"Fantasy Beyond Control" and "Art as a Performative Act"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zSA9Rm2PZA Both articles required for class reading today contribute a unique perspective to performative video pieces. "Fantasy Beyond Control" spends time discussing how these kinds performances do not interact with the viewer but are a one-way mirror, but then suggests there are certain ways that video can interact with its viewers in non-conventional forms. "Art as a Performative Act" focuses on the movement that makes up performance pieces. The link at the top is to Martha Rosler's 1975 short film "Semiotics of the Kitchen," which demonstrates several of the aspects of performance art touched upon in these articles. The movement in this case is not the camera movement or movement within the frame, but movement of the individual. Martha's movements are not extreme but they are powerful in their subtlety: the film demonstrates her containment, within the frame, within the walls of the kitchen, and abstractly within the boundaries of a woman's role in society. Her movements are small enough to not push these bounds, but they are swift and full of an anger which becomes more and more apparent as the film continues. This film also challenges our ideas of how a viewer can interact with the subject: at first glance, the performance seems to be Martha showing us around her kitchen, naming the different parts, but we can relate to her suffering, on a physical and a social level. She constantly breaks the fourth wall, looking straight and defiantly at the viewer, which makes us realize that what we are watching is not a one-way mirror after all, but a dynamic critique of society.