#natrandall

Week 5   Nat Randall                                      Hang Zhao  13727565

 In Week5, it is the lecture of Nat Randall. In her lecture, there are many interesting ideas that resonate with me. In the "stills" of the neon light effect at the beginning, she mentioned a concept, that is, "how do we express any specific concept of gender, this is not a starting point, but a creation we care about". Yes, in fact, there are even some political or sexism issues involved here. At this point, I don't think these issues can interfere with or hinder the creation of art. In fact, for example, courage or encouragement is the reason to promote the progress of art.(McGregor,2017). What I mean is the intimate relationship with strangers, how to make adjustments, and how do we strengthen strange relationships? How do we create embarrassing scenes, so it is not just two sentences that make people come out of their natural speaking rhythm or personality.

                                 https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/fiona-mcgregor/2017/01/2017/1509493377/second-woman-triumph-endurance-theatre?cb=1617021675

  Another point I paid more attention to in lecture was the scene of shooting a car in the studio. At first, I thought that this scene had nothing to do with "photography", because in my opinion, photography was just an immovable picture displayed to the viewer, and That scene is far beyond my knowledge of photography, and during the three-and-a-half minutes of the film, the two women didn’t say a word, but were sitting in the car while one driving, and the other sitting in the co-pilot.However, after I found some articles on the Internet with #Photography is never dies topics at the back, I gradually realized that in fact, whether it is photography, the creation of the studio will never disappear. On the other hand, when explaining this video after Nat, she said: She realized that the quality of performing art is the belief in realizing time in reality. She combines performance and creative art together because of the reality and reality of performing art. Characterization may be the case. The resonance for me in this respect may be difficult to bring to me in any visual pictures.

  Reference

Time is a significant element of the performative structure found in Nat Randall’s work. Time also connects performance to the emotional essence of the narrative. To me, it seems that time is present literally with the duration of the performances. In The Second Woman (2016) Randall performs over a period of 24hrs accompanied by a random male participant actor and repeats the single scene 100 times. Excitement, aggression, annoyance and suspense are some emotions among many that may have risen with the varying levels of experience depending on every male participant. For Randall these feelings would definitely be heightened, being the one who was performing repetitively, being the target of 100 male participants personalities, and being the main entertainer for the audience.

“Over the 24 hours I felt a range of: excitement, boredom, frustration, anger, arousal, sadness, amusement, fear, and sometimes cared for.” (Randall, 2017)

Nat Randall, The Second Woman, 2016 Melbourne, Australia

One could say that it may be too extreme to put the body through that much work, making it seem like torture. However, extreme performance art has been done before for example, seen through the works of Marina Abramović and Yuko Ono. Abramovic’s work Rhythm 0 in particular has been highly controversial, standing motionless in a gallery allowing the audience to do anything to her. From my personal perspective, this was quite shocking. Allowing members of an audience or participant actors to take part in an artists world has its dangers.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974 Naples, Italy

With this reference in mind, the emotional aspect of Nat Randall’s The Second Woman (2016) is characterised by different men being allowed on stage. All of course with different personalities, some may feel the need to be dominant, aggressive, some shy and reserved. Given that time heightens these effects, I felt an endless cycle of emotions after watching only a few clips of Randall's performances on Youtube.

References:

Abramović, M. (1974). Rhythm 0 [Performance still]. Studio Morra, Naples, Italy

Randall, N. (2016). The Second Woman [Performance still]. Next Wave Festival, Melbourne, Australia