Performance piece

https://youtube.com/shorts/d_xh9mO_RE0 

For this project I wanted to discuss the sexual harassment of women through cat calling. It’s difficult to convey this topic when society today has been desensitized to violence, especially violence against women. Most women can tell you how uncomfortable even unsafe it can feel to be cat called, approached, followed, or even screamed at from across the street. How has this been so normalized? It comes down to the patriarchal power dynamics of men’s objectification of woman as a body to be enjoyed and looked at. "Patriarchy is a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence."(Bell hooks).  It doesn’t matter how women dress or act, getting cat called happens regardless.

 I wasn’t sure how to show the uncomfortable feeling of a man you don’t know commenting on your body or demanding your attention. There is no consenting to being catcalled, so just like someone can subject any woman in public to discomfort, I am subjecting you to both be uncomfortable and see me uncomfortable. I personally hate wet socks, a somewhat universal pet peeve for a lot of people. So, of course, I got in the shower wearing my socks. 

 I am NOT comparing a pet peeve to harassment, but, by posting it I’m making you become an aspect of this performance. Your discomfort is the focus of the video. Similar to the way Mickalene Thomas uses the viewer to make commentary on the history of objectification. Instead the photos question art historical traditions of objectifying women: in “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe: les trois femmes noires,” a wry feminist pastiche on Manet’s notorious 1862 painting, one woman squints, her chin propped in her hand, assessing the viewer assessing her.” (Dunne).

 This video is invasive and uncomfortable to see (as well as make and post), which is a part of the fundamentals of performance art. Performance artists try to push boundaries and make people rethink things like their environment, bodies, and morals. Often by shocking the viewer or making them uncomfortable. One artist to do this was Ana Mendieta who loved to rethink femininity and identity both to nation and body. Her well known recreated rape scene used shock and discomfort to draw attention to the violence of rape, specifically after a rape incident on her college campus. What I don’t like about the performance piece is that, although awareness is important to better handle sexual assault and rape, I think the recreation may have been too jarring and tackless. So I decided for my performance to recreate discomfort without recreating trauma. (Although it’s a lot easier to tackle cat calling opposed to rape). Although I wish the video spoke for itself without needing my explanation to make any sense, I guess a lot of performance art doesn’t seem clear at first. 

Quotes (I hated this chapter bc it’s basing almost all information on oil painting and art theory from the rococo period works which SUCKED)

“ the idealized appearances he found in the painting were an aid, a support, to his own view of himself.” (101)

“Such pictures assert two things: that the poor are happy, and that the better off are a source of hope for the world”(104). This is why naturalism followed rococo movement; to re portray working class and bring a realistic perspective to socio-economic issues inflicted by the wealthy.