I struggled to come up with an idea for this project as performance art seemed to have such a broad spectrum and I couldn’t quite grasp an idea that fit my initial understanding of the concept. When I think of performance, what comes to mind are sports and dance performances that have photos taken of them. Having Clifford Owens come to our class and show us those videos of people performing in front of the camera and his talk later that day opened up my understanding and also confusion about the topic.
I finally wrote ideas down about my interests and narrowed it down to performing my interests while using my body as the performance. I sketched up drawings of what I wanted to portray and then drew enlarged versions of my sketches in the studio to have my body proportioned to look realistic. It was difficult at first to find the right angles to fit into the drawing, some had to be taken from the ground with a bird’s eye view shot.
I uploaded my five images to Facebook, which is more open to posting multiple photos at once, unlike Instagram. My closer friends in particular liked and commented on the photos and thought they were quite amusing. I am very impressed with how the photos turned out and happy I finally decided on an idea I liked. These images were based off of an Instagram account I found called “abstract sunday” in which the artist used objects like scissors and fruit and drew off of the objects to turn them into something they were not supposed to be.
Well done Ami. I know you struggled with coming up with an idea but the way you merge your body onto the campus echoes the history of art yet also really references the playfulness that you can find on social media. I think you could push your commentary further with hashtags that point to how the images comment on tourist/travel photography and how important the selfie is in that context.