Lu Wang – How can performance art be more accessible to wider audiences

For the whole project, I did 10 interventions in total and 1 failed due to force majeure factor. And I will do another intervention on Dec.6th.

My early intervention “Campus Love” started on April 29th, I posted seeking love poster around CSM and LCC, to make me more brave to do controversial things. This has been tested on students from both campuses and enhanced experts, CSM culture and enterprise programme director Richie Manu, to have a conversation with me. The feedback I received is critical, according to Richie, I have to prepare more before taking actions, for example, how can I direct people after seeing my posters, what is the reason behind just to “seek love”. This intervention had a long impact on my whole academic year, for example, new people are having conversation with me about this poster thus I established new networks, I learned to be more direct and clear to direct people to know about my project, I also found out that even if I posted more than 20 posters around CSM and there were only 6 posters around LCC, people from LCC is more willing to engage with this intervention. I think this is a result of different dynamic between two campuses, LCC have more Chinese international students on percentage, which can potentially bring more support from Chinese community. While CSM students focuses more busy with just working on their own project. That helped me to form my later intervention on October 16th, I tended to seek for Chinese audiences and it eventually had a better turn out than expected.

On June 19th, I did a spontaneous intervention named “Diss Disney” in Paris, by copying trendy performance art on Chinese internet, which is performed by a grassroots rapper named Lodmemo, he competed on the popular “The Rap of China” talent show but was given a failing grade by his idol Shady, so he did a track “Thank God, Thank Heaven.” featuring the catchy refrain “Shady, Shady, I want to diss you” which quickly went viral on Chinese internet. As “Diss you” in Chinese sounds very similar to “Disney”, I copied this performance and changed the phrase to “Shady, Shady, I want to diss you. Micky, Micky, I want Disney.” and performed in front of Mickey Mouse in Disney Paris. I gathered bravery for my future performance art, and the audience is people passing by. The very direct feedback is from the person helped me taking the video, she said even if she is only holding the camera for me instead of performing in front of the camera, she felt a lot of pressure because doing things that are different from “normal” can be seeing as “weird and cringe”. That feedback formed my two interventions during my comedy tour which I will talk about in the next paragraph, because I realized I have to be more prepared for the judgement from other people.

The next two interventions are “Hi Tears” on July 5th in Milan and “Rock Paper Scissors” on July 7th in Frankfurt. “Hi Tears” is documented by National Daily Press Italian News. “Hi Tears” and “Rock Paper Scissors” happened during my comedy tour around Europe, during the tour, I did the show in a traditional stand-up comedy way and added a small performance art after the show to test people’s reaction towards an unexpected performance art, and those two interventions are highly connected to my comedy material so that my performance art can be more approachable to those who did not expect that happen. To me, it is important that my performance art is tested with real audiences. To the world, it changed the unchangeable structure of stand-up comedy. According to the feedback from Jiang, the CEO of WowComedy Beijing, it is a refreshing try for the stand-up comedy industry, as it is the combination of comedy and art. He also said: “Generally speaking, stand-up comedy is a perishable art form. This kind of performance art makes the jokes and comedians more memorable. After that, every time I play rock-paper-scissors with others, I will think of that wonderful night.”

On July 11th, I did an intervention in London called “Link”, I took a step back from performance art and tried to understand the process of artists creating abstract art, I placed myself as a mediator and invited two artists who works for abstract art, we took turns to draw continuous line in our own understanding to make the line a whole story. From this intervention, I gathered feedback from the two artists that I am talented in art thus I opened the potential pathway of doing art which is more abstract which influenced my performance that will happen during MAAI festival.

On August 21st, I did a tiny intervention in London called “Hair, Paper”, and I invited my artist friend to draw on my hair which leads to controversial reflection amongst people live in my surroundings. I had very negative anonymous feedback saying my hair was “horrible”, while I also gained feedback saying my hair was ”artistic”. It made inner change within myself as I learned that I cannot please everyone, I have to prioritize my idea when making art, that helped to form my latter interventions.

On September 27th, I was about to do a performance within a performance called “Discosailing” in Stratford, London, aiming to test how can performance artist express themselves inside of the framework of other artists’ thought, but it was cancelled in the last minute due to weather condition. From this failed intervention, I gathered thoughts of how to carry out performance inside of a collective performance, and it helped me to form my performance which will happen during MAAI festival.

On October 16th, I did an intervention “Hi Lu”, which is considered to be the key intervention amongst all the interventions I have done. This intervention is aiming to test audiences’ reaction towards different labels for a same show. According to Mancunion, stand-up comedy can be considered a form of art, but it is still debatable. And according to The Conversation, Stand-up comedy is not created purely by the performer, but as a collaborative production between the performer, the audience, the venue and the promoter, which is very similar to the idea of performance art. For the intervention, I restructured the same material in my summer comedy tour and used a more artistic style and invited the audience to label it. For this intervention, it changes the perspective of stand-up comedy and performance art within around 25 audiences and more people on the internet. I gathered a lot of feedback both from both experts and audiences. For summary, most of the audience will label this show as performance art and they are not sure if laughter is appropriate, and some non-mandarin speakers appreciated this performance in a non-verbal way, they enjoyed it by the ambience combined with other audiences’ facial expression. The controversial feedback is, consider the language barrier, I can tailor another questionnaire to gather feedback from non-mandarin speakers as their experience is not directly from the content itself, and I also should considered a better place to perform instead of a seminar room. This intervention greatly helped myself to find a new way to express myself, formed my confidence towards becoming a performance artist, and as this intervention is in between performance art and stand-up comedy and more like performance art, it iterated a lot from previous interventions which are more stand-up comedy related. It also influenced the intervention on November 24th and December 6th, those two will step outside of stand-up comedy, from a pure stand-up comedian, I am growing to produce pure art content.

From October 24th to November 23rd, my artwork “Falling Pieces” was exhibited in the open-to-public exhibition named “Change Horses Midstream” by Hypha Studios. Although it is photography, according to Tatlerasia, Performance art is experimental and boundary-pushing, designed to provoke thought and often carry social or political messages, rather than adhere to traditional notions of beauty or structure. As my art is not only about beauty and structure, it is a great chance to test how performative ideas can be expressed in different forms. On November 20th, I went to the exhibition again to participate in an informal panel discussion as artist, I gathered feedback from the audiences, according to an anonymous lady, my art is “an example of making art more accessible because it shows that art does not require specific art background, does not require very expensive facilities, does not require outstanding techniques, art is about the idea, the moment, and the unique vision in life.” This artwork changed the way people think about creating art thus it also encouraged the audience to find the unique perspective in their own life thus made art more accessible to wider audiences, as the exhibition went on for a whole month, I assume the number of change is around hundreds of people. Although this is a photography art instead of performance art, it built up my confidence towards being an artist in general, and from this chance, I got more chance to establish new networks with artists and it was also a great chance that I can introduce my project and gather external feedback from experts, and I also learned how to curate an exhibition from the conversation with the curator and my observation. This helped me to rethink my idea for my intervention on December 6th in a view of curator, I can step outside of my personal idea and thinking through the space, trying to tailor my performance to the space to make the experience of my performance in a whole piece, it is also influenced by the feedback I received from “Hi Lu”.

On November 24th, I made an art piece named “Security” which iterated from a performance art idea to a series of more fine art style photography and video. This intervention aims to test the accessibility in daily life to create art. I used phone chains to represent daily objects. A lot of people will attach a chain to their phone to feel safer from phone snatching. But if someone do want to snatch a phone, the chain wouldn’t help that much. It’s more of a needs from being insecure. So I used my art to express that valuable things can be delicate even though we are trying hard to seize it. And also it’s a reflection of the non-physical form of valuable belongings in life. This art took place in the area of Finsbury Park, London. Because according to Crystal Roof, annual total crime rate in this area is 658 per thousand population. This can be rated as 8 out of 10 or high crime level compared to other local areas in England and Wales. “Security” is liked by Visual Artist Khaos R. Blakk, according to them, “Lu in her art intervention titled ‘Security’, appeals to the reflection and acceptance of the fragility of one’s ego, and the display of insecurity through fear of losing valuables. We are asked to face the reality that delicate possessions in our day-to-day are still valuable.” As this intervention is a combination of photography and video, it changed some audiences’ idea that a series of art can be more than just one form.

On December 6th, I will conduct another intervention called “Being a Human”. This is to test the willingness of the audience to engage with more exhibition-style performance art. I will lie down and invite the audience to engage with this performance by lie down beside me, hold my hand, at the moment, we are not any labels, we are just human. For this idea, I researched on the Nap Ministry, which is focusing on the art of escape, and I also want to remind the audience of the horrifying news of Xuzhou chained woman incident, which is a case of human trafficking, false imprisonment, sexual assault, severe mistreatment, and subsequent events that came to light in late January 2022 in Xuzhou.

Summary:

Research:

Who is the stakeholder of Art Museum (15:14-16:34)

(16:34-20:04)

Gov.uk (2020) Museums Taking Part Survey 2019/20. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/taking-part-201920-museums/museums-taking-part-survey-201920

(Brief reflection: The survey of audience attending museums or galleries)

(20:04-21:44)

TateShots (2024) An Introduction to Performance Art. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z-YZ3A4mdk

(Brief reflection: Performance art is more about the idea, even if an artist passed away, the idea can still live and being carried on to the audiences)

(21:44-23:15)

The Art Channel (2024) Marina Abramović: What is Performance Art?. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcyYynulogY

(Brief reflection: Performance art is about being real, not like theatres. And the audience is the crucial part of performance art)

(23:15-24:14)

TateShots (2024) Does Performance Art Need to be Experienced Live?. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5ObKMT27_0

(Brief reflection: The relationship between performance art and recording. Performance art is not necessarily live, it can also be recorded, and artists can also play with it)

Reflection:

Daily reflection of toturials, seminars and lectures (0:00-15:14)

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