Description - "Body, Image and the Other"

The workshop operates through a series of presentations, lectures and exercises. The whole group is split in 3 parts, all of which are to work with each educator in 3 cycles of about 2 hours, in order to let the students experience all 3 methodologies throughout the duration of the workshop:

Jamie McMurry
Autobiography as Fuel: The autobiographical as muse in time-based practice is greatly informed by better understandings of our own perceptions.
Seeking to see better our individual centrism and the influence of our own personal histories onto our view of others, while at the same time pursuing a better understanding of certain social conditionings we all embrace.

- To work with the role of identity in art practice with an alternate approach; how and what makes us see ourselves the way we do, not how others see us.
- To acknowledge the idea that most human identities are pre-formed and embraced through vehicles of religion, nationalism and materialism and to temporarily pursue the shedding of these pre-packaged identities in an effort to discover something new about one's self and in turn, using that new knowledge to form action based exchanges within the context of the workshop.
This will be pursued calling the auto biography within the activities of these artists.
- Use of elements of personal significance, autobiographic. After some group discussion, each participant presents an action, described as self-portrait.
- Better understanding of the unconscious obligation of using our own histories to draw upon our opinions of the others.
- Make a more personal connection with those around us, through the discovery of a similar "past".
- Identify objects with an apparent universal significance, to the extent that those objects reveal in similar histories.

Helge Meyer
He will work with body related exercises where the participants work with the aspects of body, time and space.
There will be parts of “chosen deprivation” and body action. There will be partner exercises to lose the general feeling of distance to each other.

- The examination of a part of the body from someone else, how can we lose the “general way” of behaving to each other? How can we make a real meeting happen?
- The participants are writing whatever comes to their minds for a specific time when the get key words like: “flag”, “courage”, “pain”, etc. This exercise is about research without controlling the mind… getting into a free flow of ideas…
- The participants are forced into duos, trios and other groups. They work in this forced groups and get mixed again.
Working with space as a given frame for the process and the boundaries of the work. Working in a special “performance time” that is different to “normal time”.
- Working with the body as tool, as material, as software. Learning about the boundaries, about the limitations, about gestures, movements.

Alexander Del Re
Working with elements of the construction of our own identity in relation to the others, and to elaborate the construction of our perception of the others by analyzing alternate ways of relationship.

- Analyzing the role of the audience, witnesses, the "others".
- A methodology of analysis of the dynamic relationship among our being (the "I") and the human environment that surrounds us (the "other").
- The use of surveillance technollogy to question and examine the observer and the observed.
- Analisis of the interdependency and opposition among genders.
- What do we see when we see some person of the opposite gender/sex orientation? What do we see when we see some person of our same gender/sex orientation?
- A series of exercises will be developed comprising our concepts of "individual" and "collective", looking to alternate ways for the students to re-discover themselves as well as their relationships with others.

 

Educators - "Body, Image and the Other"

Jamie McMurry (USA)
Helge Meyer (Germany)
Alexander Del Re (Chile)

Workshop Biography

After working as performance artists in parallel for about 10 years, in cultural contexts as diverse as those of Chile, Germany and the USA, and after being aware of each other's work for a number of years, Alexander Del Re and Jamie McMurry finally meet at “Currency” international performance art festival in 2002.
Jamie McMurry met Helge Meyer in another festival in Europe in 2003.
Since then, the artists particpate in each other's festival and events, organized and/or produced in their respective countries:
Alexander Del Re is invited to perform at "Full Nelson" performance festival, organized by Jamie McMurry in L.A., in 2003.
Jamie McMurry, por su parte, es invitado por Alexander Del Re a presentar su obra en el festival “Coalition”, que PerfoPuerto organizó en 2003 en Valparaíso.
Then Jamie McMurry is invited by Alexander Del Re to perform at the international performance art festival "Coalition", organized by PerfoPuerto in 2003, in Valparaiso, Chile.
Later, Helge Meyer made contact with Alexander Del Re, to show one of his HM2T performance art documentation as part of the "In Transit" international performance art festival, organized by PerfoPuerto in Chile and Argentina, in 2004.
In 2005, Alexander Del Re invites Helge Meyer and Jamie McMurry to participate at the 1st International Congress of Performance Art organized by PerfoPuerto in Valparaiso, including 2 festivals in Santiago and Valparaiso. Helge Meyer is forced to decline the invitation, due to lack of support in his home country.
In early 2006, the three artists decide to develop an international workshop, with an initial date at the Hildescheim Kunstverein (Germany), in March 2006; future dates include workshops at the National Review of Live Art (Glasgow, Scotland), Western Front (Vancouver, Canada) y School of the Museum of Fine
Arts (Boston, USA), among others.

 

Students - "Body, Image and the Other" - Chile

University Participants:
Ana María Blanchard (Viña del Mar University)
Valeria Vidal (Viña del Mar University)
Marla Freire (Playa Ancha University)
Cristina Olguin (Playa Ancha University)
Constanza Piña (Playa Ancha University)
María Jose Salvo (Católica de Valparaiso University)
Pía Sommer (Católica de Valparaiso University)
Johanna Alvarez (ARCIS Santiago)
Priscila Santis (ARCIS Santiago)

PerfoPuerto Participants:
Sofía De Grenade
Alejandro Leonhardt
Macarena Ruiz-Tagle

 

Sponsors - "Body, Image and the Other" - Chile

PerfoPuerto staff:

Artistic Director: Alexander del Re
Executive Director: Alejandra Herrera
General Producer: Carolina Rubilar
Public Relations and Finances: Francisca Fuentes
Resident Scholar: Patricia Contreras
Graphic Design: Camila Schliebener, Catalina Schliebener
Web Design: Camila Schliebener
Field Production Coordinators: Camila Schliebener, Sofía De Grenade
Senior Archivist: Catalina Schliebener
Audiovisual Archivist: Daniela Poch
Photographic Archivist: Jonathan Vivanco
Audio Producer: Patricio Escobar
Photo Documentation: Tamina Hauser
Volunteers: Marcelo Caracci, Leonardo González, Jorge Opazo, Marisel Lobos, Oscar Gálvez

Special Thanks:
The Organization wishes to thank the additional sponsoring by Viña del Mar University, Playa Ancha University and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Santiago.

 

Jamie McMurry (USA)

Has been creating original works of performance art and presenting them all over the world for more than 10 years. He co-founded and directed the Rite! Performance Art Troupe (Seattle) and Powderkeg Contemporary Performance (Seattle and Los Angeles) from 1992-1997 and then continued with an already established yet stronger focus on solo works. McMurry has also organized and produced extensively in the field, staging major regional and international performance art exhibitions in Seattle, Los Angeles and Boston including the world-renowned Full Nelson Festival which celebrated it's 5th installment April of 2003.
He was most recently working as a full time visiting faculty member in the Performance Area at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (through Spring 2005) and has also had visiting artist/guest lecturer positions at the University of Northern Iowa and the Turku Art Academy, Finland.
His works often include intensely visceral activities and a densely packed series of actions referencing the pacing and behavior of young children at confused and often mischievous play. The materials as well as the actions come from what the artist considers to be a place of memory and nostalgia, but quintessentially suburban Americana. The messages behind the works often reveal a longing for the past and for one's youth, a remembrance of the people who had a role in that history as well as a need to connect with the viewer in a personal and emotionally empathetic way. These endeavors seem to call attention to the body as the archive of one's past and physical or emotional pain transcending traditional reaction and becoming a means of unification with an observer and in many cases, a circumstance of the action as it is a circumstance of everyday life.
The amount of actual work involved in the preparation and the performance itself also has a heavy bearing on the concept. As with the objects and the actions, the preparation and the shear quantity of materials and activity reflect a desire to align these personal historical references with a strong work ethic. In an attempt to make the works as auto-biographical as possible, McMurry often finds the preparation as much a part of the work as the actual execution.
The use of these autobiographical experiences, nostalgic imagery or objects of a personalized "Americana" and physically challenging or inherently visceral tasks is to evoke a time of conflict in the evolution from child to "contributory member of society". This framework exists in forms most clearly representational of a personal history, but more covertly as an exposure of the so-called "American Dream" and Nationalist Ideology as being a manufactured pursuit to propagate the wishes of the wealthy and politically powerful.
"I feel performance stands strong as the most exciting and direct form of contemporary art in the world today, with the potential for incredible range and power. As more young artists are drawn to the genre than ever before, it's becoming apparent that performance is a vehicle for as true an expression as is possible. A medium with such a short history gives room to explore and the possibility to use performance as a vehicle for honest and pure work is very attractive to younger artists who feel they are bombarded by the commercially viable. These aforementioned attributes are vital to all art historical movements and performance will be remembered as the true expression of our time."
Over the past 11 years I have collected an extensive amount of experiences as a professional practicing performance artist, exhibit organizer and teacher. I have presented over 100 different and original performance actions in 14 different countries at varied galleries, museums and alternative spaces.
As an active organizer, I have produced large and small scale performance, video and installation themed exhibits in Seattle, Los Angeles and Boston hosting more than 150 different regional, national and international artists and exposing their works and writings to more than 4000 patrons. Such artists and critics have included Alastair MacLennan, Jean Dupuy, Skip Arnold, Roi Vaara, Andre Stitt, Irma Optimist, Jessica Buege, Nezaket Ekici, Dan McKereghan, Jacki Apple, John G. Boehme, Julie Bacon, Alexander Del Re, Helge Meyer and Roddy Hunter.

 

Helge Meyer (Germany)

Born in Woltwiesche, Germany in 1969. Formed the Performance Art Group System HM2T (with Marco Teubner) in 1998.
Since 2000 Meyer is associated with the international association Black Market International. He performed in festivals like Exit in Finland, in Italy, at Aozora Art in Japan, Open Art festival in China, PiPaf in the Philippines and intensively in Canada and the USA. Helge Meyer works parallel with Black Market, System HM2T and solo.
Meyer owns a diploma in Cultural Studies (University of Hildesheim, Germany). He is a writer for art magazines like Inter (Canada) and teaches performance art workshops and theoretical classes. As a researcher he is interested in questions of pain, duo work, cooperation and the history of images. Currently he finished a doctoral thesis about the image of pain in Performance Art (Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, Germany).

 

Alexander Del Re (Chile)