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Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis
and Beden.2 These three terms are clearly specified in what they refer to and in how, consequently, they
indicate the three single, distinct elements (or bodies) by which the body is subdivided:
Gesem- is the body-body, the concrete biological, mechanical substance, the tangible, anatomical structure,
which consists of flesh, bones, muscles, blood.
Gesed- is the mind-body; the brain; Latins intelligenzia: the mental structure, which supports and controls the
Gesem (body-body).
Beden- is the psyche-body, the psychosomatic element of soul movements and true, transparent and subtle
emotions, which equally can express themselves through the Gesem (body-body), and also influence Gesed
(body-mind).
The three bodies reciprocally influence each other.
It is consequential that a specific question arises when someone try to analyze a particular, performative
action, in order to understand which of these three bodies is more helpful and suitable to try and give the
action a precise definition.
Of course the action pertinent to the Gesem (body-body) is easily perceptible and clearly definable; but what
happens if the action is due to the use of Gesed (mind-body) and/or Beden (psyche-body)? Can these two
bodies be in action without having an obvious, visible output (expression) on the Gesem (body-body)
surface? How can we perceive them?
The task for any artist, which works with/through the artist's own body, as material for
representation/action, would have always be to achieve a natural equilibrium and balanced strength
between those three bodies. Hence, during an actual performance, it may happen that the spectators do not
visually perceive any action of the Gesem (body-body), but it will be always important to remind that in
those moments the Gesed (mind-body) and Beden (psyche-body) of the performer are somehow set in motion,
and that they are actually working and making action.
If these three subtle bodies are elements that belong to the performers body once it is activated to operate
during any performative action, they consequently interfere with all the following categories, which should
be properly analysed and to be intended as aspects of the three bodies of the performer, not just as an artist,
but more, as human being.
Thus, also the work of an action artist is based on a continuous addition and subtraction, constantly
moving from perception, intuition and impression to expression, never forgetting that spontaneity,
directness, and naturalness are targets and not starting points.
Masters such as Eugenio Barba and Kassim Bayatly insist on the fact that an art action has to arouse interest
(through the body), persuade (through the mind), and communicate emotions (through the psyche),
although emotionality is something to evoke and not to merely act, trying wrongly to put it into some sort of
effect directly.
Hence, it is like to say that a performance artist must never get excited, or identify himself/herself with a
particular emotion ending to become poorly sentimental. To produce emotions, a performer must essentially
adhere with what the performer is doing, that is a question of pure involvement.
As the sense of holiness is given by repetitive gestures, similarly body movements have to be endlessly
repeated, until the body memorizes them completely, in order to be then effective during the performance.
Breaking the symmetries, amplifying and reducing, changing, transforming, thinking by oppositions to
subvert the ordinary configuration of things can organically play out the performers posture, position,
attitude, demeanour and gestures. This is made possible when the performer has reached a full awareness of
his/her body limits and possibilities, and, during the action, always paying attention to principles that
belong to space dynamics (the virtual sphere where the body is contained, the sphere of the other, and the
sphere of the outer space which confines with them; space dilatation and space compression; the many
possible different body positions and height); time dynamics (movement lasting, quickness and rapidity,
slowness, pause, without compromising the action in terms of rhythm and energy, and causing a loss of its
quality); body weight dynamics (equilibrium, balancing, act, strength, energetic intensity).
Besides all this, a performer has also to be aware that seductions and thoughts are obstacles for the mind:
they obstruct it, impeding mind freedom and relaxation, which are necessary both to compose and act.
Actually, these hindrances reveal the mind in its weakness and liability, letting the Ego to interrupt, corrupt,
judge, criticize, and conspire against one of the foremost human quality: to be tuned by sensibility and spirit,
both for performer and spectator.
Like Theatre, Performance art is a work of the spectator too, pertinent to the spectator's attention and
consciousness: it is the spectator who has to interpret and decipher signs and symbols used/given by the
performer, and this even more when the action is interactive, when it requires not just an actual presence,
but an active participation, reaction and response.
Body dynamics (the use of the space containing the individual) and movement dynamics (i.e. body
Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis
articulations which determine and sustain a series of movements) converge into relational dynamics, which
are carried out and came true by non-generic sequels. Relational movements offer possibilities to a variety of
expressions (face-eyes-head-arms-hands-legs-feet-torso-back-body), due to some natural intentions such as:
to get closer, to get far, to avoid and resist. These movements are of two different types: transitory or nontransitory. When the transformation of movements that pass one into another is clear, a clear sequel of
different images in motion is enhanced at its best.
The rhythm of the expression needs all these elements: for a performer the question is not just what I have
to do (pertinent to intelligibility), but mostly how to do it, to find the right proceedings to reach a
maximum degree of credibility and sincerity.
When our senses allow us to go beyond the materialistic schemes of ordinary things, we activate a different
scale of inter-connective messages and impulses, which - interacting between one each other - lead to
achieve a more pure and non hyper-structured way of communication aim to evoke associations and to
generate concrete modifications that refer to something different. For example a ritual dynamic can activate
and indicate different processes of social relation, provided that it is not invasive or constrictive: it is simply
used like invisible instrument of recognition.
Inside someone's own Self, intimately, privately, everyone realizes how much humble, harmonious, non-acritic, passive someone can be, and mostly is.
Similarly, remembrances, ideas, actions and interventions: when they find a common ground to flow
together, they can give birth to an experience both individual and collective at the same time. An experience
that is civil, social, primarily poetical as part of a creative process, that is finally the result of an aesthetic
course, a process of making which carries within clearness and significance.
An art action interferes with the limits of human abilities, objective or subjective. A prolonged effort can
efficiently test these limits, once it is guided by consciousness, patience and decisional ability of the
performer. In this way it is possible to create a flux of lasting energies throughout physical and real images
that the body - being inside a given space - implements in a fixed period of time. The becoming itself turns
to be a practice focused on exploring to find new codes of expression and relation, so that possible truths
and reality can interfere to transform into something unusual but strongly perceivable.
Images produced by the mind, dreams or visions, change throughout clear physical actions, and - as
mediators of the ineffable - become pure impressionable sensuality. More than the five human senses, the
heart is the foremost sensor that allows an individual to look inwardly and profoundly, so far to get a more
pure and concentrated perception of the many possible configurations in the scheme and in the configured
system of the things.
To understand and comprehend is a question of profound feeling and flow of energies: it represents the
extreme limit of any artistic process; as well as, in the same way, it happens when an intuition occurs for the
activation of the memory, may it be genetic, collective or individual. For this, it is required an effort of whole
empathy, between being and surroundings, as well as a deep comprehension of what does mean entropy
throughout physical, mental and spiritual perception at the same time.
Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis
Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis
Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis
Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis
direction will necessarily lead us out of that configured space; it will invite us to enter into the real and
virtual space where each one of us live, into the so-called exhibition/production spaces of our own social
and hybrid bodies, the full space of body experience where the melting pot is a cosmogony that is
biological, analogical and digital: le lieu dhabitude of our daily life.
4b. Analysis
Starting from the assumption that art manifests the invisible in the visible, suggests the possible by
confronting the impossible, opens unforeseen realms, bolsters that urgent desire to reintegrate art and life, to
reaffirm and re-identify with ones cultural roots, to reclaim lost or denigrated sources of knowledge, to
valorise the visual as opposed to the verbal in art, it is consequential to consider valid the following
hypothesis: for as the world spiritual condition improves, aesthetic quality will be increasingly valued.10
According to this instance and considering aesthetics itself the basis of ethics, the performer (as creative
person in action) ethical core developed through art is very influential in the performer's later ethical
choices. Where can one evade an uncomfortable truth without doing wrong? it is not only a question to
seek for a common sense, or to determine social issues and values; it is more a matter of personal decision.
The ethics of the performer is outlined by different instances: which values should s/he determined
(normative); how an outcome can be achieved in specific situations (possibility); how his/her capability
develops in different situation; how his/her nature transforms (spirit/psyche); what indications people
actually abide by (action and representation); the retraction of his/her Ego, to work on the inner Self as
instrument of Self-knowledge.
A performer must not interpret something a priori assumed: a performer must act in accordance with
his/her nature to realise his/her full potential. In fact, according to Socrates a self-aware person must act
completely within its capabilities to their pinnacle, to become aware of every fact (and its context and
circumstances) relevant to his existence, if he wishes to attain self-knowledge.11 Actually it is completely
useless to imitate or interpret something a priori: this will cause distraction both for the one that acts and the
one that watches. A performance action is needed to bring to discover and unveil the Self. To stir up and
provoke emotions (inside us, inside the others) it is primarily necessary to externalize what is hidden inside
someones own heart, soul, and life experience. Only in this way - through the reconciliation with the inner
Self - is offered the opportunity to re-establish a contact with the mystery that each one of us carries within
him/herself. To reach this condition the work must be silent, patient, concentrated, and meditative.
4c. The Issue of the Question
What are human rights, and how do we determine them?
If someone else can make better out of his/her life than I can, is it then moral to sacrifice myself for them if
needed?
Without these questions there is no clear fulcrum on which to balance law, politics, and the practice of
arbitration, so the ability to formulate the questions are prior to rights balancing. For example, making
ethical judgments regarding questions such as Is lying always wrong? and, If not, when is it
permissible? is prior to any etiquette.
Jean Baudrillard theorised that signs and symbols or simulacra had usurped reality, particularly in the
consumer world.12 Post-structuralism and postmodernism are both heavily theoretical and follow a
fragmented, anti-authoritarian course which is absorbed in narcissistic and near nihilistic activities.
Nevertheless people in general continue to be more comfortable with dichotomies (two choices).
Actually, in ethics the issues are most often multifaceted and the best-proposed actions address many
different areas concurrently where the answer is almost never a yes or no, right or wrong statement.
Relational and interactive actions are related to an ethics of care. In Performance art topics such as the ones
that involve the mind and are relevant to that issue: respect, responsibility, development, character, virtue
and vice, altruism, egoism, disagreement, evolution, behaviour etc., are assumed with a value-free approach
to ethics which examines reality not from a top-down a priori perspective, but rather from observations of
actual choices made by agents in practice.
The performer is a poet (of actions) and an artist at the same time. He doesnt play or interpret: he gives and
delivers. His body and actions, the process of making them, are instruments of creative freedom.
Performers (poetic) actions are at once obligatory and at the same time un-enforceable. Anything for
him/her is a matter of consciousness and responsibility, Begeisterung und Wrde (enthusiasm and dignity).
At the base of the performers work there are many elements/factors s/he must consider: to seek for
Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis
his/her own archetypes; to work on concentration, breathing, voice, sounds, body movements, objects, as it
is necessary to bring the soul impulses, the mind disposition and the spirit to a minimum degree, in order to
re-direct the Self to discover unknown territories, only relying on an absolute creative freedom; to adopt and
form a new own methodology (individual and/or collective); to search for the most profound, primitive
soul qualities; to discover what is useful for him/herself to externalize his/her own story; to confront
his/her own story with others, creating a non-casual synthesis of his/her own biography; to feel to be
connected; to search for mutual sharing (with the others and ones environment).
A performance artist final work mustnt be a narrative staging, a mere mise en scne, or self-celebrative
representation, it must rather be a revelation from which a number of different experiences can be organize
trough mutual relationships, in order to express something different out of them.
4d. Defining a Possible Grammar
For a performance artist it is necessary to get completely involved, directly and personally, to get off the
ground, to put the Self over the barrel, to bring into focus and undermine beliefs and prejudices, to arrange,
to tune, to compare, to confront, to offer, to sharpen, to bare, to uncover physically and emotionally, to
arrange, to put away, to tweak, to put at risk, to hazard, to lay it on the line, to hit for, to strike down, to
ground, to dump, to put on, to banish, to try out, to tax to the limit, to meet, to collect, to edge and hive, to
drop down, to hammer away at something, to get started, to break into, to sleuth and get forth.
In this kind of work, narcissism and egocentrism are obstacles. In fact, if the performer is subdued by
personal ambitions during his/her particular work, he/shell never deepen one of the most profound secrets
of creativity: to see, understand and comprehend his/her own heart. The performer will never become the
man/woman of his/her own side if the performer's heart is busy with other personal things such as the
desire of showing off, of becoming exceptional, unique etc. Actually it is the retraction of performers own
ego to allow him/her to be re-born as new Self. The psychic action that the performer expresses is not just
the result of a profound experience, neither a genial representation of the performer's inner life. It is the full
concordance of the performer's own inner imagination with the context around him/her. In this moment
performers private personality is put aside, forgotten and a range of completely different moments emerge.
It is out of these moments that performers new Self arises.
So far, to get close to truth, a performer must never be artificial, or pretentious, if so it is much better to make
mistakes.
It often seems that today artists (and particularly action artists) are all doing a complete useless job, but in all
times people have always had a manifested need to make art. Therefore the task of an artist is - and will
always be - to question the presence of Man in this world, which is always more than a condition.
Art is a constant, continuous research on Man, and to perform arises from the need to reflect on Man
problems and human relationships. When a performance artist acquires competence on humanity (which
means Poetry), then s/he can also approach and use technology in a right way. To understand technology
(its use and meaning) is a pure creative act as well. However it is also important to remind that an artist is
not a mere machine, but that s/he can only relate technological devices to him/herself, and vice-versa. To
understand and comprehend the external world is always part of an analogical process: individuals are not
softwares, and performance artists indicate many different similarities, and then they try to translate them
in many other different terms, always with their body language.
When technology becomes to be a part of the artistic and creative work, it is not mainly to transform it into
something spectacular or particular (here is the mistake), but mostly to ingrain it into different and more
various metaphors, which are always other ways of economic expression, in the sense of quickness and
synthesis.
Being contemporary means to bare and tune our own Self into something, and to deal at the same time
with one and the others own economical being and creative one.
Personally, I continue to believe that today has still more and more a sense to talk about (and re-consider)
the concept of social sculpture formulated by Joseph Beuys, in which society as a whole has to be regarded
as one great work of art (the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk) to which each person can contribute creatively.
Whoever produces something, that person does it with an aim, a goal, and the production it is never a mere
end in itself: it is always related to an object, that is production of something. On the contrary, an ethic
action (or moral too) is always an end in itself, because to act ethically is a goal, and the desire is desire of
reaching that goal. The goal of the production is something else from the production itself, while the goal of
the action matches with it: to act ethically for good is an end in itself.
Aristotle was the first to distinguish the actions of humans in two different forms: the poisis, which is the
direct action aimed to produce an object that is autonomous and extraneous to the producer him/herself;
Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis
and the praxis, which is related to actions that have sense of themselves inside themselves.13 All moral
actions, positive or negative, which are not aimed to a specific production of objects, fall within the idea of
praxis, which has been the predominant concept of the meaning of the term action in all European
languages. To act as practice, which in this case is the equivalent term of morale.
Finally, a performance artist has also not to forget the importance to determine a style, as carrier of precise
qualities with specific meanings within themselves: a style that enables to define social, cultural, spiritual
values, that belongs to an individual, as well as better - to an entire society.
Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis
ADDENDUM
ON PERFORMATIVE ACTIONS: GESEM, GESED, BEDEN IN MOTION. POSSIBLE EXAMPLES.
1. Creation-Action
The performer creates functionally a concrete object or an installation during the performer's action. Hence the performance consists of
the presentation of the result of the process of making to an audience, as like for Jackson Pollock, who considered his act of creation/act
of painting an autarchic, self-reliant piece of art, with the result of the creation and presentation of a final concrete object/piece of art.
2. Action-Action
It is a pure action- an action of the performers body-body (Gesem) in relation to object/s, space, time or person/s.
2a. Closed Action-Action
It is an immediately readable action with a predetermined and foreseeable ending/result. The closed action-action consists of one
simple action with precise starting and ending. It merely serves to arrive to an end conceived a priori. Just right after its beginning, one
can already see and determine in which way the action will finish. The interest of the spectators lies within the questions of how the
action will develop, and how long it will last.
2b. Open Action-Action
It stimulates curiosity and tension through manifold symbols and/or changes of rhythm, objects, space and relation. It is a form of
action that starts and gives no (or not many) concrete hints on how it is going to develop further. The moments of surprise and change
of elements/topics, rhythm or intention can arise all at a sudden, and shift the action towards any other reading/interpretation. Many
contemporary performance actions are under this category.
3. Poetic Action
It is an action where the use of strongly related objects and settings are aimed to stimulate non-ordinary impulses within the spectators.
It evolves in a way similar to dream-sequences, and it can appear surreal.
4. Repetitive Action
It consists of a concrete repetition of one action-element until its natural exhaustion.
5. Inter-Action
It involves the audience as active (or inactive) participant/element of the performance.
5a. Voluntary or involuntary participation of one or more spectators
The performer(s) invite or force the public to participate actively in the performance action, therefore questioning on their position as
spectators and their responsibility within the progress of the action itself. The limit between presenter and observer is torn down, and
the community moves on a common ground of reciprocally impressionable range of actions.
5b. Relating to the audience
At a certain moment of the action, the performer nullifies the boundary between himself/herself and the spectators limit by
approaching the visitors and offering them personally a left over as memory-gift of the performance action, specifically objects which
are elements of the performance.
6. Non-Action
It is the category pertinent at the previously mentioned above aspect of the three bodies, Gesem, Gesed, Beden. Here the Gesem (bodybody) is obviously in a state of non-action, i.e. in an inactive, representative pose kept for the entire duration of the performance
presentation. Beyond the visual impact that this created still-image can have on the viewers chain of associations, the elements of
action of Gesed (mind-body) and Beden (psyche-body) can be observed with particular care, as well as their direct or indirect influence
on the minimal changes (i.e. physical, facial expressions) of the Gesem (body-body).
7. Destruction-Action
It is an action based on the destruction of an object by the performer as sole action or, as a final release of a long-endurance previous
action. It can produced tension within the spectators, as they will start questioning themselves on what will finally happen, or if will
something happen at all.
8. Body-Action
It is an apparently predominant Gesem (body-body) action, which investigates the relation of the mechanical body in space and time, or
the reactions of the various biological body-body elements like blood, flesh, urine, etc.
9. Conceptual Action
Conceptual actions can take place without the presence of the actions artificer, but then they request the active involvement of one or
more other participants. Gesed (mind-body) here is the foremost active element- it previously creates a construction of mind-concept to
be realized after (mostly by others than the author) in a specific final action or presentation.
10. Sentimental/Personal Action
It is an interesting combination of all the three bodies that starts as an impulse from the Beden (psyche-body). These performances are
re-elaborated through the Gesed (mind-body) and finally realized with the Gesem (body-body). These personal actions tell about
personal and emotional aspects of the performers life, intimacy and story. Once they are elaborated and supported by a precise mindstructure, they can also speak of a broader social context.
11. Invasive Action/Provocative Action
It is an action that confronts the spectators with particular situations by exalting prosaic normal statements, ordinary behaviours and
bourgeoisie aspects, or by exposing taboos, such as sex, violence, and blasphemy. Often the exposure of genitals is to provoke
debunking socio-political statements within the witnessing audience.
Further considerations
To reach the most possible balanced composition in each artistic discipline there are however some laws of conduction to respect.
This is also valuable for Live art action and Performance art. Materials, proceedings and the whole process of making are to be
sufficiently and, equally levelled to a certain degree in order to intermingle and dig deep. An accurate assemblage contributes to make
the action dramaturgically clearer.
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Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage): Body Issues in Performance art: Between Theory and Praxis
Notes:
1. Bergquist, Karin. Philippine body art. Retrieved April 5, 2009 from http://www.culturebase.net/artist.php?1342.
2. Bayatly, Kassim. La Struttura dei Corpi Sottili. Milan: UbuLibri, 2006.
3. The Essential Rumi: New Expanded Edition. Translated by Coleman Barks with Reynold Nicholson, A.J. Arberry, John Moyne. New
York: Harper Collins Publisher, 2004. p. 36.
4. Calvino, Italo. Six Memos for the Next Millennium. New York: Random House/Vintage International, 1993.
5. For a more thorough investigation, see: Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books, 1995; Social Intelligence.
New York: Random House/Bantam Dell, 2006; Ecological Intelligence. New York: Random House/Broadway Books, 2009.
6. Concept already codified by Getulio Alviani to conceive lighter and more liveable spaces in his Manifesto Sullo Spazio Pneumatico.
Milan, 1967.
7. Heidegger, Martin. Poetry, Language, Thought, New York: Harper and Raw Publisher, 1971.
8. Kunst, Bojana. The Impossible Body - Body and Machine: Theatre, Representation of the Body and Relation to the Artificial. Ljubljana: Zaloba
Maska, 1999.
9. Macr, Teresa. Il Corpo Postorganico. Sconfinamenti della performance. Milan: Costa & Nolan, 1996, 2nd ed. 2006.
10. Ocampo, Yuan MorO. Concept. JIPAF2000 program, Jakarta, 2000. Retrieved June 16, 2009 from http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~ee1sari/jipafcv.html.
11. See: Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker, editors, Encyclopedia of Ethics, 2nd Edition in three volumes, New York: Routledge
Press, 2002.
12. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacres et Simulation. Paris: Galile, 1985.
13. Aristotle. Ethica Nicomachea, Book VI.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Resumed and revisited from:
Pagnes, Andrea. The Fall of Faust - Considerations on Contemporary Art and Art Action. Florence: VestAndPage press, 2010.
Excerpt published by Art&Education, April 2011.
Lectured paper at: Universidad Nacional Experimental de las Artes, 2010, Caracas, Venezuela; Facultad de Artes y Teatro, Universidad
de Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile, 2010; Universidad Austral, Valdivia, Chile, 2010; New York Steinhardt University, Venice, Italy, 2010;
Academy of Experimental Arts, CEC, Sattal Estate and New Delhi, India, 2011; Helsinki Theatre Academy, LAPSody International
Conference on Live art, Helsinki, Finland, 2011.
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