Sheina Thibeault

I wanted to say a quick thanks and happy summer to everyone! I loved this class so much, and I am definitely going to keep bringing more performance into my mediums moving forward. I'm going to continue my sound performances spontaneously on instagram if anyone wants to follow @ sheinafae!

I wanted to leave a quick note about why I didn't reblog this semester, and I hope no one was offended! While I did my absolute best to find and comment on everyone's pieces this semester, I was already familiar with reblogging on tumblr and had experienced what havok it can wreak on the home feed. Especially if everyone isn't reblogging everyone, posts could (and did) really get lost in the sea of repeated reblogs, and I just didn't want to contribute to the clutter. I wanted to say something early in the semester but time kept passing and I didn't, so I figured I'd say something at the end.

This year has been beyond emotionally and mentally overwhelming. I experienced some personal trauma and a great deal of loss resulting in a lot of major life changes. I felt like I had been continuously riding on the edge of a breaking point, where my pain and frustration had filled me completely to the brim and began to overflow into different areas of my life like a constant inescapable feedback.

This piece is an audio expression of these emotions that ran heavy for me over the past year. Using sound as my medium, I attempted to illustrate the build-up of frustration and pain that I experienced, and also the feeling of a slow recovery and return to a shaky normalcy that have followed. I also considered some visual elements in this performance. I did my hair and makeup but wore a bathrobe to represent how the pandemic forced us to be presentable for work/school while we were in our own homes. This is also why I used a ring light as my spotlight; to highlight the pressure to be camera-ready at all times. Changing the light source to a small jar lamp at the end symbolized me returning from the “stage” to myself into a place of comfort and safety.

The sounds sampled in the performance were recorded during the height of the pandemic. Most were taken at work, and were of things like plastic gloves crinkling, wiping counters, bleach bottles, etc. Other sounds were of my ex-partner and I. I created patches on my synthesizers that best represented to me the physical sensations of being emotionally overwhelmed. I ran my delay pedal on a longer time setting and allowed the feedback to play out as I channeled these feelings and improvised.

(I streamed this live on Instagram but didn’t leave the video up for too long because I honestly felt too vulnerable having this on my account. I uploaded it to youtube, but the sound is slightly out of sync with the video. For those that watch, thank you for seeing and hearing my vulnerability. I invite you to channel your own frustrations through the sounds and release with me. <3)

Rixard Tattoo utilizes the art of tattooing to create unique performance pieces. Some include himself being tattooed by a roomba to speak about loss of control and media automation. He's also created tattoos remotely during the pandemic by virtually controlling where the machine is placed on skin. I was drawn to this artist as someone who is enthusiastic about tattooing as an art form.

I found this artist by searching specifically for performance artists in cities where I've lived. Brian Feldman is based in Orlando, and his work often revolves around time and endurance. His work caught my eye because of his audience participation performances, specifically. One piece that he did was performed in St. Petersburg, FL, and involved the artist squeezing orange juice by hand for customers, in exchange for drawings by them. A guest could draw an orange for a small glass, a glass of juice for a medium glass, or him making the juice for a large glass. The artist would also do the dishes of his customers.

I played the live stream, but no one joined. (I did have more instructions via the stream title) The few that were a "maybe" didn't make it, so I played a little over 13 minutes solo while a handful of folks filtered in and out. I'd like to redo this, but plan ahead a bit more and have more people actually committed to participating instead of just hoping folks want to play along. I also think I should probably lessen the fancy lights etc on my end, so that it seems more inviting/casual. Here are the droney noisy sounds that I made...

Since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve had to force myself to become more comfortable interacting with other humans via a computer or a phone screen. While being forced to live virtually has been a hinderance in many ways, technology has allowed us to have interesting new types of shared experiences as well. I’ve participated in improvised music sessions in the past, so I wondered what it would be like to create something similar in a virtual space. I also wanted to use sound as a medium with this performance in order to convey a sense of unity. I needed to utilize a live streaming platform to easily start a session that would be accessible to most of my peers, so I decided on Instagram. Through the live feature, I could have up to three individuals join me at a time, with the option to rotate people out if need be. The only perimeter put into place would be the restriction of playing one pre-determined note on any sound-making device, but with freedom to manipulate the sound of that note. There would be a set time for the session, and after that the performance will end. My goal with this piece is to create a shared experience through sound. I hope that the syncing of the notes will inspire a sense of togetherness in not only the participants, but the viewers as well.

This week I was curious about performance art for/by youth, being an arts education student. I stumbled upon the following video, and I was pretty blown away. The artist had me intrigued, but I found it especially fascinating how this was a program aimed at children in England. The artist had real conversations with these young people, and they seemed genuinely interested in the art form. It makes me so happy when I see humans acknowledging young humans as intelligent humans. ;)

The artist featured in the video is Mamoru Iriguchi, and he is based in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was originally trained as a zoologist, then a a stage designer, and pulls from these experiences for his performance work. He explores themes of 2D/3D, liveness/pre-recorded-ness, gender/sexuality, and fairytales/evolution theories.

Itchy-O is a local music performance troupe that began as an avant-garde project known for their guerrilla-style invasion shows. They would famously invade an event/festival/space, enter from the street, play unannounced, etc. Their success has almost tripled in the past few years, and they have toured worldwide. They combine elements of a traditional marching band, such as a drum line and uniforms, with electronic instruments, giant taiko drums, and atmospheric dancers, dancing lions, and special effects. They've received some heat in the past for cultural appropriation, however I appreciate their blending of elements from different cultures to create a universally enjoyed experience. A recent project of theirs is a virtual soundbath mediation series where they experiment with sound frequencies to induce certain states in audience members.

This video HIT me. From the beginning of the film, all the way to the end of it, I found myself spontaneously bursting into tears. Parts that I felt should have made me laugh a bit, made me cry. This week I felt like I kept phasing in and out of existential-crisis mode, so I was probably a little bit extra emotionally sensitive going into this. I did find it very interesting to learn afterwards that the reaction of the audience (believing it was real) was unexpected, yet it seemed to dominate much of the film itself. I thought the editing with vintage clips was both saddening and extremely powerful and well thought out. This piece was extremely inspiring to me, and it made me think about some issues that I could potentially explore through performance in the future.

The readings this week were a lot to take in. I'm going to be honest, sometimes I get really frustrated trying to get through it all (and not just speaking about this class). Sometimes when I read academic art-essays, I just want to scream "FUCK OFF" at the top of my lungs and just go smash things. Being someone who is neurodiverse, I often feel stupid when my brain doesn't seem to absorb the information it's supposed to. I read the words over and over and over, and when nothing comes from it, I beat myself up. Sometimes I feel like art-theory writing is a form of gate-keeping. "You have to be this smart to understand the depth of this art." Language is often over-embellished and concepts are often over-explained. For what purpose, besides keeping those that don't speak the language on the outside? I've had a difficult week, and maybe I'm just venting a little. Thank you for sticking around this long.

All of that aside, I did find the first essay by Coco Fusco to be very impressive. It also makes me think, "how dare I even state what I just did, above?" I definitely meant no disrespect to the authors of the writings this week. This woman has had a lifetime of experiences to fuel this writing; experiences that I as a white woman couldn't understand. The level of depth put into the research for this piece is incredible, and the ethical repercussions from the performance actually baffled me. It almost seemed like no matter how this couple did the performance, or tried to express their message, someone was going to have a problem with it.

After doing my site-specific project this week, I wanted to find an artist who also incorporates nature into their work. Nils-Udo is an artist from Germany who works with found, natural objects to create site-specific works, sometimes considered "utopias" within nature. His pieces are "implanted" within nature, and he wants them to grow and deteriorate as they would naturally with the passing seasons.

In a time where everything that can hold our attention is at our fingertips, I wanted to use technology to bring focus back to being present, much like we used to do when we were children. I think a lot about how I used to keep myself entertain for hours outside growing up in the woods, just sitting on the ground and playing in the dirt with whatever little nature-treasures I’d find. These days, we all claim to have no attention span due to the mass amounts of entertainment we can have at any given moment. Being “present” is something everyone strives to regain. With this project, I wanted to put myself back into the mindset of my childhood self and pay attention to all of the little things right in front of me in my own back yard.

Khaled Jarrar was born in Jenin, Palestine, and currently lives and works in Ramallah. He was trained as an interior designer in 1997 and then went on to complete a general visual arts BA in 2011. His work primarily revolves around social and political power struggles, and he uses film, photography, installations, and performance as his primary mediums. The piece that caught my attention occurred on the corner of Wall Street in October 2018 and was titled Blood for Sale. Jarrar sold 10ml vials of his blood in the style of a street vendor for the same price as the stocks of American defense contractors with the intent of bringing awareness to the international violence and imperialism promoted by America’s military-industrial complex. Proceeds of the sales went to hospitals in Yemen and Gaza.

Kembra Pfahler is a performance artist, filmmaker, visual artist, professor, musician, and actress. She is the lead singer of the theatrical death rock band The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, and the founder of the art movements "availablism;" making the best of what's available, and "antinaturalism;" the aesthetic of total artificiality. I'm drawn to the raw, horrific shock factor in her work, as she has been called the "godmother of modern day shock art."

This week’s reading discussed site-specific artwork, its characteristics, history, evolution, and current incarnations. I also read Chapter 4, From Site to Community in New Genre Public Art: The Case of “Culture in Action.” The readings explored the different ways that works can be site-specific. A performance is site-specific when it is performed in a location that directly influences or is influenced by the location itself. There are many different characteristics that are inherent in a site; the physical landscape, the surrounding architecture, physical objects installed in a public location, etc. The reading reminded me of the other aspects of a site that can influence or be subject for a performance, such as the history of a site, the communities that currently occupy a site, and the culture that surrounds a site. These are all aspects that can be material for a performance. The reading also discussed the how art can be used in different ways in a site, and some ways can actually be damaging, such as decorating a site that might make it pleasing to the eye of a wider audience, but erasing an area’s culture in the process. In my opinion, there can definitely be a right and a wrong location for a performance. I think we need to be conscious of the communities that occupy an area, and the history of the site itself, before potentially creating a work that could be insensitive to either. It's important as artists that although we want to be free in our expression, we maintain respect for the sites and materials with which we perform.

Alice Newstead is a UK-based performance artist who is most known for her recent protest piece inside of a LUSH store. She was a former LUSH employee who decided to suspend her body from hooks in a shark tail and makeup to protest the mutilation of sharks for shark fin soup. I found it very difficult to find any more information about this artist that didn't have to do with this piece, but I found it really fascinating and wanted to share! LUSH as a chain of stores is known for their heavy activism and often controversial performances inside their retail locations.