'When something different or unusual is presented before you -whether it's living or inanimate- you're intrigued, amazed, or maybe even disgusted. But you want to see it.'
pg1

'Throughout history, those who have been born somehow different from the rest of us have had the opportunity to profit from human curiosity, the sense of wonder at their difference.'
pg2

'To complicate matters further, the new attitude of political correctness made it wrong to stare at and profit from human oddities. This was relevant, for example, in the 1960s and early 1970s in cases in North Carolina and Florida, where two girls were offended after attending sideshows. One of these was fifteen-year-old Carol Grant, who had deformed arms and legs. "Handicapped people are seeking more in life than being stared at in a sideshow," she wrote in a 1968 letter to the North Carolina agriculture commissioner, and a copy of her letter was sent to the governor's wife, sparking controversy in the press. Grant's concern may have been justified for certain people, some said, but why take away the option of appearing in a sideshow if someone wanted to? Those who did want to fought back. They had a right to earn a living, and the sideshow was a place to do it.'
pg4

from American Sideshow by Marc Hartzman

After a Tissue performance I did I was approached by William and Miki and one of the main critiques was about my not being completely present during the performance. Since the event I have been watching others as they perform and have started noticing them doing what I interpreted this comment to mean.

I think this is very important in my performance practice, not necessarily because it is necessary to constantly be 'present' but more so that I can control this(possibly change from present to vacant conciously). In terms of my performance practice for this paper I think that it would really add something if I was either fluctuating between vacant and present or consistantly present. I expect that being consistantly present would help emphasise the difficulty of the acts, if someone is doing something painful but is in a form of meditative conciousness it removes some of the effect because of the knowledge of how this is used to remove the pain.

Like in the book/movie Fight Club:

Tyler licks his lips until they're gleaming wet. He takes
Jack's hands and KISSES the back of it.

TYLER
The first soap was made from the
ashes of heroes. Like the first
monkeys shot into space.

The saliva shines in the shape of the kiss. Tyler pours a
bit of the flaked lye onto Jack's hand.

TYLER
Without sacrifice, without death, we
would have nothing.

Jack's whole body JERKS. Tyler holds tight to Jack's hand
and arm. Tears well in Jack's eyes; his face tightens.

TYLER
This is a chemical burn. It will
hurt more than you've ever been
burned and you will have a scar.

Jack looks -- the burn is swollen, glossy, in the shape of
Tyler's kiss. Jack's face spasms.

JACK (V.O.)
Tyler's kiss was a bonfire on the
back of my hand.

TYLER
Look at your hand.

JACK (V.O.)
Guided meditation worked for cancer,
it could work for this.

SHOT OF A GREEN MAPLE LEAF, GLISTENING WITH DEW. RESUME:

Tyler looks at Jack's glazed and detached eyes.

TYLER
Come back to the pain. Don't shut
this out.

Jack, snapping back, tries to jerk his hand away. Tyler
keeps hold of it and their arms KNOCK UTENSILS off the table.

JACK (V.O.)
I tried not to think of the words
"searing" or "flesh." I imagined my
pain as a ball of healing white light.

SHOT OF A FOREST, IN GENTLE SPRING RAINFALL. RESUME:

Tyler JERKS Jack's hand, getting Jack's attention...

TYLER
Stop it. This is your pain -- your
burning hand. It's right here. Look
at it.

JACK (V.O.)
I was going to my cave to find my
power animal.

SHOT OF THE INSIDE OF JACK'S FROZEN ICE CAVE. RESUME:

Tyler JERKS Jack's hand again. Jack re-focuses on Tyler...

TYLER
Don't deal with this the way those
dead people do. Deal with it the way
a living person does.

SHOT OF INSIDE THE ICE CAVE - ON MARLA, LYING NAKED UNDER A
FUR COAT, TURNING HER HEAD TO LOOK TOWARDS US. RESUME:

Jack tries to pull his hand free. Tyler won't let go.
Jack's eyes glaze over again. Jack speaks, whiny from pain:

JACK
I... I think I understand. I think
I get it...

TYLER
No, what you're feeling is premature
enlightenment.

SHOT OF A GREEN FOREST WITHOUT RAIN. RESUME:

Tyler SLAPS Jack's face, regaining his attention...

TYLER
This is the greatest moment of your
life and you're off somewhere,
missing it.

JACK
No, I'm not...

SHOT OF TREES ENGULFED BY A FOREST FIRE. RESUME:

TYLER
Shut up. Our fathers were our models
for God. And, if our fathers bailed,
what does that tell us about God?

JACK
I don't know...

SHOT OF EMBERS POURING FROM THE HELLISH FOREST FIRE. RESUME:

Tyler SLAPS Jack's face again...

TYLER
Listen to me. You have to consider
the possibility that God doesn't like
you, he never wanted you. In all
probability, He hates you. This is
not the worst thing that can happen...

JACK
It isn't... ?

TYLER
We don't need him...

JACK
We don't... ?

SHOT OF INSIDE ICE CAVE - NAKED MARLA PULLS JACK DOWN ON TOP
OF HER - JACK KISSES HER - CIGARETTE SMOKE COMES FROM HER
MOUTH - JACK COUGHS. RESUME:

Jack is a wide-eyed zombie...

JACK
... Marla ... ?

TYLER
Fuck damnation. Fuck redemption. We
are God's unwanted children, with no
special place and no special
attention, and so be it.

Jack looks at Tyler -- they lock eyes. Jack does his best
to stifle his spasms of pain, his body a quivering, coiled
knot. He bolts toward the sink, but Tyler holds on.

TYLER
You can go to the sink and run water
over your hand. Look at me. Or you
can use vinegar to neutralize the
burn, but first you have to give up.
First, you have to know that someday,
you are going to die. Until you know
that, you will be useless.

Jack spasms with a shiver of pain...

JACK
You ... you don't know what this
feels like, Tyler.

Tyler shows Jack a LYE-BURNED KISS SCAR on his own hand.
Tears begin to drip from Jack's eyes. Tyler grabs a bottle
of VINEGAR -- pours it over Jack's wound.

Jack closes his eyes, holds his hand... slumps to the floor.

TYLER
Congratulations. You're a step
closer to hitting bottom.

it's something very different conciously taking pain rather than zoning out.

when I did the six and a half hours under my desk I spent most of the time in a meditative state in which I couldn't really tell what was going on around me.

William and Miki suggested I come to some of their Butoh training sessions to help gain this presentness.

>Hi Arron
>Finally getting that email to you about our friday night butoh workshops.
>We are at ***, ***, Wellington. It's an orange building.
>We are around back at the bottom floor of the building room *** I've attached a couple of pics and our contact info to help you find us.
>
>Hope to see you soon

***=removed word(for privacy)

Sankai Juku(Butoh Group)

In these ways, rather than offer itself as "a work" to be "read", Morris' unitary form presents a kind of visual and physical obstruction. Yet it is precisely in this event that this form demands that the viewer negotiate bodily with its placement and dimensions. Thus, for Morris:

It was a confrontation with the body. It was the notion that the object recedes in it's self-importance. It participates in a complex experience that includes the object, your body, the space, and the time of your experience. It's locked together in these things.
(Morris 1997)

p.27

'Our position in society is structured through bodily experience with architecture'

p.38

I complete the body(the architectural form) after I learn what that body can do, what the ability of the body to speak is. This is a kind of phenomenological investigation[...]I need to assign speech to each part of a particular building so that it will be able to speak in my terms, to speak in a more specific way than it already does.

p.39

In Two Jumps for Dead Dog Creek Oppenheim's performance presents itself not only in relation to a specific site but in its place: here, in fact, not only is the body engaged in a mapping of the site, but this performance of the dimensions of a specific place maps out the physical tolerances of the body.

p.157


Site specific art:Performance, place and documentation-Nick Kaye

the bruce high quality foundation and the public art tackle

The Bruce High Quality Foundation, the official arbiter of the estate of Bruce High Quality, is dedicated to the preservation of the legacy of the late social sculptor, Bruce High Quality. In the spirit of the life and work of Bruce High Quality, we aspire to invest the experience of public space with wonder, to resurrect art history from the bowels of despair, and to impregnate the institutions of art with the joy of man’s desiring.

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