Ten Vulnerabilities - Performance Catalogue 2020

Ten Vulnerabilities Ruchi Patel - 2020

Spaces themselves are built upon layers of information; history, phenomenology, physicality, politics, relationships, etc. In an architectural approach these can be understood by the architect through many different explorative processes.

One method to do so would be to physically place oneself into space, to experience the layers of space first hand.

Performance allows this direct relationship between the designer and space to be built.

To place oneself into a space of performing, they need to be meditative and reflective, this allows the person to understand the effects of actions of spaces. A performance places the designer in the shoes of a participant, it places the designer back into the human aspect of spatial understanding. Each designer brings to the table their own knowledge of the world, their own socio-political backgrounds, their own histories as a mere moment in a greater history. A performance allows the designer to not only involve themselves in their own paradigm of the world, but to also reflect on the minute aspects of established socio-political systems and relations.

Everyone perceives the space around them using their own paradigm of the world. Designers want to design the space around people assuming how people might understand the space. Designers may want to keep an objective view of space, but aren’t they also belonging to the public who experience space? To become open to the environment, to allow their own biases to be projected on the space around them allows the designers to become the people they design for.

Performance allows the designer to be vulnerable to society and take away from an experience a deeper understanding of the space they are a part of. What could disrupt a space, enhance a space, involve a space? A practice of performance in architecture would recognize the effects of space on people and how to tap into this sensitive connection. Wouldn’t architecture be benefited with a wholesome understanding of society and space?

Performances Self-Sabotage Unsatisfied Achievements What Goes on in a Lonely Apartment.

Shelter - re-enactment of performance by Terese Longva & Laurel Jay Carpenter

Loosening Up - based on performances by Adrian Piper Eye on Glass - based on project by Ana Mendieta Who am I? - based on project by Bruno Metra and Laurence

Jeanson

Crawl - based on performance by Pope. L In the Absence of Speaking This Quarantine has Gotta End

Self-Sabotage The aesthetic of reflecting over a flowing creek on a nice day is consumed by the emotions of the person reflecting. The action of dropping stones to send ripples distorts and momentarily dissipates the reflection of the person while reflecting the gentle beauty of the nature of the water. The stones are always aimed by the person at the subject of the reflection, the face of the person herself. The water droplets that break away, hit the face of the person, having to deal with the consequences of inflicting disarray to the reflection. The relationship between the viewer (the person) and the viewed (the reflection) can be understood to be possibly strained.

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Unsatisfied Achievements In the optimism of working hard, the world of labor consumes us. The mental, in addition to the physical, toll it takes when someone keeps entangling themselves in their work, becomes a toxic cycle of aiming to do better but in turn hurting themselves. The impasse occurs with the satisfaction of achieving something but not achieving the freedom that is expected through hard work.

The flowing brightly colored dress becomes a mark of the good life, what the present offers itself when the hard work reaches fruition. The work that continues in an aimless fashion prevents the achievement of the goal.

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What Goes on in a Lonely Apartment In isolation, when we only have ourselves to obsess over, we might find things we do not like of ourselves. In trying to absolve themselves from problems, they may only get worse. I look into a reflection of myself trying to inspect myself. What I find is a mark of charcoal I obsess myself over. I find myself unable to wipe off a mark of charcoal on my face. As I attempt to wipe the charcoal off my face, I only spread it further, allowing it to melt into my skin. I continue to get frustrated in attempting to be clean with no expected results.

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Shelter

Re-enactment of performance by Longva and Carpenter Shelter was the last part of Longva and Carpenter’s three part performance about “Needs”. Shelter, specifically, is about “a need being met.” The two people have the same exact materials, but they perform different tasks with those materials.

During the laborious re-enactment of Shelter, I pull a heavy bag of stones across the room with a table and chair strapped to my back while my partner sits at the same table and chair counting stones. We both face ourselves in a mirror hung from our necks. In some ways we understand these tasks as comparable actions; where one physically labors herself, the other is at a relaxed steady position throughout the performance.

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Loosening Up

based on performances by Adrian Piper Adrian Piper would put on headphones and dance to music only she could hear in a public square. In these performances, I attempt to feel the freeness of being able to dance in a public place not bothered by the people and space around me.

This performance was performed three times, each time I feel less restrained by the people around me and more responsive to my own movements and music. The first time in the middle of a street, unable to separate myself from the cars around me. The second time in the sand road in Joshua Tree. Allowing myself to dance while drawing in the sand, I start feeling the sand and feeling free with the movements I make. The third time on Hollywood Blvd in front of the Chinese Theatre. I completely disregard the people around my but dance in relation to the hand and feet marks in the concrete blocks on the ground. I notice people recording me, but do not feel bothered by it.

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Eye on Glass

based on project by Ana Mendieta Eyes allow us to visualize and understand a large amount of what makes up the physical space around us. These visions may also become distorted by what our brain deciphers them to be. Focusing on mental health, this procedure of distorting my eye with the glass, while still attempting to look through the eye, presented an image that felt familiar. The physical distortion of what I am seeing, seems to match the mental distortion I sense when under high stress and anxiety. Ana Mendieta’s project was in some ways a reclamation of her body.

In this project the distorted vision becomes one that I keep to myself as it cannot be reproduced for someone else, only experienced by physically distorting the eye.

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Who am I?

based on project by Bruno Metra and Laurence Jeanson The Facial Reconstruction project was a project that recreated personalities. By changing facial features to recreate a new persona. In this re-enactment I, instead, emphasize different aspect of myself. In one I paste on the recognizable laughing smile of President Barack Obama. This smile is to emphasize what many perceive as my own recognizable quality, my own laugh. By relating it to Obama I may show that I find respect in my own laugh. In another reconstruction I past on half a face of a white model. Comparing beauty standards I have felt the need to compare to growing up in a society that values physical features. I leave parts of my features to feel pride in my own differences while facing my own insecurities I may have.

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I’m Allergic to Mornings

based on crawl performances by Pope L. Mental illness still glooms with stigma and caution because of which many people may not express their struggles. Many people suffering from these illness might find themselves thinking or being told that the issues are non-existent and only in their minds. With a combination of personal and scientific collected data, I realize the often overlooked aspects of physical symptoms of depression and anxiety.

I allow the feeling of loneliness and an overall heaviness to take over me as I crawl from one end of a bridge to the other. As I drag myself on the dry and dusty bridge, I feel sensations in my body allowing myself to relate to the other real aspects of my environment. At a certain point I pull myself using a rope to guide me. I take breaks when needed. In the end I pull myself up and walk away with the rope that led my way.

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In the Absence of Speaking I begin my chewing on a pieces of charcoal, creating a slurry of charcoal and saliva in my mouth. I move over to face a piece of paper and being drawing with the charcoal slurry covered tongue.

With our inability to physically and socially interact, many people feel an uncomfortable in being able to express ideas, feelings, thoughts. We have become unable to even come together to discuss matters important to us due to the need of social distancing.

This performance comes out of the irritation of that, taking a different route to expression, expressing one’s emotions through media that can be consumed by others through drawing. The situation that is created causes a dumbfounded reaction which causes me to reconsider communication.

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This Quarantine has Gotta End In the performance I am listening to COVID-19 news while applying makeup on Instagram LIVE. This performance begins to combine the need for a social outlet, anxiety caused by news, and a realization of the lack of public consumption. As the news begins to cause stress, I obsess over my lipstick, allowing the anxiety to be expressed through an emphasis of my mouth to an online public platform. Breathing and expression are both related to the mouth, in this case, the mouth becomes emphasized as it feels unable to do both: properly breathe to reduce anxiety and vocally express.

As I seem to be losing control of the situation, I regain control by choosing to present myself LIVE.

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