geometry of the space in which the performance takes place.

Measurements of the space, in which the performance takes place, are put through simple equations. The resulting numbers determine sets of frequencies relevant to the space and the performance.

These frequencies in multiples, when applied back to the space from which they came, should yield further as yet undetermined frequencies as they navigate the room.

Traveling, reflecting and crossing paths, the wavelengths radiate governed by the mathematical dynamics of the space.

A microphone picks up ambient resonant frequencies and distills them giving a single mean result. Video monitors, as they display this result as a mathematically transposed frequency of colour, also provide a physical focus not devoid of its subject."

Lindsay Seers - Optograms

Lindsay Seers - Optograms 2

Seers' Optograms are a series of photographs taken by the artist using her mouth as the aperture and shutter. Placing a piece of photographic paper in the back of her mouth Seer's photographs are tinted red due to the light coming through her cheeks and are often framed by her teeth. 

The human camera photographs are placed alongside documentary style photographs of the situation where the Optogram was taken. Acting as though she was a biological camera Seers has assumed a number of different characters in this series including a vampire, a ventriloquist and an alien. Often seen as a performative work her objective stance to image making has lead Seers use her body as a mechanical device that produces images. 

Dori Deng and Meta Drcar - Measuring Series

Dori Deng and Meta Drcar - Measuring Series, Work No.5

The Measuring Series by Deng and Drcar explores the relationships between space, time and the human form in motion.

During the performances the duo articulate their bodies in reference to geometrical forms projected onto a thin fabric. Navigating a series of gestures informed by the projected light the performances become an exploration into how we relate to space bodily. The formalism of the almost roboticized movements contort the organic form of the body into a series of poised instances which have a relationship to its surrounding architecture. 

Plastique Fantastique - Golem

Plastique Fantastique - 'Golem'

Performance held at Banner Repeater, London, August 2011

Hosted at Banner Repeater in 2011, 'Golem' by Plastique Fantastique saw a mirror faced 'avatar' appear on platform 1 of Hackney Downs station. Walking in to the project space where a droning video set into a mirrored surface was playing, the 'Golem' asking that a member of the audience read to him a set of questions as he started at the screen. Clutching incense sticks behind his back the ritualised performance had a ludicrously sacred appeal.

Plastique Fantastique are a collective of artists interested in politics, the sacred and popular culture working in performance, installations and comics. Alongside the 'Golem' performance their comic '...a history of the visitation' was published, where a swirling range of images bombards Earth and an alien culture enters the human blood stream. The collective is formed through a group of human and inhuman avatars, who deliver communiques from the extreme past and future, their manifesto written by Simon O'Sullivan states that the groups intentions is to shift the participants of their projects "from work time (utility) into sacred time (play)" by creating a ritualised practice. 

Samekhmem

Samekhmem at The Event, 2011

There has always been and will always be Samekhmem.

Seek not to understand the birth of Samekhmem.

True comprehension of this is beyond regular thought.

Place your mind, instead, in the center of the universe and allow yourself to dwell in the infinite.

When you know Samekhmem, you will realise that you have always known Samekhmem.

This truth extends beyond all imaginable constraints.

You will know the eternal message of Samekhmem.

It has always been heard by you and you will always be part of it.

A cleansing ritual and eternal drone performance conceived by AAS. Like all their projects  Samekhmem is an immersive and extensive 'performance fiction' which AAS invite you to enter into. Introduced as part of Birmgingham's bi-annual Event festival, Samekhmem continues as a web-based project at samekhmem.com inviting you to remote view their performance and recount your experiences.

As AAS put it: The performance invites you to participate in the sacrament, and enter into the collective mystery of the Sacred Eternal Drone. If you cannot attend in person, we encourage you to cleanse yourself, meditate on the silence, and tune in to the performance whenever you are ready.

By using ‘remote listening’, our followers have learnt to experience past and future Samekhmem performances, which exist in flux between eternal duration and linear time.

João Onofre - 'Box sized Die'

João Onofre - 'Box sized Die'

(featuring DARKMOON, Basel 2008)

'Box Sized Die' is a 183cm black metal cube padded with acoustic foam. Referencing a minimalist sculpture by Tony Smith, Onofre gets a death metal band to perform inside it. First performed in Basel with DARKMOON in 2008 the work has no fixed duration, instead the band performs until they feel that the oxygen is running out and ends their set due to fear of asphyxiation.

Banks Violette - (Repeater) Decay / Coma Mirror

Banks Violette - SunnO))) (Repeater) Decay / Coma Mirror

2006, Maureen Paley Gallery

Working with black metal band SunnO))) Banks Violette staged (Repeater) Decay / Coma Mirror at the Maureen Paley Gallery in 2006. Building a false wall inside the gallery behind which SunnO))) would play, the audience could hear the drone of the band whilst its members remained out of sight.

In the upstairs of the gallery Violette displayed SunnO)))'s equipment cast in salt and shards of a black coffin (from which the lead singer usually performs). These strange crystalline objects remain the only visual documentation of the event, whilst the band and much of Violettes practice remain in mystery. 

Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard - A Rock 'n' Roll Suicide

Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard A Rock 'n' Roll Suicide

Performance 1998

In 1998 Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard orchestrated a re-enactment of David Bowie's final performance as Ziggy Stardust. Staged at the ICA, London, on July 2nd and 3rd 1998 - exactly 25 years to the day from Bowie's 'farewell' performance as Ziggy - the British art duo pieced together the entire performance from documentary footage, first-hand accounts and bootlegged fan videos. Bowie was played by an actor sourced from several weeks of auditions, and backed by a band of accomplished musicians. Over the course of 2 hours he recreated the entire show move-for-move. More than a simple act of nostalgic recreation, the piece engages with the contemporary fixation for looking backward and really explores the notion of performance/audience relationship; a recurring theme in the artists' work.

Pil and Galia Kollectiv - Asparagus: A Horticultural Ballet

Pil and Galia Kollective - Asparagus: A Horticultural Ballet 

"Being knowledgeable about music sure isn't what it used to be, now that any kid can run a Google search, download on Soulseek and buy on eBay faster than you can say broadband. The elders of punk, who were there in the early days and pogoed all ten of them at the first Sex Pistols concert, those who lost their right arm at Woodstock only to find it ten hours later when the acid wore off - who needs them? It's only a matter of time before a giant iPod descends from the heavens and buries both them and their filthy record collections."

Often focusing and examining ideas that surround Modernism Pil and Galia's Kollectiv work in often absurd ways to disseminate its political, social and cultural implications. The Asparagus Ballet is an adaptation of a project of a 70's minimal synth band called xex, long since forgotten Pil and Galia have re-interpreted their movement through Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet. Whilst being loosely based on Waw Pierogi's experimental video and audio work structurally composed from the growth and branching patterns of the asparagus plant, Pil and Galia seek to explore how underground sub-genre's are continuously un-earthed.

Gordon Matta Clark - Food

Tina Girouard, Carol Goodden, and Gordon Matta-Clark in front of Food, restaurant, New York, 1971

Photograph by Richard Landry, writing by Gordon Matta-Clark.

Food was a restaurant in New York's SoHo, founded by artists Gordon Matta-Clark, Caroline Goodden and Tina Girouard. More a utopian aritsts' commune than a business operation, it's model was essentially economically unsustainable and in this respect it raised questions about how we might measure the success of such a project. Lasting slightly under 3 years Food became the hub of the local arts community, providing meals cooked and served by artists to aritsts, with the preparation and servcice becoming performance.

video still



Food actually pre-dated and possibly influenced many trends that are now so ubiquitous in inner-city eateries that it is hard imagine them as at all radical - locally-sourced seasonal ingredients, an open-plan design allowing customers to see the chefs, a fully-vegetarian menu for 2 nights per week, and Sushi: It was in fact Robert Rauschenberg's assistant Hisachika Takahashi who first served 'raw mackerel with wasabi sauce' at the restaurant.



As well as conventional meals, performance-dinners also took place and artists were invited to prepare and serve the food. Most famous perhaps was Matta-Clark's own Bone Dinner: Oxtail soup, roasted marrow-bone, frogs legs and other boney edibles. For $4 you could eat your meal, the bones were scrubbed and you were given them back on strings to wear home.



Watch the Food video, featuring photography by Robert Frank, here on ubu web.

Michelangelo Pistoletto - Seventeen One Less

Michelangelo Pistoletto - Seventeen One Less

(2009, Installation & Performance at the 53rd Venice Biennale)

Pistoletto has regularly used mirrors in his work to symbolize his search for his own identity. As well as a sort of self-portrait the mirrors also address division, multiplicity and universality. 

The performance 'Seventeen One Less' presents an evolving situation where 22 opposing mirrors are smashed, until only two facing mirrors are left intact. According to Pistoletto, their reciprocal reflection represents the infinite generation of light and life. Even the smallest of the broken mirrors, however, retains the same properties of the whole mirrors, multiplying their reflective power. The moment of destruction remains impressed in the mirror picture as the memory of a past event imprinted on the present.

Dan Graham - Performance/Audience/Mirror

Dan Graham Performance/Audience/Mirror
1975 23 Minutes

Tehching Hsieh - One Year Performance 1980 - 1981

The second of a series of five one-year performances by New York-based Taiwanese artist Tehching 'Sam' Hsieh; The artist clocked in to a factory-style clocking machine on the hour every hour for a period of one year. 

This piece followed a year of living in a cage, for the third year he lived outdoors, in the fourth, he was tied to another artist, Linda Montano with a two-metre rope, they never touched. The fifth year was entitled 'No Art': ‘I not do ART, not talk ART, not see ART, not read ART, not go to ART gallery and ART museum for one year. I just go in life.’

Interview with Barry Schwabsky.

One Year Performance project website.

Joseph Beuys - How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare

Performance - 1965
How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare was performed as part of his first solo exhibition in November 1965. The audience watched the performance from the outside of the gallery through its large store front window.

With his face covered in honey and gold leaf Beuys cradled a dead hare in his arms and whispered quietly to it about the drawings on the walls of the gallery. Well known as regarding him self as a shamanic figure, Beuy's work is dense with material and symbolic references. For example the honey is to represent the bee as being part of an ideal society of co-operation and brotherhood, whilst the gold is to connect himself to a masculine principle of strength and a synergy with earth.

 “Gold and honey indicate a transformation of the head, and therefore, naturally and logically, the brain and our understanding of thought, consciousness and all the other levels necessary to explain pictures to a hare... The idea of explaining to an animal conveys a sense of the secrecy of the world and of existence that appeals to the imagination. Then, as I said, even a dead animal preserves more powers of intuition than some human beings with their stubborn rationality. “The problem lies in the word ‘understanding’ and its many levels which cannot be restricted to rational analysis. Imagination, inspiration, and longing all lead people to sense that these other levels also play a part in understanding. This must be the root of reactions to this action, and is why my technique has been to try and seek out the energy points in the human power field, rather than demanding specific knowledge or reactions on then part of the public. I try to bring to light the complexity of creative areas."

Marcus Coates

Marcus Coates on Tate Shots

Rasa Todosijevic - Drinking Water

Rasa Todosijevic - Drinking Water (1974)





'Drinking Water' by Rasa Todosijevic became an iconic performance in the artists career, performed as part of 'Decision as Art' in Belgrade and Edinburgh Todosijevic's work is often intensely political, exploring the interrelations between authority and personal freedom.

For the performance the artist removed fish from a tank and repeatedly drank the water. Trying to 'harmonise' with the rhythm of the fishes breathing, the artist drank twenty-six glasses of water whilst breathing. Eventually Todosijevic vomited out the "intolerably vast quantities of water he had forced himself to drink in imitation of the environment of a creature that he was not".

Paul McCarthy, Hot Dog

Paul McCarthy Hot Dog 1974

Paul McCarthy’s Hot Dog was performed in his basement studio before a small group of invited friends and artists. A crucial early work, it marked a turning point possessing for the first time the confrontational and violent quality of his later work. It bears some of the hallmarks of the works that would bring him notoriety: the Hollywood icon (the blonde-bombshell signified in the shades and wig he wears), the use of food-stuffs simultaneously standing in for bodily fluids and acting an allusion to American over-consumption, and a disturbing mixture of sex and violence.

As in other early McCarthy performances – works such a Meat Cake (1974), Tubbing (1975) and Class Fool (1976) – he utilises the immediacy of the intimate setting to affect a strong bodily reaction in his viewers. Physically disgusting acts (force feeding, anal insertions, genital manipulation) and displays of psychological dysfunction (repetitive speech, animalistic noises, self harm) create the feeling of an intrusion upon the private world of a damaged social outsider.

In this piece the artist begins by stripping down to his pants and shaving his body. He then shoves his penis into a hot dog bun and tapes it in place before smearing his ass with mustard. He approaches the audience, and in close proximity begins to drink ketchup and stuff his mouth to almost bursting point with hot dogs. Retching and gagging, he binds his head with bandages, holding the food stuffs in place his mouth, before filling his pants with a similar mixture.

Janine Antoni - Gnaw

Janine Atoni - Gnaw (1992)

In Atoni's performance piece Gnaw, two 300kg cubes of chocolate and lard are placed on marble plinths in the gallery space. Using her mouth the artist gradually chews and carves away at the two blocks spitting out the chewed pieces to mould chocolate boxes and lipstick tubes.






The softer lard cube shows Atoni's nose and chin impressed into its surface, whilst the chocolate shows rough striations of teeth marks.  There is a  clear physicality to the work in the efforts needed to chew away at the blocks.


The contrasting elements of the lipstick and chocolate boxes also poses a comment on feminine desire and the notable gap between feminist performance art and male minimalism of the 60's. As Atoni gnaws away at the cube's which are similar in form to sculptures of Morris or Judd, she describes the act of putting things in your mouth as a primal means of knowing, (similar as to how a baby would explore the world), and expands it as a culturally structured expression of sexual desire.