Project 4 Plan/Proposal

            For Project 4, I was originally very anxious about what to do. I didn’t want to use myself as an actor or record my voice. I thought performance art was ridiculous, too weird and actually not really art. However, after watching the documentary about Marina Abramovic and how amazing she was, I rethought my negative opinion about performance art. I enjoyed how even though most of her work was strange, they all had meaningful concept behind them. If you understood her work and the reason behind it, then you wouldn’t dislike it so much. Because of the document, I was inspired and am more willingly to do a performance piece. I have decided to use myself and not focus on my camera shyness.

            For my first idea, I am going to ask my two little cousins to create a play, make the props, and then preform it. I will be involved with the three tasks they do and will film everything. The first part will have the quality of an interview. I will ask them questions about what they want to do and help come up with the story. The environment will be at a table with all of us sitting down. For the second part, I will film us making the props and puppets for the story. The environment will be in the same place, at the table. For the last part, my cousins and I will act out the play. It will probably be behind a couch or sofa, where we will be hiding while performing. The play will be performed in front of an audience, my family.

            My second idea consist of my girl cousin and me performing a piece about beauty. I will ask her some questions related to beauty, with myself off camera. She will be the focus of the camera and will answer my questions on screen. Some of the questions may include: “What makes a pretty girl?” and “what does she have to look like?”. There will also be some personal questions about my own beauty including: “am I pretty?” and “would I look better without glass and why?”. I will ask her these questions at a table, sitting down. Then, I will use my camera to shoot an introductory scene of a bunch of makeup materials lined up. I will give my cousin free range to use any tools to make my face pretty. In this way, what she does and how my face ends up will show either how warped her idea of beauty is due to society or how society hasn’t changed her opinion at all. I will show a before and after clip of my face and play the sound of our conversational interview while she is putting on the makeup. There will be no audience except for me and her throughout the whole performance.

            For my last idea, I will choose two very famous pieces of contemporary art, like Duchamp’s Toilet piece and a famous master’s painting, and present it individually to my family members. The age range will consist of young children and teenagers, to adults and seniors. Individually, I will sit down with each person and show them a picture of the famous art pieces. I will ask them a series of questions about the pieces and what they think of them without knowing the facts about it. They will consist of “what do you think of this piece?” and “Do you think it’s art?”. I will then tell them the information about the pieces and why it is considered art. Then I will ask them if the new information given has changed their opinion of the pieces. I may play the voices of their answers over some sort of video, but I’m not sure. It could be a video of each person looking at the art piece and capturing their reactions. The whole concept of this idea is to help people understand contemporary art instead of casting it off as weird. I want them to understand how art has changed and gone through many ideas to end up like it is now.

            Out of all the ideas I’ve listed, my favorite is the second idea. I like the concept about feminism and societal beauty. I think it could lead to some interesting discoveries.