Media and Performance

After watching videos and listening interviews of several artists who are significant to this movement, I understand that Performance is a combination of all art manifestations. Performance could include video, sound, canvas, dance, or acting among others. However, Performance is always different to any other art expression. It’s different because it is related to time, the moment when it is performed, the ambient who surrounds the action, and the people who interact with the artist. According to Marina Abromovic, Performance is about living the present, and also writing the future. To me, it is kind of breaking rules, the mold, and the unexpected far from the traditional way of thinking. Performance is about being spontaneous.

Sherin Neshat, an Iranian activist, has experimented with film, sound and video. Her performances and work are full of emotions and beauty. “The work of Neshat addresses the social, political and psychological dimensions of women's experience in contemporary Islamic societies.” Below it is her powerful film called “Turbulent”, where two Muslim singers – male and female- are presented in different screens to the audience. Remark of the gender division in the Iranian culture. In the presentation of the films, one screen is in front of the other one, so the viewer is forced to turn his head from one screen to the other one becoming part of the performance at some point.



The second piece its a photograph entitled “I am its secret” from Neshat’s collection of photographs "Women of Allah”.