Vincenzo Fiore Marrese

Artistic Research

This research is currently open.

post performance

Abstract

What kind of questions could performance art pose to the relationship between people and the social world while happening through social media channels?

After 50 years, performance art is still a contemporary art medium. But, is it a medium, like painting or sculpture? According to J. Westerman «performance is not (and never was) a medium» [note 1], but «a set of questions (…) about how art relates to people and the wider social world» [note 2]. I imagined that these questions are some FAQ about posting on Facebook as an online social world. I assign these questions to some famous performance artists, as fake quotes, printing them on some panels. I place these panels in the space of the theatre room. I move my body through the panels, creating some electronic sounds related to my movements by sensors. These sounds are related to the idea of how our data creates information in the social world. In this case, pure useless, creative information. I have a golf-club with me, is a reference to a success-story about performance post on Facebook by a professional golfer called Rick Shiels. With this golf-club, I destroy the panels with fake quotes. It refers to the history of performance art, through the piece called “paper breakthrough” by S. Murakami. But this action to destroy the panels happen with the lights off when the audience could not see. So they can see only the result, not the process. During the performance, the lights are off and on, alternatively. I construct a plot of the performance, and the main action is not visible.

Notes
  1. Jonah Westerman, 'The Dimensions of Performance', Performance at Tate: Into the Space of Art, Tate Research Publication, 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/performance-at-tate/dimensions-of-performance, accessed 26 May 2021. back to the text
  2. Ibidem. back to the text