Tag Archives: performance art

Beautiful Thoughts: Artist Lisa Park Manipulates Water with Her MindJune 13

Beautiful Thoughts: Artist Lisa Park Manipulates Water with Her Mind water sound performance art interactive emotions device

Conceptual artist Lisa Park has been experimenting with a specialized device called a NeuroSky EEG headset that helps transform brain activity into streams of data that can be manipulated for the purposes of research, or in this case, a Fluxus-inspired performance art piece titled Euonia (Greek for “beautiful thought”). Park used the EEG headset to monitor the delta, theta, alpha, and beta waves of her brain as well as eye movements and transformed the resulting data with specialized software into sound waves. Five speakers are placed under shallow dishes of water which then vibrate in various patterns in accordance with her brain activity.

While the system is not an exact science, Park rehearsed for nearly a month by thinking about specific people whom she had strong emotional reactions to. The artist then correlated each of the five speakers with certain emotions: sadness, anger, hatred, desire, and happiness. According to the Creator’s Project her hope had been to achieve a sort of zen-like state resulting in complete silence, however it proved to be ultimately unattainable, a result that is actually somewhat poetic.

It’s important to note that artists have long been using EEG devices to create “music with the mind”. Composer and experimental musician Alvin Lucier had a somewhat similar performance called Music for Solo Performer back in 1965. Read more about Euonia over on the Creator’s Project. (via booooooom)

Mädir Eugster Perfectly Balances a Feather Atop 14 Giant BranchesMarch 3

Mädir Eugster Perfectly Balances a Feather Atop 14 Giant Branches performance art performance balance

When you first begin watching this clip from Japan’s Kamiwaza 2013 talent show, you’ll notice a fair amount of dramatic lighting, deep breathing, and plenty of showmanship from Swiss performer Mädir Eugster of the Rigolo Swiss Nouveau Cirque. He carefully rests the feather on a small tree branch and then grabs another slightly larger stick and another and another. Fast forward ten minutes and the act miraculously continues, sweat pouring from the top of Eugster’s head down his bare back until a series of 14 enormous sticks zig zags from the performer’s lifted arm like a massive wooden Calder mobile. If you have any doubt of how precarious this might be, wait until the very end when he removes the feather. I’ve also included another video above of Lara Jacobs (Eugster’s daughter!) of Cirque Du Soleil’s Amaluna performing the same act. Pretty amazing.

Firewall: An Interactive Fabric Surface by Aaron SherwoodDecember 20

Firewall is a new interactive artwork by New York media artist Aaron Sherwood created in collaboration with Michael Allison. The presentation is relatively straightforward but still visually stunning: different ‘modes’ of light are projected onto a taut membrane of spandex which then reacts kinetically in response to touch. Firewall was made using Processing, Max/MSP, Arduino and a Kinect that work in tandem to create the experience and will be used in an upcoming performance art piece involving dancer Kiori Kawai who will interact with the piece on stage. Learn more over on Sherwood’s blog. (via designboom)

Artist Beili Liu Embroiders Underneath Hundreds of Suspended ScissorsAugust 14

Artist Beili Liu Embroiders Underneath Hundreds of Suspended Scissors textiles scissors performance art embroidery
Photo by Rino Pizzi

Artist Beili Liu Embroiders Underneath Hundreds of Suspended Scissors textiles scissors performance art embroidery
Photo by Blue

Artist Beili Liu Embroiders Underneath Hundreds of Suspended Scissors textiles scissors performance art embroidery
Photo by Rino Pizzi

Artist Beili Liu Embroiders Underneath Hundreds of Suspended Scissors textiles scissors performance art embroidery
Photo by Christy Cochran

Artist Beili Liu Embroiders Underneath Hundreds of Suspended Scissors textiles scissors performance art embroidery

Artist Beili Liu Embroiders Underneath Hundreds of Suspended Scissors textiles scissors performance art embroidery
Photo by Art Night Austin

The Mending Project was a 2011 installation and performance art piece by Austin-based artist Beili Liu. The work involved an ongoing process wherein visitors were invited to cut pieces of fabric from a giant cloth upon entering the space, the fragments of which Liu then stitched back together creating a giant patchwork that gradually encircled the artist. The concept seems harmless enough if it weren’t for the ominous array of downward-facing scissors suspended above her workspace.

The installation consists of hundreds of Chinese scissors suspended from the ceiling, pointing downwards. The hovering, massive cloud of scissors alludes to distant fear, looming violence and worrisome uncertainty. The performer sits beneath the countless sharp blades of the scissors, and performs an on-going simple task of mending. [...] As each visitor enters the space, one is asked to cut off a piece of the white cloth hung near the entrance, and offer the cut section to the performer. She then continuously sews the cut pieces onto the previous ones. The mended fabric grows in size throughout the duration of the performance, and takes over the vast area of the floor beneath the scissors.

The Mending Project was part of Art Night Austin 2011 and was on display at Women & Their Work Gallery (via job’s wife)

Animae Dementia: Mystical Paper Beasts Devour Unsuspecting Street ArtistsJanuary 3

Animae Dementia: Mystical Paper Beasts Devour Unsuspecting Street Artists street art performance art animals

I’m loving this ongoing paste-up series by street artists Ro and l’Homme Pendu. Entitled Animae Dementia (roughly “soul madness” or “animal madness”) the project features the duo installing these giant paste-ups of crazy mythical beings who seem to turn on their unwitting creators. So far works have appeared in Berlin and near Notre Dame in Paris. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

A Czech Merry-Go-RoundDecember 6

A Czech Merry Go Round swings stunts Prague performance art

Though I lived not too far from here in Prague a few years ago, we never quite got around to enjoying the thrill of suspending ourselves from a rotating billboard, though I admit it looks pretty damn fun. Maybe next time. This particular stunt was the handy work of Vojtěch Fröhlich, Ondřej Mladý, January Šimánek, and Vladimír Turner, and if you liked this you’ll also like the Double Happiness Billboard Swingset. (via rebel:art)

ShadowSeptember 12

Shadow sculpture performance art

I can scarcely find words to describe how much I love this new sculptural performance by Thai artist Rook Floro.

My sculpture/performance piece is inspired by Carl Jung’s psychological theory about the shadow. It concerns with the repressed ideas, weakness, and desires of oneself that the conscious mind refuses to acknowledge.

It represents my ‘shadow’ which involves my hidden desires to be different and become perfect in my own right. We always feel the pressure to be perfect by everything around us such as the media, social network, advertisement, friends, and family.

Look carefully, that’s actually the artist sitting in the chair, the standing figure some type of liquid/plasticine cast of his body. See more over on Behance. (via daily think)

The Recovery of Discovery by Cyprien Gaillard: A 72,000 bottle pyramid of beerMay 14

Behold the latest installation by French artist Cyprien Gaillard who constructed this 72,000 bottle pyramid of beer in cardboard boxes (a beeramid, if you will) at KW Berlin. After signing a waiver participants are free to climb, open, and consume as many bottles of “Efes” beer as they desire, making this, in my eyes, the pinnacle of modern art as we know it. Though in all seriousness the pyramid is meant to act as a monument and its consumption is intended to illustrate the hyper-destruction of architectural relics that are often relocated to Berlin:

By using the monument – by climbing the sculpture and drinking the beer – its destruction is already initiated. The barbaric removal of single architectural elements that have been transported from their original location to Berlin, embodies both the concept of displacement and a tourist colonialism.

Gaillard’s pyramid will be gradually consumed through May 22. Art Observed notes:

The pyramid is now dilapidated, though one can still make out its general form. The corridor leading to the piece is lined with empty beer bottles, while the floor surrounding the former monument is covered with broken glass and half-smashed beer bottles.

(via we find wildness, art observed)

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