Performance art is the medium on everyone's tongue right now, because it's entering the mainstream in a bigger way than ever before. Not only did Jay Z declare his recent "Picasso Baby" event at Pace Gallery performance art, with the grandmother of the movement, Marina Abramovic, showing up to perform with him, Lady Gaga even went nude for a performance art exercise (also with Marina). This past week alone, Performa announced their artist commissions for the fall including Jake and Dinos Chapman, Rosa Barba, Alexandre Singh, Ryan McNamara, and others, who will do performance art pieces around New York.
So, what's stopping everything from being performance art, all the time? The truth is, nothing but you. We asked Manny404 of digital art duo ArtNotFound to shed some light on how we can incorporate performance art into the most present, active projections of ourselves we have: the almighty Twitter.
Make sure you don't get left behind. Get your tweets on the level of performance art immediately.
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10 Ways to Make Your Tweets Performance Art
10. RE-INVENTING YOURSELF AS PERFORMANCE ART
Fact: Every child who wore a costume out in public when it wasn't Halloween grew up to be a performance artist. Identity crisis runs through our blood like a genetic art virus. I'm not making this shit up; artists like Cindy Sherman built entire careers off of playing dress-up and exploring the identity, media, artmaking, and a whole slew of buzzwords the art world now uses as standards for serious contemporary art critique.
Look at these artists who create new identities for themselves through usernames, avatars, and tweeting style:
PICTURE 200 CATS IN A FIELD TAKING DOWN A COW
— CARLOS DANGER CAT (@ALLCAPSBRO) January 28, 2012
Just gonna write in, Springsteen/Seger 2012, on my ballot. And sign it on behalf of the USA, you guys.
— Karl Welzein (@DadBoner) October 4, 2012
Last time I Flew away Bandz. FUCK DONATIONS NIGGA!!!pic.twitter.com/kKdO2TE4F4
— Its Lavish Bitch™ (@ItsLavishh) June 12, 2013
PHOTO: Jayme Gershen, Yearbook Portraits
9. RE-INVENTING SOMEONE ELSE AS PERFORMANCE ART
On December 3, 2004, Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men appeared on BBC world as a spokesman for Dow Chemical. Andy went on to apologize for the Bhopal Chemical Disaster and claimed full responsibility on behalf of the company. Suffice it to say, the resulting shitstorm was proof that this was one of the best performance art publicity stunts of all time. Make your own Yes Men moment and impersonate someone by making an account as close to theirs as possible (bonus points if you fake letters like using a capital I as a lowercase l). Hijack your enemies or associate yourself with something you couldn't with otherwise.
Please note: this type of performance art may be known as "imping" on Twitter and may or may not get your account suspended. If this does happen, make sure to include the documentation of your suspension as part of the piece.
I fucked @DrakeBell so many times on the Amanda show set oh god
— amanda bynes (@arnandabynes) May 4, 2013
idk how u can even celebrate anything when u kno there are billions of microorganisms livin an dyin on the daily
— BILL NYE THO (@Bill_Nye__Tho) July 7, 2013
PHOTO: Yes Men – Bhopal Chemical Disaster, 2004
8. STARTING A COLLECTIVE AS PERFORMANCE ART
If the surrealists were born today, they would definitely have a hashtag to identify their clique. These days, artists are taking to Twitter and forming groups like Yung Klout Gang or creating new genres like Seapunk with less than 140 characters. Just like the YBAs or Expressionists, these Twitter collectives influence their respective realm's lingo, attitude, ideals, and culture.
RT IF SINCE TALKING LIKE #YungKloutGang U HAVE RELEGATED UR SPEECH TO LIKE FIVE WORDS AND ARE NOW ACTUALLY REALLY DUMB
— ✨BOYTWEETSWORLD✨ (@BOYTWEETSWORLDX) October 26, 2012
SEAPUNK LEATHER JACKET WITH BARNACLES WHERE THE STUDS USED TO BE
— @ LIL INTERNET (@LILINTERNET) June 1, 2011
PHOTO: Artists in Exile, Photograph taken on the occasion of an exhibition at Pierre Matisse Gallery. First row from left to right: Matta Echaurren, Ossip Zadkine, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger; second row, André Breton, Piet Mondrian, André Masson, Amédee Ozenfant, Jacques Lipchitz, Pavel Tchelitchew, Kurt Seligmann, Eugene Berman (March 1942)
7. CATFISHING AS PERFORMANCE ART
6. INVOLVING THE AUDIENCE AS PERFORMANCE ART
Marcel Duchamp once laid out an infallible art prophecy that sounded something like "the audience completes the artwork." Soon after, people realized that making art and hanging it up in their room for no one else to see was akin to masturbating underneath a stairwell. Pushing this concept to its extreme, in 1972, Vito Acconci actually masturbated underneath a pedestrian ramp as performance art. Marina Abramovic let people hold guns to her head, Tino Sehgal makes gallerists perform his works, and Santiago Sierra does performance art with crackheads. The point is: get your art involved with an audience and stop masturbating (unless you're doing it a gallery opening).
#24hPort begins this Wednesday at 5pm. I will be asking you where you have been. Seeking responses beginning...now.
— Man (@ManBartlett) May 23, 2011
PHOTO: Marina Abramovic, Rhythm 0
5. MAKING A TWITTER BOT AS PERFORMANCE ART
Duchamp's distant once brother-from-another-mother, Sol Lewitt, defined conceptual art as "The idea becomes the machine that makes the art." How much truer to this sentiment can you get than by programming a Twitter bot? Your bot will act as the performance artist, and you will give it a conceptually driven task such as:
- Tweeting every word in the English language
- Auto-reply to everyone who types in all caps telling them to be quiet
- Auto-reply "Yes you are racist" to every tweet that starts with "I'm not racist but..."
If you don't have programming skills, don't fret! Download a "Twitter marketing software" app like Tweet Adder and get in on the art without all the code.
art
— everyword (@everyword) March 24, 2008
PHOTO: Zhivago Duncan, Maschine (artist operated painting machine), Courtesy of Snitzer Gallery, Miami and Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
4. LIVETWEETING AS PERFORMANCE ART
Artists have been making their lives seem glamorous since Warhol's Eight Elvises sold for $100MM. Attending art shows, galas, and openings have always been an art staple, but now you can tell the people who didn't see you that you were, in fact, there! For bonus points, take an #artselfie with a piece you really like and put a cute filter on it (unless it drastically changes the colors of the piece). If you really want to get conceptual, wait until a relevant art event is starting, coin a hashtag, and start tweeting made up experiences as if you were really there! Everyone will think Marina Abramovic spilled champagne on you when you were actually at home wishing you could've squeezed through her and Ulay's naked bodies in Imponderabilia.
THIS #RARE @JODYHiGHROLLER ART PERFORMANCE AT NADA BEING THE MOST SEMINAL WORK AT #ARTBASEL pic.twitter.com/vdLI20TI
— MANNY4O4 (@artnotfound) December 8, 2012
PHOTO: MISAEL SOTO, text me. email me. friend me. tweet me. add me. follow me., Courtesy of David Castillo Gallery, Miami
3. REFERENCING THE ART WORLD AS PERFORMANCE ART
If you've ever been to art school, you know anything that references the art world is art. Try it yourself: slap Jerry Saltz's mug on anything, put it in front of a freshmen art class, and watch them dissect it's meaning for hours. Self-referential art about art has been lining galleries for decades, with artists like William Powhida & Hans Haacke sticking it to the art man via institutional critique. On Twitter, artists are making accounts that function like self-contained art piece parodies, often employing the techniques of botting.
SIN IS A MEANS OF SOCIAL CONTROL
— Jenny Holzer (@jennyholzer) February 20, 2012
Vito Acconci is now following you on Twitter.
— Vito Acconci (@VitoAcconci) November 16, 2009
I AM STILL ALIVE #art
— On Kawara (@On_Kawara) August 15, 2013
PHOTO: Hennessy Youngman
2. CURATION AS PERFORMANCE ART
1. TWEETING AS PERFORMANCE ART
To be honest, everything in this article has been over-thinking it. Joseph Beuys said it best, "Everyone is an artist." That's right, even you, stairwell masturbator, are an artist. What makes something performance art is the intention behind the action. All you have to do is proclaim your action as art, and you're done! Just don't get fooled into thinking that makes you a good artist; don't start showing up to openings to take Instagram pictures of yourself. You're only making the booze line longer for the rest of us.
art isn't subjective, it's all art. even this tweet is art. look at it. look at its art
— kill me (@horriblecramps) August 14, 2013
PHOTO: Art404's Twitter x Nike Collab, Just Tweet It, 2013
