Presentational Performance Vs. Representational Art: A Self-Reflective Interview...once again, set to Fiona Apple.

I've been thinking a lot about performance art lately.

This shouldn't sound odd, given that I'm getting a degree in acting. Actually, it should sound a bit troublesome... Why am I only thinking a lot about it lately?

I guess because I have always somehow separated theatrical acting from performance art in my mind. Silly, I know. Lately, I've really been appreciative of how honestly people perform when they perform their own material. It's raw. It's painful. It's healing. It's beautiful.

Is it wrong that I have built such a strong distinction in my mind between an actor and an artist?

Not really. I think there are very few actors who can really call themselves artists, at least in the way that I define an artist. Myself included.

So what is it that distinguishes an artist from a performer?

Simple. A performer presents, and an artist represents.

Let me elaborate.

A performer presents something to an audience. They present another person's art in some kind of a physical manifestation. This is a very important role, don't get me wrong, there are performers who blow my mind, but I think there are really very few performers who fall into this category of "artist". An artist as I define one, anyway.

An artist represents. Break this word down. Re-present. This a ceremonial act, and the word representation is easily substituted for transubstantiation. An artist summons the soul of the world and throws it into their work. They call the past into the present, so the power of the thing can be felt and better understood. They re-present a life that has once been lived and feel it all in the moment.

So, who would I consider a performance artist, then?

Fiona Apple. I mean, I named my fucking blog after one of her songs, who else would it be?

Why?

I'll let her demonstrate. It needs no explanation...

...but I'm Lily, so I'll end up explaining it anyway.

Fiona Apple is a performance artist. This may be because she lives and relives her own work and her own words, but she's done some pretty gut wrenching covers as well, so I think that is only part of it.

What strikes me about this video is how beautifully and courageously she throws herself into it. It's obviously a painful subject, and she's reliving it. Some moments are more obvious than others (though the subtly is lovely and very well placed), but by and large, you know that she's in it. She isn't just singing about something that happened to her months or years before, she is living in the experience. That's what makes her so impossible to tear your eyes away from.

That's the art of it. Because she is feeling it, I feel it with her. She makes her words somehow feel like my own.

She obviously has this effect on others as well. Which brings me to the next video.

Same song, different artist. At first I couldn't decide if Elvis Costello fit my idea of a performer or a performance artist. At first I was leaning towards the former...but by the end of the song he's got me stuck on the latter. Hook, line and sinker. Welcome to the club, man.

What gets me is that he fills in the blanks she left at the end. He adds another two "I know"s Fiona deliberately leaves out. This delights me. He's really made it a tribute as opposed to a cover. He delivered his own representation of her words. That brings the whole spirit of being a performance artist back into the song. At least for me. She seems pretty giddy and proud of the tribute at the end, as well. She invoked something profound in him, and he did a representation of her work in his own Elvis Costello way. That. Fucking. Rocks.

So, then what have you taken away from this?

A desire to make another's words feel like my own, and to step out of the realm of performing. Acting is just what is sounds like. I'm tired of acting...I want to turn acting back into a performance art for myself. Time to represent, ya'll.