Essay On Freak Show

Although Fusco created a documentary on the live experimentation that Gomez-Pena and she have created to criticize Westerners on how they view and treat “Others” or primitive people, but her editing decisions on “The Couple in the Cage,” may have skewed the viewers the understand her satirical piece without viewer’s own personal opinion or interpretation of the performance. Comparing the live performance and to Fusco’s video, there were properties that the live performances did not have but the video did have. In the video, Fusco purposely placed videos and pictures of freak shows to juxtapose her performance to deliver same ethnocentrism that she experienced in the cage and the freak show performers who also faced the same problem. When the spectators paid to take pictures with Fusco and Gomez-Pena, there was

Richard Elrey De Castro Professor Pejman Omidi English 101A Issue/Dialectical Essay October 9, 2014 Franz Kafka, in his the story he wrote The Hunger Artist, indicates that humans can never fulfill their desires. The story should not be seen literally but should be seen as a metaphoric message for the readers. It is explained in the story that the hunger artist is not fulfilling the nourishment that is needed for entertainment. The viewers want to catch the hunger artist cheating because they feel that this will fulfill their desire.

In the book Life After Death by Damien Echols, Damien shares multiple personal journal entries from when he was in prison. They range from stories about his childhood to what life is like in prison. Within these stores, there are many unique quotes. One I find interesting is from page three when he is talking about the type of people he wants to read his book. He states, "I want to create something of lasting beauty, not a grotesque freak show exhibit" (Echols, 3). When thinking about this quote, one of the first books to come to mind is Cirque Du Freak by Darren Shan. Although these books have nothing in common, it makes you think about what kind of person people believe residents on death row are. Most people probably view people in that

Rituals or cults are part of the average’s man or woman’s everyday life. From following a religion and practicing its ceremonies, to performing tasks in order to belong to a certain crowd, people are constantly involving themselves in cult-like activities and the rituals that come attached to them. Avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger in his films Inauguration of The Pleasure Dome and Scorpio Rising does not only highlight some of these cult rituals, but also induces the viewer to become part of them. On one hand, Scorpio Rising depicts an actual ritual by creating the portrait of the leader of a motorcycle gang who is part of a sacrifice while Inauguration of The Pleasure Dome does not only suggest a religious ritual practice, but also creates a trance state for the viewer––allowing them to be part of the ritual. Both films use similar tools to achieve the ritualistic reference. They both do it through alluring set design and costumes, reference to religious acts, and through repetitive and detailed narrative schemes.

In the article “The Return to Ritual: Violence and Art in the Media Age” by Jacob Siebers the world of violence through art and the cultural influence surrounding it is being examined. According to Siebers traumatic artworks have “something active in them that is more difficult to capture” (5). The art examples in the article are presented in the form of a bullet wound to the head and a half sliced pig suspended in formaldehyde. The subject of trauma art is not focused on a specific aspect, but rather what is disturbingly beautiful to the artist.

My aim is to conduct a critical analysis on the Edinburgh ‘Fringe’ Festival, an annual event with the purpose of providing a platform for unjuried theatrical performances. This event is an established one and has been held in Edinburgh every August since 1947, when eight theatre groups turned up uninvited at the Edinburgh International Festival and decided to perform their shows at the ‘fringe’ of the festival. (Edinburgh Festival Fringe, [Accessed: 23/05/2016])The Fringe began to grow every year as more and more performers turned up and performed their own fringe shows. In 1985, the Festival Fringe Society was created as a facility to formalise these performances and create a central box office. The society decided to draft a constitution that ensured that whilst they governed the logistics of the event, they still operated within the ethos of the founding members of the fringe. Therefore the society maintains a policy that they have no part in vetting the performances for the festival. (Edinburgh Festival Fringe, et al.)This means that anyone with a creative act can perform over the three weeks in which the festival takes place. So, the Fringe Festival has come to be known for hosting thousands of shows across hundreds of venues catering for a variety of tastes and interests. The Fringe has succeeded in creating an outlet for many people who wouldn’t have had the opportunity to otherwise perform in front of thousands of accredited journalists, art industry professionals in

Towards the late 1950s, Abstract expressionism began to lose impetus, many artists across the world, especially in America and Europe, began to embrace performance art. In that context, Marina Abramovic’s work is typical of the ritualistic strain in 1960s performance art, often involves putting herself in grave danger and performing lengthy, harmful routine that result in her being burnt or cut, or enduring some privation. She view her art almost as a sacrificial and religious rite, performed by herself for a congregation of viewers; the physical ordeals she endures form the basis for exploring such themes as cleansing, endurance, trust, departure and exhaustion. Her work might be interpreted as having displaced art from traditional media,

Artworks have played an indelible work to the lives of humanity. The creative nature in Artists is a complex matter to define. The uncertainties in the intrinsic nature in art lay difficult aspects that can only be answered by values, themes and skills depicted in an artist artwork. Apart from playing the intricate psychological effect on humans, the artworks have been used as a tool of expression that has been revered and uniquely preserved for future generation. Among some of the most revered modern forms of artwork has included Chicano Art that had a core relationship to Las Carpas, Indigenismo, rascuachismo and other forms of performance art.

The artists performed self-injury in the most weird and gruesome approaches to obtain positive public responses. Besides, performances also wanted to reach an unique state of being. Therefore, public was able to share awareness by watching such performances. Most people found the performances uncomfortable to watch, resulting in making curiosity the driving force. Honour, H & , J. Fleming (2009),

A freak show is a rational thought, some people think if you go to a freak show you will see things that you couldn’t see out in public, but this is not true. Freak shows charge people money to see things that have been born or developed diffrently from the normal person or animal. Often things that people charge you for could be at a reduced price in other places, well, it’s the same way with a freak show,but instead of being at a reduced price, you could see or even touch them in a public place.

In the field of video art, there are many well-known works that the people have come to love. But one piece that strays away from the norm is “Clown Torture” by Bruce Nauman. In this abrasive and disturbing yet confusing allegory, Nauman announces the viewer to something that contradicts the routine of a viewer, to experience art as something beautiful and sane.

The values and fashions that evolve within the community, are both perturbing our consciousness and our behavior subsequently. The hunger artist was died of starvation for artistic faith. His physical body was hastily buried, so that a vibrant Panthers was to replace him. Ironically, the Panthers and the hunger artist were in stark contrast. They represented symbols of elegance and vulgarity respectively. Elegant artist was disconsolately dying for hunger; but vulgar Panthers was enjoying the opposite one. The situation proscribes the reality to a certain extent. Hunger Artist performed real and pure art, but miserably, the art was only understood and adhered by hunger artist. The hunger artist wanted people to understand and appreciate his art. Unfortunately, he was the sole audience for his art. He also knew that his spectators were not actually in appreciation of his art, but in appreciation of his talent show. From their perspectives, a person could endure forty days without food or drink was ridiculous, interpreting that so-called hunger performing arts and circus were of no

Controversial art is inevitable, some more profound than others. The majority of these works exhibit a distaste for conformity, therefore upsetting much of the public. But, the idea of each unique piece explores this psychological rejection in order to traffic popularity. Many of these artists, as a consequence fall into infamy- but they are obsessed over as much as the classics. Great art, however, is only achieved once the creator is successfully able to unnerve the audience. The viewer must step out of his or her’s defined boundaries of comfort and face these reproductions of monsters throughout history. Criminals of all scales find themselves recreated in pop culture, even the most unsettling of

Vulgarity is a tricky word when it comes to describing art performances, and it was one label that the Tokyo street performance group Zero Jigen or Zero Dimension dealt with quite often. The term has an inherit quality of dirty and undesirable, however there is also an erotic aspect that draws people's attention. Zero Jigen had an inherit and distinct understanding of the line between disgust and interest that they used to their advantage in their performances. The groupwas founded between 1960 and 1963 by Kato Yoshihiro and Iwata Shin'Ichi and lasted till the end of the decade. They were famous for their gishiki, or rituals, that they performed on the streets of Tokyo, trying to force people to look at social issues. They were also infamous

The Fluxus art movement presents an interesting combination of philosophic-based scores, interwoven with potential risks. Fluxus, which encapsulates not only music, but performance art holistically, entails compositions that often feature Cage-like parameters with an emphasis on performance. Thus, scores are usually presented as a set of instructions rather than notated music, which could also initiate debate regarding the definition of music. The scores that will be philosophically analysed within the genre of Fluxus are Dick Higgin's Danger Music Number Seventeen [Figure 1], Robert Bozzi's Choice 9 [Figure 2], Bengt af Klintberg's Forest Event Number 4 (Danger Music for Henning Christiansen) [Figure 3]. The dangerous aspect of Fluxus is presented through all aspects of trauma. This is made apparent by Michael Nyman, who expresses a quotation from Dick Higgins in relation to his Danger Music compositions, which states, “each of which emphasized one spiritual, psychological or physical danger that seemed appropriate to the general aesthetic I was using …” . The nature of this genre of music, at least on surface value, does appear to be unethical in the treatment of not only the performer but also the audience. This is particularly perceived within Figure 1, which propels psychological and spiritual trauma upon the audience. However, the score is not overtly unethical in nature and thus must be analysed within proposed theories of moral evaluation. This, therefore, brings