response #1

I started this week’s assignment with Chris Burden’s Documentation of Selected Works. I made the choice to read the description on the bottom of the video before watching the clip, which was probably a mistake. After reading the description, I began to imagine what would constitute “the psychological experience of danger, pain, and physical risk, the aggressive abuse of the body as an art object, and the psychology of the artist/spectator relationship.” (UBU.com/film/burden.html) The thoughts that came to me really started to freak me out in the few seconds between finishing reading the description and starting the video. Chris Burden’s introduction really heightened the anticipation of what was about to come. I didn’t want to hear any of hid explanations of his work: it felt like he was trying to justify his doing. I wondered: performance art, can it really be record and effect people through space and time? Through the documentation, I was removed from situation, not as affected as I had imagined I’d be. I want to know why did he do this, what is he trying to convey to the viewers? Is this for his own satisfaction? Is there a meaning to all of this? Yes, I see the pain, but I think I also saw Chris Burden enjoying the attention he’s getting. But am I just being too cynical? I was reminded of the Sex and the City episode where Carrie just judged the performance artist by her own standards. I think it takes a certain kind of personality to be able to appreciate art. Carrie’s right, there are people cutting themselves with glass and lying in bed all day everywhere, but they don’t call it art.

The same feeling goes for Terry Fox’s Children’s Tapes: can this really be called art? I sat through the whole thing bored, almost falling asleep in the middle of thday. I get that he was trying to magnify events, intensify whatever I was supposed to observe through the video. But who defines what is art and what are just products for boredom. Is it a purpose? Is it the ability to make something out of ordinary life and see something people normally wouldn’t see?

I can’t seem to figure it out.