Thoughts on Tagny Duff's "Elephantiasis Ears"

After having watched Tagny Duff's performance art piece, "Elephantiasis Ears", in which she wandered around in a mall, naked accept for a pair of huge years hooked up to some kind of audio equipment. This piece stirred up a lot of discussion in the classroom both Tuesday and Thursday when there was a panel discussion in which it was brought up. People expressed diverse reactions to the piece, many of them very critical. I didn't really participate in the discussion on either of those days, even though I had stuff to say...so, I'm going to say that stuff here instead.
Concerns were brought up about the fact that she was naked out in public, and touching people, both of which might make people uncomfortable, and there were some concerns about children possibly seeing the performance, and the effect that this might have.

As to the nakedness; I agree that it likely made some people uncomfortable, and a naked woman wandering around a mall is not something you see everyday--I wouldn't want to dismiss anyone at the mall who was upset at this. I also won't deny that such a sight might trigger some questions from any child that might happen to be in the audience. However, art often makes people uncomfortable, and this very discomfort is what a lot of art is really about. Not only that, but how traumatizing is the site of a naked woman anyway? And if it is traumatizing--how much of that trauma is social constructed, rather than inherent in the nakedness itself? As far as children go, I would be much more concerned about my children (and I am weary of making this statement, since I have none yet) viewing thousands of images of almost-naked, or provocatively dressed women who have been starving themselves or have been digitally altered to be unrealistic--I would be more concerned about them viewing these images and not asking any questions, than I would about them seeing a real naked woman in a mall, and asking a few questions than I bet wouldn't be too hard to answer if you can be a little creative.
As far as the touching goes, I think it's really important to distinguish between different types of touching; Duff was not grabbing anyone, or touching them in any inappropriate places--in fact, I think in the clip we saw, she was mostly just offering them handshakes, though she did lay her hand on a few people's shoulders. I acknowledge that her being naked would definitely alter this experience for people, and I admit that if I were preforming "Elephantiasis Ears" (and I wish I had the ovaries it took to do something like that) I would probably decide to just stick with the offering of the handshakes and only touch those who extended their hands in return, because it's probably a little scary to be touched by a naked person without your permission--I guess that's where I draw the line. Again, though, she wasn't being violent or sexual about the touching, and I think that's important to note.
Of course, it is true that this being outside of the gallery setting, with the audience (or crowd) unprepared for anything but a shopping trip, and unaware of the nature of the performance makes the situation quite a bit different than one in an art gallery, but I think that's completely the point of the art work, and I don't think Duff would have accomplished what she clearly wanted to accomplish as effectively in the traditional setting. Questions were raised about whether or not this counts as art, or if it is good art. I would just like to contribute to that discussion by saying that in my completely subjective, and insufficiently educated opinion, it is; it seems to  me that Tagny Duff was trying to say something about connection, and about social norms, and possibly also about intimacy, and I think she did it very well and it if you disagree with everything else that I have said in this blog post, then you still have to admit that it took guts, and you wish you had guts like that when it came to doing things that are important to you, and maybe you do--in which case, congratulations.
...obviously I should have written my essay on this instead.

What is art?

On Tuesday in our lecture on public art, one of the pieces that we looked at was entitled "Tilted Arc", and it took the form of a a metal wall-like structure stretching across a kind of courtyard area. The work was funded and created as a piece of art. However, the area apparently had a lot of pedestrian traffic, and those pedestrians didn't like that the arc got in the way of their walking. Eventually, so many people complained about the inconvenience of the arc that it got torn down and turned into scrap metal. I can't say that I have a strong opinion about whether or not such a structure counts as art, or whether or not it is "good" art, but let's just take a moment to think about anything that someone created with the intention of it being art, on such a large scale, get turned into scrap metal. Like, that's not even what I'm going to write about in this blog entry, but just think about that. I feel like that's just disrespectful.
Anyway, we learned that when asked, the artist said that the fact that it disrupted foot traffic was something that he liked about the piece. This obviously raises questions about what art actually is. I know it's a kind of a cliched question, but this particular debate over the presence of the "Tilted Arc" really made me think about it...
Generally, the every-day person seems to bade the value of art more on the concept of beauty than on anything else. Honestly, until now, I've been thinking in the same terms, except I've been constantly re-evaluating my definition of beauty. Instead, I now find myself asking why I even feel that beauty should be the standard by which we are tempted judge art.
Let's take literature as a comparison (how predictable of me, since that's my major): we long ago stopped judging literature solely based on whether or not it was pleasant or enjoyable to read. Certainly, people still value pieces of writing for this reason, but they also value literature (in all it's forms) if it is informative, funny, challenging, heart-breaking, or comforting. You could argue that beauty is coupled with some of these characteristics, but that is not true in every case. We value Johnathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" because it is darkly humorous, and because it draws attention to concerning flaws in the society of Britain at the time--we don't value you it because we think it's pleasant to read about the eating of children.
The Tilted Arc completely changed the flow of that particular courtyard, and it seems like perhaps that was part of the artist's intention.
Maybe this is another case of there being a gap between the general public and the art world. I feel like people who are serious artists (and by "serious" I mean serious about art, not necessarily super successful or famous), and people with a bit more of an education in art seem to value art work for more of a variety of reasons than simply "beauty".
Maybe Tilted Arc's inconvenience to the pedestrians of the area should be viewed as contributing to what might make it art. I don't know--can inconvenience be a characteristic that can make art good? If a piece of writing was inconveniencing large numbers of people it might be more likely to be valued...although I don't know what would equate physically forcing people to walk around a large object to get to work, in writing...I feel like this blog post has been all over the place. Maybe I shouldn't have tried to answer such a big question...it's a collection of thoughts anyhow.

The Jarring Effects of Diana Thorneycroft's "A People's History" Series

I was fascinated with the images of Diana Thorneycroft's work that we view in class on Thursday. In class discussion we talked about the effect of her use of dolls, miniatures, and toys to set up disturbing scenes in her series "A People's History". Points were raised about the sharp contrast between the subject matter and the childlike medium that she used. Someone brought up a particularly interesting point about how the medium of dolls or toys basically fails to prepare us for what the scenes depict; our guards are left down and therefore we might be more strongly effect by the actual image than if it were a typical scene from C.S.I or something.
I thought a lot about what Thorneycroft accomplishes by presenting these disturbing facts of Canadian life and history in a way that is totally child-oriented...
First of all, seeing these scenes of dolls and toys step up into scene--outside of the context of the art gallery--at first glance, we might think a child had created them. What would we feel upon descovering a child--maybe even a sibling, niece or nephew--acting out scenes like these in their play? What would that mean? What would it mean to discover a white Canadian girl acting out "Burning Braids" with her dolls? What would it mean to discover an Aboriginal girl doing the same thing? It's difficult to think about.

Secondly, when we know that these scenes were not set up by children, (at a very quick glance) the materials used give the impression that they are at least meant to be viewed by children. Of course, they are not really, but it raises some urgent questions--I would guess, especially by anyone who is a parent or care-giver. How could we possibly explain these events to a child? What could we possibly have to say as to how these things were allowed happen, or to continue for so long, or--in some cases--how they are still being allowed to continue? The way Thorneycroft sets up these scenes forces us to knowledge in which these terrible events have played, and continue to play out is the exact same world inhabited by children, and there is nothing necessarily protecting them from it, which brings me to my next point...
It is difficult to ignore that many of the scene's in "A People's History" depict things that have happened to children, such as in "Burning Braids" and "Coach". In most cases the children who experienced these ugly things endured them for quite a while before anything was known or done about them. Children have different and sometimes limited ways with which to express what is going on with them--especially when they are very young; play is one of those forms of expression, like the kind of play a child might engage in with dolls like the one's used in these scenes.

Consuming and Re-using

Thursday we watched the documentary Manufactured Landscapes. In the film, there were many scenes of workers in countries such as China and Bangladesh. Of these, there were several scenes of factory workers assembling small pieces for things that I assume we must use here in North America--or at least benefit from the use of. I was totally astounded by the speed of the workers hands--it was so amazing watching them work. I guess if you're doing something hundreds of time a day eventually you just develop muscle memory and don't even have to think about the movements that you're making.
Whenever I examine something with tiny parts, or that looks like it would be hard to put together, I try to tell myself that it was mostly made by machines, and maybe sometimes that's true, but chances are that many times it is not. A lot of the things that we buy and use in North America come from China and other countries where they are assembled in sweat shops by people working in not-ideal conditions, and for very little pay, who have no other options.
I have to get a new battery for my computer soon, and as I watched all the scenes of workers taking apart and processing e-waste I thought about how my old battery would probably end up in one of those places, contributing to the pollution of the water and the health risks of the workers.
Various workers in various factories in some far off country probably sat crouched over work tables assembling all the different tiny pieces of my computer, and my old battery will soon be being taken apart and disposed of by workers in similar conditions, risking their health and the health of their communities...all so that I can take notes during lectures and type up my essays and stay in touch with my family.
This all got me thinking about wastefulness, and how we usually recycle things, we kind of try and reduce, but I don't think we re-use enough. When something breaks, or starts to wear down, I find people often just throw it away and get something new instead of trying to fix it or make something out of it. I know more people here in Sackville than I have anywhere else who have more of a tendency to re-use old things, and that's great. I think we need to keep encouraging it, though, and think of new ways to do it, acquire new skills, etc. As well, I think we really need to educate ourselves more about where we can go to purchase ethically made things. I think when we hear about issues like these we feel overwhelmed because we are each only one person (yes, I know, this has been said a thousand times, but bear with me), and sometimes it seems we are being asked to overhaul our entire lives overnight--but I don't think that's how it must be done. I think if we start small we can slowly change the way we live our lives to leave less of a negative footprint on the world. Some people do go out and change their whole lives for these reasons, and that is amazing and inspiring, but for those of use who feel too overwhelmed by all the information to do that, maybe we can start small and work our way up, making sense of smaller bits of information as we go.

Relationships to the Land in Art and Literature

I wasn't sure what I should expect from the guest lecture on Tuesday, but it turned out to be a really interesting and unique look at landscape art, and representations of the land. I found it to be very informative, and well-rounded, and it was cool to get a perspective that was a bit different than a purely art-history-oriented approach.
Something I thought was particularly interesting was the ways in which artistic representations of the land were said to demonstrate in some way the relationship that the artist or the society at the time felt they had to the land. This reminded me instantly of the diverse ways that nature has been depicted in literature. For example, the Romantics felt that the divine was eminent in the beauty nature, and that through communing with nature one could become more in touch with God; in their poetry elevated diction is used in lengthy descriptions of nature scenes, which are depicted as awe-fully beautiful. However, the Canadian Modernists, when they included nature in their writing, usually depicted it as wild, harsh and unforgiving--sometimes even cruel, and not something to be communed with at all.

Anyway, it was very interesting to see such a variety of representations of landscape, and the think about humankind's relationship to the land as one that shifts in that way.