Response 1, Burden and Fox

Watching Chris Burden’s works was, I felt, more an exercise in self control than anything else. Forcing myself to watch as he had himself shot, as he crawled through glass, as he tried to breathe water, was difficult and disturbing. It made me wonder if, outside of an assignment, I would watch of my own accord. Having skimmed the previous posts I guess that we all found it rather disturbing. I do agree with Mallory, in that most of his work seems to be about shocking his audience, and forcing them to confront many of their own fears as he plays them out before them. However, aside from feeling disturbed, I also questioned the validity of this as art. Much of what he showed struck me as things that stupid teenagers would do, shooting someone in their arm, sticking people with push pins, etc. It was and is very hard for me to take this as art, though I argue back and forth between myself. The clip which struck me most was “Back to You,” I can’t imagine some random person being ordered to put pins into some ones body and actually doing it (disquietingly similar to the Milgram experiment). Burden’s work seems to be highly psychological, holding a mirror to our own fears and desires, which is art in its own fashion, I will accede.

Though I question Burden’s “art” I did find both “Bed Piece” and “Icarus” interesting. Burden’s description of his temptation was interesting and can be seen in so many different ways. What was he tempted with, an escape from the world, seclusion, the “bliss of solitude?” “Icarus” was interesting because of its juxtaposition of fear and yearning. Icarus attained flight, which has always been something humans have longed for, but Burden sets his “wings” on fire, they are something to be feared and are dangerous, he even jumps away from them.

Fox’s videos were much easier to watch. Unlike Burden, Fox utilizes suspense in all of his pieces. The viewer waits for the spoon to fall or the fly to get trapped, Fox brings anticipation to the mundane. In this, Fox is very different from Burden, who takes his viewer into the uncommon, displacing them from comfort and shocks them with what we hope not to see. Nevertheless, Fox achieves similar effect. The viewer is placed into a microcosm of the everyday world and reevaluate what is generally overlooked.