In preparation for the experiment ‘What Happens When We Just Sit There?’, we were given an extract to read on the performance artist Marina Abramovic.
In the extract she describes one of her collaborative performances Nightsea Crossing. For twelve years she worked alongside Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen) and created many performances together. Throughout their collaborative years the performances they produced pushed both their mind and body to its limits. Many performance artists only ever work solo, therefore they needed to get the balance of personalities equal, to create something which meant something to them both. To gain the equalisation, or rather ‘Death Self’ as they refer to it, they devised a performance which showed them exchanging air. The locked mouths and passed oxygen and carbon dioxide between each other until, seventeen minutes later, they collapsed, unconscious as their lungs were full of carbon dioxide (1977).
Nightsea Crossing is a durational piece which lasted for seven hours a day and was extended over 90 days in various locations. They performed the pieces in museums and galleries and based the seven hour days on the opening and closing times of the spaces, this tended to be from 10am until 5pm.
“The seven hours was also important because we wanted to avoid people seeing the beginning and end. And when they go at 5.00, the gallery is closed and the guard comes and tell us it’s the end. The public only see one image” (Kaye, 1996, pg 183).
The performance itself is simply two people, Marina and Ulay, sat on chairs, staring directly at each other. Ulay explains how
“the main interest is the process of being sat motionless for a very, very long time” (Kaye, 1996, pg 183).
The piece is about connecting with the spectator and sharing the experience as a whole. The spectator plays a main role in their performance, they feed off the energetic atmosphere that is created once the audience realise that what they are seeing is the performance.
Our task in the workshop was to reproduce Marina’s solo version of Nightsea Crossing, The Artist Is Present, lasting for only 45 minutes. The concept was the same, sit across from another person and keep eye contact for the 45 minutes. After completing the task we all discussed the effects it had on us, these ranged from violence to nothing. Some people were able to sit in silence and remain focussed for the whole time, others were restless and needed to move and others were beginning to fall asleep. The aspect of spectator/audience was also considered. Although the studio had quite a few people in, during the performance you felt isolated, as if it was only yourself and your performance partner. Throughout the duration of the performance questions of sight became apparent to us, everything seemed to blur and infuse together visually apart from the central point of your focus, and subconsciously, you began to mimic your partner’s slight movements and idiosyncrasies. This experiment forced us to scrutinise the concept of silence and complete focus, and what internal questions doing this gave you as an audience member.
This video shows Marina’s performance, this was part of her solo work and differed to the collaboration of Nightsea Crossing as she invited the audience to come and sit with her. Some people sat for only a few minutes whereas one member sat with her for the whole day. Over the days she shared many emotions with her audience, some who had queued for days, ranging from random outbursts of laughter to uncontrollable sobbing. Her day to day experiences were totally different but at the end of each day she was exhausted.
WORKS CITIED
Kaye, Nick (1996) Art Into Theatre London: Routledge
Word Count: 614
Sophie Wright, Caitlin Clark