First Performance! Skype Monologue

Spalding Gray- Swimming to Cambodia

Spalding Gray is incredible! That pretty much sums it up...It was simply fascinating watching Swimming to Cambodia, and the way Spalding Gray's tone and mannerisms undulated and morphed according to what he is talking about. An impressively daunting task...to communicate and perform a monologue for more than an hour in a single stretch. I'm curious to what sort of preparations are required to fulfill a task like this so effectively.

Laurie Anderson

Not knowing much about Laurie Anderson beside a few examples of her work, I find this article extremely insightful and equally humbling. Most interesting is how she perceives herself as being primarily a storyteller and secondarily an artist. And although the use of technology and digital media in her work appears to be of prime importance, she refers to it as..."just a way of amplifying or changing things...the least important thing about what I do, by far." She continually mentions that her goal as an artist is to connect with people in an personal and intimate way, despite how visually and sonically grandiose her artistic productions appear..."I always just wanted to make things that other people understand. That's my only reason to be here. My only reason." Pretty inspiring!

Marina Abramovic- Name Writing Exercise

Time Spent: 1 hour, from 9:03 to 10:03 a.m. on January 25, 2013

This exercise was challenging and intriguing, and had much of the same effect that the mirror exercise had, specifically the requirement of intense concentration. Most interesting about this exercise was watching the slow, jittery, fragmented movements of my hand and the tip of the pen touching the paper...It became meditative in the sense that I was not necessarily trying to move the pen slowly, but trying to find a balance of not moving the pen and simultaneously moving the pen at the same time...Much effort was required to move slowly, progressively, and consistently. Again, I set a timer on my phone to let me know when the hour had elapsed. Like the slow-motion exercise, this exercise was designed to force participants to slow down and reevaluate what constitutes their everyday actions through altering and modifying the tempo at which they move...