Performing ground
Subtitle: space, camouflage and the art of blending in
By: Laura Levin
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 243
ISBN-13: 9781137274243
Subjects: Art and camouflage; Spatial behavior; Identity (Philosophical concept); Human beings; Effect of environment on; Performing arts; PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / History & Criticism; PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / Stagecraft
Description: "What stands out when we blend in? Performing Ground is the first book to explore camouflage as a performance practice, arguing that the act of blending into one's environment is central to the ways we negotiate our identities in and through space. Laura Levin tracks contemporary performances of camouflage through a variety of forms - performative photography; environmental, immersive, and site-specific performance; activist infiltration; and solo artworks - and rejects the conventional dismissal of blending in as an abdication of self. Instead, she contemplates the empowering political possibilities of 'performing ground,' of human bodies intermingling with the material world, while directly engaging with the reality that women and other marginalized persons are often relegated to the background and associated with the properties of space. Performing Ground engages these questions through the works of some of today's most exciting performance artists such as Rebecca Belmore, Liu Bolin, Janieta Eyre, and Violeta Luna, and groups like Gob Squad, Punchdrunk, The Yes Men, and Urban Mimics"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note:; title: 1.World Pictures2.Camouflage Acts3.Performing Ground4.Environmental Unconscious5. Embedded Performance6.Epilogue: Situating the SelfNotesSelect BibliographyIndex.