Art and Performance
March 2005, Tate Modern
The aim of this activity is to recreate some of the early work of Bruce Nauman
so that you might have a greater understanding of his work and some of the ideas behind performance and modern art today.
When Nauman first started his career as an artist, he found himself in a studio with very few resources with which to make work.
So he thought: 'as long as I am in an artist's studio, whatever I do in here is art.'
He turned his attention to the body - his body - using it as the perfect instrument for experiencing,
examining and portraying the human condition.
With himself, his studio, a few other things and a video camera he set about measuring his surroundings in terms of his own body.
In the video Dance or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square (1967-8) Nauman explores the edge of a square marked out on the floor in tape,
to the sounds of a metronome. His actions are repetitive and go on for a long time.
You can explore space with your own body just like Nauman.
The following activity was part of Art&Performance and was invented by Ben.
Top tips!
- For this activity you will need at least two people, a roll of masking tape, comfortable clothing and as many bouncy balls as there are people (any size ball will do).
- You might want to put some music on too. If you have a video camera you might want to video it too!
- On the floor mark out a square of about one meter for each person, make sure that the tape won't leave messy marks on the floor first.
- Decide on one person to be the exercise leader, who will call out the actions and lead the activities. The other people have to do what they say but you can swap around later. The leader has to time-keep. Each action should go on for at least 3 minutes (Bruce Nauman carried them on for hours!)
- First action: Bouncing the Ball. Bounce the ball, in your square until the leader says stop.
- Second action: Walking the Square. Explore the four corners of your square, move around its perimeter - exaggerate your actions. Continue until the leader tells you to stop.
- Third action: Exaggerated Walking. Break out of your square - use your whole body to walk, swing your legs high, crouch down low, and move in weird ways around the room. Do this until the leader says stop.
- Think of other ways of exploring the square with your body and then think about ways of exploring the room you are in. We put stickers on parts of our bodies and moved around the room with these stickers touching the wall at all times! Try them out - for as long as you can.
- Swap with each other so everyone gets a chance to lead the exercise.
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