Art as performative enactment!!

As a studio art major, I never really understood art beneath a canvas a brush and paint. Since learning about sound, video and performance specifically, my definition of art has been drastically transformed. Even nowadays, I am still not exactly sure what these mediums are but exploring them from an artist’s lenses has allowed me to see their individual beauty. As I mentioned previously my definition of art pretty much covered the traditional representation of it being painting, drawing and sculpting and never actually saw art connected to technology or any digitalized medium. During the speaker’s presentation on Thursday when she showed us some pictures and videos of her work, I immediately became interested in beginning a portfolio with work aimed more at performance and video simply because I started to see a clearer connection such tools and art. Now, the reason I said this was because the question surrounding me became, what is art. 
 And the three concepts Hans-Goerg Gadamer includes in order to explicate how the truth in art happens are play, symbol and festival. Out of these three, I seemed to comprehend and appreciate festival the most. Simply realizing that just like a celebration brings an entire community together, art has also the power to do so, truly amazed me. A sentence that really stood out to me and makes emphasis on art’s potential and allure is: “Art is a power to enact an experience of community in solidarity”. 
 But this community must be a universal one that extends to everyone to whom the work of art speaks. I find this last assertion really interesting because I feel Hans-Georg is letting us know an audience and the role it plays is extremely significant. In order for someone to fully recognize the work of art, there must be self-recognition. This rises when the work of art “calls our being to question”. One great example of this, I believe, is Vincent van Gogh’s famous work Starry Night. This piece, painted in 1889 still resides and impacts people presently. I am quite sure it will forever be considered a masterpiece due to the way people have shown and continue to show an immense appreciation towards it. Art communicates. It directly speaks to us and this is why some paintings become historically precious. Starry Night has evidently touched/impacted thousands of people and will continue to do so because of its ability to directly connect with the viewer. But a video or performance has the power just as a painting to move and captivate people all around the world. This article has allowed me to see the power of performance to connect with people’s emotions, sentiments and it is precisely at this moment that the truth of art comes out. 
Video of Marina Abramovic explaining what performance art is!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcyYynulogY