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Hi Laura,
Great to hear that your performance plans are moving
forward. Keep us posted.
It's also interesting how we totally diverge in our
recollections of what happened in Washington Square
Park. It wasn't even that long ago, but you saw cops
and I saw chairs. I do recall the Parks' warden
yelling at the performers to put the clothes back on
the dolls, though... so at least I know we were at
the same event. :)
Anyhow, according to the article below, images of a
woman masturbating
(even when aired on public tv) are not "legally
obscene." However, when a male clown does the deed
on the same program, there is major trouble. Poor
Crotchy: when he unleashed his "cobra" on
unsuspecting viewers, a lot more than the ratings
went through the roof.
Crotchy the Masturbating Clown: Testing the Limits
of Self-Expression
http://www.gettingit.com/article/569
But in case you think I'm simply being funny, and
that this article has
no redeeming educational value, think again. It
provides a useful
definition of "obscenity" that I think would exempt
Marina Abramovic
from being charged with such a crime. Check it out:
Obscenity has three criteria: (1) the dominant theme
of the material
taken as a whole must appeal to a prurient interest
in sex, (2) the
material is patently offensive because it offends
contemporary
community standards relating to the description or
representation of
sexual matters, and (3) the material is utterly
without redeeming
social value.
1. The dominant theme of "Seven Easy Pieces"
revolves around the
theoretical, practical, legal, ethical, and other
possibilities of "re-
performance." The theme of this material as a whole
does not appeal to
a prurient interest in sex. Even her re-performance
of the SEEDBED
piece does not appeal to a prurient interest in sex:
she's not
literally *having* sex with anyone; she won't
*visibly* be having sex
with herself; and masturbating women are not
"legally obscene" anyway,
so I think she'd have to grow a penis for this to be
considered a
crime.
2. It would be hard to argue that Abramovic's
material is "patently
offensive because it offends contemporary community
standards relating
to the description or representation of sexual
matters." A woman/artist masturbating in a highbrow
musuem? Realistically, who in Manhattan is going to
be offended by that? I bet it would be
standing-room-only if more members of the general
public knew who Vito Acconic is, or about the
specific performance of his that Abramovic plans to
re-do.
The other thing is we're talking about *Abramovic*
here: she's an elusive entity unto herself. Karen
Finley and Penny Arcade "offend community standards"
on a regular basis, but Marina Abramovic? It's sort
of like trying to imagine Martha Stewart advertizing
feminine hygeine products. Maybe it's because she's
slightly older, and not known for past obscenities,
and suavely European, but who would call the cops on
her? (Then again, who would call the cops on Martha
Stewart: I guess Abramovic is an ideal target from
that perspective).
3. The material she's performing is obviously not
"without redeeming
social value." Why would the Guggenheim of all
places agree to her
staging it there if her material was abject,
irredeemable, and lacking in social value?
So in general, I don;t think Abramovic has much to
worry about. But then again, in this age, you really
can't be sure. Look what happened to Spongebob and
his friend to Starfish, or to Buster the Rabbit, or
to Monica Lewinsky and Clinton. And it is pretty
darn unusual for a woman to be doing this act in the
first place in such a "public" way, so that alone
might invite some complaints from the Ann Coulter crowd.
. > 2. Of course, we can't prove who's "right"
about a piece like what
> Abramovic is doing, but public masturbation, even
if you're
> hiding, is
> pretty much considered obscenity and if someone
complains, the
> results can
> very pretty widely. If she does that piece in NY,
it's a lot
> different than
> if she does it in a gallery somewhere in
Mississippi and the
> outcome will be
> very different. My point in bringing that up was
simply to say
> that with
> certain types of performance, it's important to
think through the
> angles and
> the consequences.
>
> 3. I disagree with the judge in that I don't
think England was so
> far out
> of her senses when she did those things. She
certainly wasn't
> alone in
> doing them and again, she's going to be singled
out rather than
> questioningthe mindset she was trained to adopt.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Performance Studies international Extra
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Theresa K Smalec
> Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2005 8:22 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [PSI-EXTRA] "Is Everything a
Performance?"
>
> * This email is sent via the PSi-Extra mail-list.
'Reply' will
> send your
> response to that list *
>
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>
> Yes: I think you need an audience to have a
> performance. Regarding the "hidden" performances
> that Schechner and Turner carried out, those might
> best be defined as "dark play." But Schechner and
> Turner were still each others' audience, so they
> each had an audience of one.
>
> I guess you're right that just because Falun Gong
> isn't actually torturing people, that does not mean
> they aren't *performing* conceptual torture. Maybe
> *we* are performing conceptual "torture" right now
> by sending all these emails to the list and
> cluttering up peoples' mailboxes? :)
>
> I don't think you're right about the masturbation:
> again, if it can't be seen, how can it be
> prosecuted? You need some sort of evidence, don't
> you? The authorities would have to catch Abramovic
> red-handed. That might be hard to do if she's under
> a ramp, though I guess you never know... But it's
> perversely amusing to imagine the Masturbation Squad
> running around, looking for people playing with
> themselves in public spaces: "Hold it right there,
> buddy! Get your hands up, and out of your pants!"
>
> You mis-remember the Barbie incident. Or maybe I'm
> the one who's casting it in an idylic light these
> days? The way I remember it, the Christian youth
> group informed City Parks that we were abusing naked
> Barbies, and City Parks came over to check it out.
> Some of us got nervous about the potential for
> police action, and went over to explain to the City
> Parks folks that we were doing a safe-sex
> demonstration. At that point, to my shock, he leader
> of the crew told his men to go get us some CHAIRS so
> that people could watch more closely! He thought we
> were performing a valuable service that the
> Christian kids could learn from. But being the
> paranoid souls that we PS-ers are, the people
> performing sex with the dolls were already
> high-tailing it out of the park. I'm serious: I only
> saw chairs coming, no cops.
>
> The freedom to perform naked Barbies! Most children
> have it, but not us. You're right, of course, that
> it's good to have partners in performance crime. If
> you come to NY with your interrogations, I'll be
> happy to help you capture people! No seriously, why
> don't you plot out what you need, where you plan to
> do it, and what services we might be able to offer
you.
>
> I was thinking about Nao Bustamante's work in
> relation to your idea about putting yourself or
> others in a cage and questioning them. She often
> performs situations where she asks audience members
> to do disconcerting things to her. At the Encuentro,
> she did this performance with water bags stuck all
> over her body; she was covered from head to toe, and
> looked like the Michelin Tire Man. Audience members
> were given plastic picks to "stab" her with, and the
> water bags would burst and spill onto the floor. She
> started to panic at one point because so many people
> were surrounding her, stabbing her, and she couldn't
> breathe!
>
> I found her performance bizarre and unsettling:
> partly because of the waste of water in the context
> of a conference where someone else was talking about
> transnational, life-and-death "water wars" for the
> resource. But it was also the eagerness with which
> people stabbed her, and the sight of that seepage.
> And then, I kept thinking about how delighted NYU
> would be if the water damaged the brand new floor in
> the Lubin Auditorium... but she had a spotter to
> make sure she was alright. So you might want someone
> to watch over your process, and of course to let you
> out of your cage when the interrogations are over.
>
> Anyhow, it is interesting to think about torture as
> "performance," because those being tortured are not
> supposed to *have* an audience if things go
> according to plan. No one is supposed to know; even
> the torturers themselves are not supposed to
> "understand" that they are doing terrible things.
> Lyndie England is a case in point: the judge thinks
> she may not have realized her crime. And if the guy
> who sent those pictures home hadn't felt the need to
> become a moral audience, then proabably no one
> *would* "know." (Except for the people who got
> tortured). I still don't think you can call this
> stuff a performance: it's a crime against humanity.
> "Performance" downplays the crime and the
> reality/actuality of the violence; regardless of the
> possible theoretical arguements for using the word
> "performance" in this context, I don't believe it's
> helpful to anyone except the torturers, and perhaps
> our fragile imaginations.
>
>
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