Camera/Action: Performance and Photography

Artist such as Chris Burden, Marina Abramovic, and Vito Acconci use Black and White photographs to document a specific time in their performance. Doing this allows them to write their own history of the piece. Some believe that using to photographs to document a performance piece this is surrendering to the post-modern belief and loosing all the originality that the piece once had. I feel that this statement is completely untrue. The world we currently live in is full of technology and it seems only right that the mediums that are used in the art world should develop with it. This benefit to these photographs documenting the performance is that the photograph viewer is then able to write their own history to the piece. Chris Burden uses photograph in some of his pieces for this exact purpose. The majority of his performances deal with the psychological experience of danger, pain, and physical risks. One of his performances known as “Shoot” consists of a friend shooting him in the arm with a rifle. He pushes his body to extremes to get his point across to the viewer. At the time this was become a popular style of performance. Another piece was entitled “747” is a piece where Burden went to the Los Angeles International Airport and fired a gun at a plane in the middle of take off. The performance is only documented with a photograph of Chris with his gun pointed toward the plane in the sky. This can be interpreted as an artist doing whatever it takes to get to the top or even a play on the horror of death and destruction which would go along with the theme of a lot of his previous work.

http://www.ubu.com/film/burden.html

http://www.orbit.zkm.de/?q=node/73