Actions and Gestures - Embodied Media as Performance Art

Catalog description

What is performance? How do we make embodied art in our technologically mediated world? These questions will guide us as we create performance art in conversation with archival theory, film, new media, and scientific research. Students will encounter the works of Yoko Ono, Marina Abramovic, Joseph Beuys, Laurie Anderson, Adrian Piper, Robert Wilson, Tehching Hsieh, Chris Burden and other pioneers of the genre of performance art. This course will delve deeply into investigating the cultural and technological contexts that inform contemporary performative practices. Students will create their own works using bodies in spaces, archival collection methods, image-capture technologies, and post-production tools to explore the art of performance in the phygital realm. At the end of semester students will organize a performance festival to share their final projects with the campus community. No performance or technological experience necessary. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: general elective