The "Viewer's Responsibility"

In the excerpt we read on intermedia, what struck me the most - and what seemed most relevant to performance art - was the statement that "art assumes its being only in the interpretive act" (70). Performance art can be considered part of "intermedia" because it often involves types of movement or dance, some video aspect, or other artistic elements. The artist "performing" for us becomes the art, and all of their tools are things we would normally settle for calling art (video, painting, sculpture, dance etc.).

Something the author of this piece said was that "intermedia only exists or comes into being as such through the interaction between objective elements and the subjectivity of the viewer" (70). This, and seeing some of her other work on the blog,  made me think of Marina Abramovic's latest installation "The Artist is Present." In this she sits in the middle of a plain room, on a plain chair at a plan table. A participant sits across from her and she simply looks at them for a certain amount of time.

Clip demonstrating how the piece works

This kind of art demonstrates how important the attitude is that the viewer brings to the experience. Objectively, Abramovic is simply sitting there and looking at you. There's no other explicit meaning besides that. But people can't help but feel something when they're put into a situation where there's nothing to do but look back at someone, silently. Various kinds of people would feel various types of reactions from this experience. Partially, I think it's in our nature to find meaning in anything so when we're faced with art like this our minds start working to construct something out of it - something that is inevitably tied intimately to us and our personalities and experiences. The essay excerpt explained that the "viewer has no choice but to construct meanings on his or her own out of the interactions in consciousness between different elements; there are no given meanings... the viewer must assume responsibility for those meanings, and he or she is aware of having to assume such responsibility" (70). I don't know if every viewer is aware of this responsibility they take on, but I definitely feel like it's there - we construct the meanings for ourselves and have to face what meanings we create, and what they could mean to us - because Abramovic is simply sitting there, while we subconsciously volunteer to do the heavy lifting.