Real Art as the Capacity to Make us Nervous - Research Paper Example

Real Art Has The Capacity To Make Us Nervous Art, according to its earliest or first experience, was that it was incantatory and thrilling. As many say, it was a tool of ritual (Dixon 5; Lacy 37; Swan 1 and Sontag 1). Its first theory was that put out by Greek philosophers saying that art was simply mimesis that imitated the reality. This saying provoked the peculiar issue of the value of art. Even the term by mimetic theory challenges art to validate itself. The Greeks gave this view so as to judge the value of art as dubious (Sontag 1). Because they deemed normal things are mimetic objects, imitation of inspirational structures or forms, even the most excellent painting of a chair would simply be an imitation of an imitation. For the Greeks, art was neither significant nor true. In short, what they were trying to say is that the painting of a chair is no good if someone is not going to seat on it. However, lie or no lie, art considerably has a certain value since it is a form of therapy. It has the capability to make people feel nervous and send their minds into a thoughtful journey depending on the object you are viewing (Sontag 1). With regards to the Greeks, the mimetic theory of art goes together with the view that art is figurative, all the times. However, they should not close their eyes to the fact that art is always abstract and decorative. The misleading notion that art is unavoidably a "realism" can be scrapped or modified devoid of ever going outside the issues surrounded by the mimetic theory (Sontag 1). This paper will discuss why art makes an audience nervous. It will base is on Sontag's claim that real art has the capacity to make people feel nervous. It will also present its arguments using a number of performance art and the effects they had on the audience to dispute the Greek notion on art. Performance art has had its fair share of criticism overtime. Most people deem that it is clearly weird, having heard rumors of bull's semen, dancing naked and even howling. A majority of individuals in the art world believe that since its halcyon days in the 60s and in the 70s, the medium has lost its power (Swan 1). No matter the side someone stands, chances are performance art makes them unbelievably nervous or maybe even cynical as some critics believe. The nervous feeling, a majority of the dramatists confirm is the proof of art's unique power to make people think afar and also feel something different. Performance art is live art and when it is really good, it creates a direct and overly personal effect to the audience (Heathfield 8). For instance, in Lesbian National Parks and Services by Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, Dempsey's knuckles are raw and bleeding when he eventually became tired to knock on the door. A majority of the audience has gradually frittered away, but some returned periodically to watch. It was a sad and pathetic, as well as valiant moment, in an instance, summing up what is feels like to be shut out plus annoyed in desire. Milan and Dempsey are skilled in performance art very well. The duo published a book, in 2004, which coincided with Winnipeg Art Exhibition dubbed Live in the Center, which is a partial and subjective history of performance art in Winnipeg (Swan 1). The book featured Dempsey, the door knocking actor, as a young art student. The two have also performed live together since 1989 plus have showcased countless stages of cafes, galleries, cabarets and women's centers (Swan 1). Going through their bio, their humorous, provocative, feminist pieces have toured across North America, Australia, Europe and Japan. The two, in name of performance art, wore giant vulva costumes, had the bust of a traditional dress refitted with plumbing fixtures and assumed to be park rangers. This might be very weird to a normal person, but for a purpose. The number one reason why this performance was successful is that the audience saw a new spin on normal things (Heathfield 21). People manning park is overly a normal thing that we see daily, but here, the two made the audience rethink their beliefs and opinion, which is what created the nervous feeling. Refreshingly enough, the two do not take themselves or their work too seriously, but it is still smart, witty plus funny at the same time, which helps individuals comprehend what the two do (Heathfield 21). Art these days can have smugness, which, to the public, means that it is something beyond them, which they cannot understand. This is overly wrong and shortsighted because art can really engage and motivate everyone (Swan 1). The two created We're Talking Vulva back in 1990. The rap clip was made to give facts on women's sexuality, which was liberating as opposed to scientific or stuffy. In Tableau Vivant (1998), a number of women wore formal wear as water poured from taps to their breasts. The performance satirized the catalogue's impression of how women look like; white, middle class and gushing with inner optimism (Swan 1). Their highly praised Lesbian National Parks and Services is a play about two field rangers, as well as their duty to protect "lesbian wildlife." It was praised by a number of critics for its cheekiness and radical humor, but also because it did not stoop to mean-spirited ridicule of traditional religious perceptions. One of the world's first advocates of performance art, RoseLee Goldberg, argued that art future galleries will be more like energy-filled rooms, which support audience partaking and less like mausoleums, which encourage less participation because of their quietness (Lacy 41). Performance art always will be a fun and random way to pass ideas. For sure, one of the most appealing elements of performance art, for Millan and Dempsey, is that it encourages dialogue between the actors and also, at times, the audience. Performance art stands as a shared experience between the artists, as well as the audience. Coming together as a community is a basic human need (Lacy 41). We have, at all times, done this, through religion, storytelling, celebration and mourning. Through performance art, the power of this urge is taken to create a new and different meaning. Another performance art that has had many people who have watched it shiver up their sleeves is Alice in Wonderland. The play, which initially came out as a novel has the remade by a number of playwrights in order to incorporate stage elements in order to present it to people in form of performance art (Dixon 62). Sontag's aggravation with the exercise of interpreters dividing a series of components in art rung again and reminded me of Alice's immature desire to shrink the world to value equations. Nevertheless, can interpreters, in realty, change texts as Sontag argues. Maybe as some playwrights have done while rewriting Alice in Wonderland after knowing the controversies surrounding Lewis Carroll. However, giving a fresh point of view does not cancel out the perceptions, which came after it or even the text itself. Sontag argue that contemporary interpretation excavate and destroys the meaning of art. However, critics believe that it is possible for multiple artistic realms to exist (Dixon 62). Looking at a work of art for the first time is thrilling as one gets caught up by the vision, but at the second time, the view becomes more intellectual on themes one might have missed. It is not easy to eliminate each and every judgment from art. Even Sontag discloses this when she says that real art has the capacity to make people nervous. This is an interpretation, which presumes artistic hierarchy. People need to find the sensory experience of art again even if that need not be the only way they face it. Nervousness in Alice in Wonderland comes about as the play portrays life as a meaningless puzzle. In the place, Alice faces numerous puzzles, which appear to lack any positive solutions and copy the manner in which life frustrates peoples' expectations (Dixon 63). The audience anticipates that the encounter Alice faces will make any kind of sense, but they do not leading up to their nervousness (Lacy44). The audience can see her trying to comprehend the Caucus race, comprehend the Queen's ridiculous game and solve the Mad Hatter's riddle, but all to vain. There is a connection between the audience as they all try to solve the puzzles by understanding their purpose and getting the answers but not of those were achieved (Dixon 63). Some have argued that the play portrays adult content, mostly about taking drugs and getting lost in a world that no one understands. The Cheshire Cat vanishes leaving just the mysterious grin behind. Alice consumes potions and pieces of mushroom, which altered her physical state. The caterpillar, on the other hand, smokes a water pipe. The entire environment of the performance is so deeply disjointed from reality and for sure drugs must have had been the main influence. After all, we all aware that this was the age of legal opium use (Dixon 63). Thus, we are left to believe that drugs are the ones that make us puzzled like the characters in the play. We will close this essay by saying that transparence is the most prime and liberating value in art. This means that we have to experience the transparency of the thing in itself in order to feel the nervousness (Lacy 88). This is the greatness of the plays presented in this paper. It is revolutionary and overly creative to redesign a work of art in order for it to be experienced on a number of levels. It should endorse the principle of redundancy, which is the principle of difficulty of modern life. Interpretation should assume the sensory experience of the art work or performance art as the best tool and not for granted. People should consider the sheer growth of art works available to everybody, superadded to the challenging odors, tastes and sights of the urban environment, which bombard people's senses (Lacy 89). Today's culture is rooted in excess overproduction and the result is gradual loss of the sharpness of people's sensory feelings. Each and every condition in modern life conjoins to dull people sensory faculties. It is significant that people recover their senses in order to grasp the understand of Sontag on art because if we do not feel this nervousness while look at a work of art or any performance art, then art has no meaning. Works Cited Dixon, Steve. Digital Performance: A History Of New Media In Theater, Dance, Performance Art, And Installation. Boston, MA: MIT Press, 2007. Print. Heathfield, Adrian. Live Art And Performance. Vol. 23. 2004. Lacy, Suzanne, ed. Mapping The Terrain: New Genre Public Art. Bay Press, 1995. Sontag, Susan. Against Interpretation. N.p, 20. Web. Swan, Sarah. Good Performance Art Makes Audience Nervous. N.p, 2014. Web. Read More