Week 3: Performing the Moment

Performing the Moment

Marisa S. Olson

The essay begins by explaining a very popular essay entitled “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin. He discusses the argument of decontextualizing a work of art as it is reproduced. It is defiantly true that taking a piece out of its context it looses a piece of its originality and no longer has the same effect on the viewer. With the advances in photography and digital reproduction the loss of originality is that much easier. This type of reproduction does not work as well when it comes to performance art. One piece she writes about is Chris Burded’s piece titled “Shoot” consist of a friend shooting him in the arm with a rifle. This piece relies on the shock of the viewer in the moment. The only evidence of the situation are a couple of pictures and the scar on his arm. Photographs are the only piece and can in no way be considered the piece so there really is not a means of reproducing the moment. Any reproduction of the piece would lack the originality. Another group discussed in this essay is the Surveillance Camera Players (SCP). Their performances consist of them using surveillance cameras like television cameras. They perform protest pieces in front of the camera. People stop and watch the performance from the streets. By using camera’s as a piece of performance I feel that they are not promoting decontextualizing works of art, rather promoting the use of reproduction to gain support for their protest cause. On their website they reveal maps of all the surveillance cameras all over New York. This allows other artist to pick up where they left off and reproduce their piece as many times as necessary.

http://www.notbored.org/the-scp.html