SHORT.

There is a tortured relationship between the performance artist and the audience. It is an unstable relationship of dependency. The artist requires the applause of the audience to sustain her spirit and livelihood. Her very self-worth is put at risk during each performance, and she makes herself extremely vulnerable….For the audience, the entertainer is ultimately disposable. Her exposed ego is available as much for ridicule as for applause….Where the artist is desireable, she would be rewarded with the double-edged sword of the icon-outsider. Where she is undesirable, she would made to feel selfish for imposing her distasteful practice upon others, like a nuisance, a beggar, or a parasite….The difference between a desired performance and an undesired performance is enormous! Therefore, there is in performance art, always a necessity for invitation. The necessity of the Invitation places enormous power in the hands of the audience. In commercial art, it is the invitation of the audience on a formal stage, which creates space for the artist to exist and reveal her work….But street art challenges that relationship of dependency between artist and audience, and flips this relationship on its head: to perform in spaces where there is no stage, and instead, build an audience through the art….The artist can thus be a vehicle for creating social and ideational space where none existed before – instead of waiting for a commercial invitation, the spontaneous street artist boldly goes where she is uninvited – the subway station, the street corner, the rooftop – and through her inappropriate appropriation of public space, she creates a moment of freedom, and invites others to join her. This kind of space can not be reified by commerce or governmentality, or taken apart and publicly evaluated along a scale of alien taste. This art is always a moment, fleeting with the chemistry of its co-creators, and the artistry of that moment depends on the freedom of the audience, the freedom of the artist, and the freedom of the space. That freedom is the most basic foundation for dignified expression, and the first job of the artist is to push for the space, time, and courage for holding freedom.

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LONG.

I’ve always felt kind of uneasy about the role of the artist in society, especially when it comes to performance art. While I love watching performances and going to concerts, I have always been afraid of becoming a performance artist myself. This is not only because my Chinese immigrant upbringing forbids such “frivolousness,” but also because I am afraid of being singled out as a performer, and ashamed of taking center stage, and taking up so much space.

As a child, I did well in school, and was often told I was talented in math and arts. I hated this. I was already having enough trouble fitting in as an awkward immigrant, who had absolutely no American pop culture knowledge and acted like a total “FOB” (foreigner off the boat) – so kids in my class were already constantly making fun of me for being a weirdo. I did not want any special attention, and hated the embarrassment of being singled out by teachers for anything. In a public school system where the kids were predominantly black and Latino, and the teachers were predominantly white, there was a constant sort of terf war going on, with kids rebelling against teachers to prove their bravery and earn the respect of peers. In this antagonistic class warfare environment, any favoritism shown towards me by teachers made me part of the “enemy’s” side, closer to white, and closer to alien/gentry law enforcer. I remember feeling constantly uncomfortable any time I was praised by a teacher in front of a classmate, or unwillingly put into the spotlight where I felt pressure to say the correct answer to a question – because I could feel the spiteful gaze of my classmates, and I didn’t want to brag. Any kind of special attention felt like the worst sort of punishment.

There’s a steep learning curve for self-acceptance and maturity for any kid who is told that she or he has some “special talent.” It can be extremely unfair, because talent is an imaginary burden which can never meet its “full potential,” and for an ambitious young adult, the self-identification with “talent” inevitably results in a constant feeling of guilt and disappointment.

Moreover, in school, it’s a great reason for other kids to hate you.

There is also something painfully unfair about being a performer: because on one hand, people nag you to sing or dance for them, sometimes in a pretentious tone of admiration or care; and when you say yes, they tell you you’re showing off and bragging, but if you say no, they scold you for believing you’re too good for them. No matter what you do, the other kids hate you for it. It’s really hard for a nerdy or artsy kid to be singled out in this way, and subjected to the teasing of others. As a kid, I certainly didn’t know how to deal with it at all, and felt totally isolated and hated. I just wanted to be normal or disappear.

Growing older, I started to enjoy making music in my spare time, playing around with electronic software such as Ableton, and making beats to sing to. I have always written songs, as long as I remember – recorded things experimentally on tape decks, with my voice laid over itself in harmony – nobody taught me to do that, but I just had an urge to play around like this. Nowadays, every time I take my dog for a walk, I sing to myself, and sometimes I come up with some funny verses, like a crazy person humming in the neighborhood at night. I’m no longer so shy or ashamed to be myself. But still, I am afraid to perform on a real stage, or call myself a performer. I’m afraid of being singled out, and sucked into the double-edged gaze of an audeince like a black hole – afraid of being watched because I feel there is no way to win when you are being observed. **Surveillance moment!**

I am also afraid of artists. I’ve (mis)spent many years of my “troubled youth” with artists – many of whom are into some hard drugs, and have lots of talent and lots of pain. Every artist-druggie I know is in so much ego-torment. There is some needy quality in musicians and actors which can appear extremely selfish – the nature of their work requires external evaluation and validation, and it feels sometimes like a drain of  energy, which constantly requires others’ approval to sustain. It is also not obviously practical or financially well-rewarded, so the flight of fancy of the beginning artist can be seen as irresponsible by family members and financial dependents. I am afraid to be that kind of a person, the kind that demands to be the center of attention, and can only recognize herself through the concern of others. I am afraid of having such a brittle self-regard, and that kind of exposed fragility, which anyone could crush between their fingers. I’m afraid of the emotional/physical/financial vulnerability, and afraid of the perception of selfishness – and I don’t want people to know how much I want the attention or praise because I don’t want to surrender myself to their opinion.

There is a tortured relationship between the performance artist and the audience. It is an unstable relationship of dependency. The artist requires the applause of the audience to sustain her spirit and livelihood. Her very self-worth is put at risk during each performance, and she makes herself extremely vulnerable. While the audience sometimes puts the artist on a pedastal, showering a kind of worshipful gaze upon the artist – this kind of special support is reserved for artists who have become “successful” in attaining some lucky popular or critical recogntion for their craft. For lesser recognized artists – the marjority of artistic souls in the world – the power relationship is reversed; and instead of a crowd of fans begging for an autograph, the artist is instead forced to sport a beseeching sort of vulnerability, begging for goodwill. The unrecognized artist requires a sort of charity to exist, because she who produces no obvious utility is invisible to the economic system, and must beg to survive.

That’s scary.

For the audience, this Level-B artist is ultimately disposable. Her exposed ego is available as much for ridicule as for applause. But the gains are short-term and it’s really a lose-lose situation. Where the artist is desireable, she would be rewarded with the double-edged sword of the isolated icon-outsider. Where she is undesirable, and we all become undesirable some day, the artist would made to feel selfish for imposing her distasteful practice upon others, like a nuisance, a dirty parasite.

The difference between a desired performance and an undesired performance is enormous! Therefore, there is in performance art, always a necessity for invitation.

The necessity of the Invitation places enormous power in the hands of the audience. In commercial art, is the invitation of the audience that creates space for an artist to exist and reveal her work.

I am deathly afraid of feeling uninvited, redundant, dependent, or unuseful.  I would be devastated to be repeatedly rejected on my way to recognition, never know what my value is from one day to the next. (And yet, that’s how I’m living…I didn’t plan this.) Deep inside, I feel a strong need to build practical things for people, so that I can know for sure that I am contributing immediate value and am needed.

But I would want to be an artist if I were brave enough; I move with the world as an artist, but I hide myself. I feel things deeply, and I have a strong need to express my experiences in an original way – I need to create things. Though I am a fairly logical person, my actions are not driven by logic at all – I am entirely a person of passion. And it hurts me to constantly repress myself for fear of judgment.

So I want to stop all that, and let myself go a bit.

I want to make art that challenges that relationship of dependency between artist and audience, and flips this relationship on its head. I want to perform in spaces where there is no stage, and instead, build an audience through my art work.

Street dancing, random movements in unexpected spaces, culture jamming. I want my art to bring people together and create shared space.

The artist can be a vehicle for creating social and ideational space where none existed before – instead of waiting for a commercial invitation, the spontaneous street artist boldly goes where she is uninvited – the subway station, the street corner, the rooftop – and through her inappropriate appropriation of space, she creates a moment of freedom, and invites others to join her. This kind of space can not be reified by commerce or governmentality, or taken apart and publicly evaluated along a scale of alien taste. The art is always a moment, fleeting with the chemistry of its co-creators, and the artistry of that moment depends on the freedom of the audience, the freedom of the artist, and the freedom of the space.

That freedom is the simplest form of expression, and the job of the artist is first to push for room, and give birth to a space and time of freedom. That sets the foundation for all other relational creativity.

====================

I was lucky to be in Toronto a few weekends ago, for an activist conference with some phenomenal women. At the end of the day, I joined my host and her partner in a little musical adventure to see LAL perform. I watched the beautiful Rosina Kazi, a Bengali singer and political lyricist, as she improvised on stage with her brown dress. The audience was composed of queer folks of Toronto, moving freely in gender fluid bodies, ugly-beautiful bodies, self-other bodies. It was an ecstatic moment of political marginality brought together by an artistic vision. That, for me, is performance art at its noblest function.

Here’s a quote from LAL, on the back cover of their second album, entitled Warm Belly High Power (2004)”:

“LAL is an intersection between idea, place, and people, where we stand for a moment and discuss the kind of world we will create. The conversation eventually gives way to dance which, in turn, gives way to conversation which, again, makes room for dance. We will win. There’s no doubt.”

YES! That is beautiful! That is how the relationally creative music I imagine needs to be.

At Tactical Tech in Germany last week, I indulged in performance during the last night, for the institute’s Cabaret. I had already decided not to perform that day because I felt unprepared to do anything of quality, but during the open mic portion after the official show, I felt inspired by a lot of people who came up and boldly shared their feelings. It was a radical space and a community space, where the artist is valued as a human being and friend, first and foremost. It was just the kind of space and moment where I felt least selfish performing.

During our activist trainings, the facilitators valorized the role of the artist. We were told that the arts contained many strategies for resistance, which could take on a more radical edge than formal policy campaigns. As “artists,” you are given more room to play, to mock and parody, experiment with boundaries, provide utopian alternatives in a sci-fi frame of mind, and create subvertising campaigns, as a way of “culture jamming” or “social hacking” to raise awareness for political issues, under the friendly guise of entertainment. Artists like the Yes Men and Banksy get away with radical messaging that might otherwise never reach the mainstream public. Magazines like the Canadian Adbusters are filled with this kind of cultural resistance or subversive+advertising. My favorite example is the Google Nest prank done by the awesome Faith Bosworth of the Peng Collective, and her colleague Jean Peters:

Google Nest – a spoof talk by the Peng Collective (click pic to watch on YouTube!)

My experience of performing in a (relatively) guilt-free way at Tactical Tech was actually quite a powerful one for me. It allowed me to think about ways in which I might be able to further channel my “talents” in a way that doesn’t make me feel bad or exceptional –  by helping in projects that function to create shared spaces of resistance.

Inspired, and grateful for that…