Anna Genrich-Intermedia

     This was fun!  I wanted to do an endurance piece and I've had this concept in my head for a while.  It bothers me that in Marina Abramovic's piece where she yells in Ulay's mouth neither of them are using proper vocal support so it damages their voices.  A technique I have learned for supporting with the diaphragm is to sing while in a plank.  This forces you to engage your core while singing. The song is from one of my favorite musicals and I sing it to myself when I'm upset because I like the irony of it.  I wanted to show myself trying to keep it together until I cracked and I think it translated well. I chose to wear a cutsie themed outfit to further my presentation as a happy, positive person.  I would like to do this piece again but for a longer time.  Maybe after I collapse I can try to get up and keep going until I just can't anymore.

     The prompt for this project was to create a piece involving labor, time, and location. I emptied five bags of potting soil and proceeded to move it all to the top of of a hill with a tennis racket.  The audience responded well to my use of framing with the camera, my deliberate choice of outfit (to look like a worker) , and the absurd use of a tennis racket.  I was not expecting it to rain as soon as it started but it was a happy accident because it prompted to the truthful moment where I ran to cover up my camera.  A glitch I had in the process is that my camera only records up to 20 minutes at a time.  After my camera cut off I went up the hill one more time, down the hill, and proudly dropped the racket.  Because the camera cuts off, it robs the audience of the satisfaction I experienced when I knew I was for sure done.

     Our score for project 3 was "Ask the audience to help set up." In thinking of the score we looked at the fluxus workbook. A piece that stood out was a score by George Brecht which read "ask the audience to leave."  I enjoyed the idea of including the audience but thought this score didn't fit the project three guidelines because it wasn't long enough to notice patterns in sound.  We also borrowed from Yves Klein in the way that the participants were our tools.       To begin we casually asked the class to help us set up for our performance and stressed that we had a lot to do.  Sandy left the room to go to the bathroom and after trying to get her to stay for our performance I decided that whatever happens has to happen so I let her go and come back to our performance.  We started out asking for some simpler tasks like moving tables and plugging in lights. Then as we progressed our instructions became more absurd and we began to undo each other's w

     Project 2 called for us to repeat project 1 for the camera.  I found that the camera helped me direct the audience's eyes to me alone.  Different from my last performance of this piece, I tried to keep my actions as consistent as possible and added extra body movements as I wrote.  I kept my neutral facial expression, my materials, and my tempo.  One thing I couldn't completely fix was the background noise.  I chose the library for this recording because studying or writing at the library is a shared experience but I could not control the noise other people were making.   In retrospect I could have gone to the quiet floor for minimal talking. I am curious to hear how my choice of Cornell sweater affects the audience perception of my performance.

This project called for us to find a commonplace action and perform it live for up to three minutes in front of the class.  I set up a desk in front of the room and repeatedly wrote the phrase "I am writing" while clicking my pen and setting it down between each reiteration. I think the intentional sound and movement in my piece were effective. When I clicked the pen it made a steady clicking sound and the way I lifted the pen was repetitive and mechanical. The audience responded well to the mechanical nature of my performance and suggested I add more subtle movements to my gestus (pardon my acting term, I know it's not acting- I just thought it would look more impressive to use instead if saying repeating gesture). A problem I ran into was the unintentional noise in the background.  Someone was listening to music in another room and it seemed to distract the audience. To fix this in project 2, I will find a quieter space.  I also had trouble filling the paper with