Performance of an Art/Life Experiment

I had a hard time deciding what I could do for 3 hours strait, I had a few ideas…watch movies with friends for three hours, go for a three hour walk, go play/coach soccer for three hours, go have drinks with friends for three hours…but in the end I decided to sleep for three hours in the middle of the day. This project reminded me of an art exhibit I saw in New York. The exhibit was of photographs that someone took of themselves throughout the day where they were doing everyday things. For example there were pictures of this artist brushing his teeth, making lunch, watching television, walking the streets, and my favorite picture was of him sleeping, there was just something about that picture that made you see the true innocence and raw persona of the artist. So I took my favorite artwork from this artist and decided to use it as an inspiration. My performance is art because I do not think I ever actually feel asleep, I just pretended until my alarm went off, but while I was pretending I had the opportunity to really think and clear my mind. In real life when I go to sleep I usually fall asleep and do not have the opportunity to simply relax and clear my mind for a full three hours.

Art is anything that provokes a feeling, causes though and/or asks a question. My definition of art is one of the main reasons that I think my performance was indeed art, the photograph can easily invoke feeling, when I look at the photograph I think about the things I thought about and it always makes me smile. When it comes to the differences of art and life my best definition runs hand in hand with Linda Montano’s definition. The difference between art and life is that life is the big game and art is a scrimmage, where we practice and learn how to play in the big game of life.

Tara and the Town

I decided to use the movie Sex and the City for inspiration because I have always enjoyed and felt a connection to the show and the movie. I feel like Sex and City is a great show and movie for women, it shows four very successful women that despite their differences are best friends. These women deal with all sorts of womanly issues, everything from Breast Cancer, a cheating husband, an adoption, an unexpected pregnancy, a canceled wedding, starting over, unfair treatment in the work place, and balancing their success with their failures. I drive to be a well rounded successful woman, with the self confidence to deal with everything that I will have to deal with just because I am a female. In the film stills I decided to play the role of Carrie. Carrie is a strong individual that deals with heartache and trying to be true to herself. Being a single girl is can be hard, but it is always fabulous. I had to be quite creative with my photographs, due to my last minute nature. I had done 5 well dressed wonderful sex and the city film stills, however I realized the cord to get the pictures from my camera to my computer happen to be in my house in Lebanon. Plus the more I looked at the pictures the more fake they looked. So I took pictures I already had on my computer from my years here at college and turned them into my own film stills. I loved the artworks of Barbara Kruger and decided to turn my photography into Barbara Kruger inspired film stills using quotes from the movie/show. The photographs still show me as Carrie, but now they show less Carrie and more of me.

Priceless-PSA Announcement

I chose to make a PSA announcement that resembled that of a master-card advertisement. Women constantly struggle in the work place; even though women have embodied the CEO persona they still have not experienced the CEO paycheck. Women spend large amounts of money to “look the part” of a major business person and yet their male counterparts are making more money than the females for the sole reason of bias towards genders. It is sad that there are women out there that do their job more efficiently than their male counterparts and yet the males are the ones with fatter paychecks. At the bottom of my PSA announcement in smaller print it says that… “*Sound too be good to be true? It’s because it is, only once women are seen and treated as equals rather than objects will they ever be able to finally experience that which is truly…priceless.*” I decided to post my PSA in my Aunt Brenda’s beauty salon (unfortunately I was unable to load the image of the add hanging in her shop). I felt a beauty salon is the best place for women to see my announcement. The only two people working in Brenda’s beauty salon are her and my mother, and they both have told me how when their customers take a closer look at my PSA announcement they always have some sort of comment, usually agreeing with the message that I was trying to get across. I know women are aware of the injustices in the work places, but sometimes it takes a little reminder to motivate women into becoming upset enough to take action.