Performance Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Performance Art - Essay Example This paper shall focus on performance artists and how they have been affected by various incidents and happenings. It shall highlight performance artists Marina Abramovic, Yoko Ono, and Stuart Brisley. This paper is being carried out in order to review the impact of performance art on art itself, and how these artists have impacted on the evolution and development of art in general. Each artist’s personal and professional history will first be presented, followed by a description of their significant work or performance art. Their more significant work/s shall then further be described or discussed in relation to significant incidents in their lives. Body Performance art refers to a performance which is exhibited to an audience; the performance may or may not be scripted, or it may also be carefully orchestrated or even spontaneous (Carlson, 1996, 3). In some cases, it may be performed live or taped with the performer being absent or present. It may include the situation which involves the four basic elements: time, space, performance’s body or presence in a media, and the relationship between the performer and the audience (Carlson, 1996, 4). It can happen anytime at any venue for any period. The performance of the artist exhibits the artist’s particular work of art. Three performance artists who have had a significant impact on art and on performance art shall be depicted in this essay. Marina Abramovic was born in Belgrade, and is based in New York as a Serbian performance artist (Stiles, et.al., 2008, 3). Her career first started in the 1970s and since then, she has been active in the arts for more than three decades. She has mostly been known for her performance art, exploring the relationship of the performer and the audience, the possibilities of the mind, as well as the limitations of the human body (Stiles, et.al., 2008, 5). She is considered to be the ‘grandmother of the performance art.’ In one of her earliest perfor mances, she sought to evaluate rituals and gestures, using knives and tape recorders, jabbing the knives between her fingers and each time she cut herself, she would use a different knife (Stiles, et.al., 2008, 4). In this performance, she was able to review the mistakes of the past and her previous attempts. In this performance, she sought to understand the state of consciousness of a performer and how it was actually possible to push him into actions which he could never normally do (Stiles, et.al., 2008, 6). In her next work, she considered how to create the energy caused by extreme body pain. In this performance, she cut off her nails, toenails, and hair and tossed it into a flaming star (Richards, 2009, 6). She considered these acts of purification as against the political traditions of her past; with the star representing the communism that dominated her home country for many years. To culminate her performance, she leapt across the flames into the centre of the burning star. She however passed out from lack of oxygen, but it took a while for her audience to realize such unfortunate circumstance (Richards, 2009, 7). This incident implied how physical limits can also limit performance; in this case, her passing out limited and curtailed her performance and what she wanted to convey in her art. For the years that followed, she also attempted to test the state of consciousness and whether it could also be made part of a performance (Westcott, 2010, 18). In her performance, she took a pill used by catatonic patients. This pill caused her to go into seizures and other uncontrollable movements (Westcott, 2010. 13). She recalls that while she did not have any control over her body, her mind was clear and lucid and she could observe what was actually

Royal Mint Counts Down to London 2012 with Special Coin Essay

Royal Mint Counts Down to London 2012 with Special Coin - Essay Example Royal Mint is a government owned body under the ownership of HM Treasury. The company is located in South Wales and employees more than 900 people (Royal Mint, 2012) The Royal Mint has won the advantage of minting Olympic coins for the Olympic event to be held in London in 2012. For this, Royal Mint has started minting and distributing coins since 2009 and has even changed UK regulations to mint kilo gold coins in limited edition. In this paper, the aim is to develop a suitable marketing strategy, through a sound marketing research, for Royal Mint in order to generate good revenues from the venture (Royal Mint, 2009) Marketing Research Marketing Research has been defined by Philip Kotler as ‘the systematic design, collection, analysis, and reporting of data and findings relevant to a specific situation facing the company’ (Blankenship, Breen and Dutka, 1998; 7) While market research is only concerned with collecting data on the market and analyzing it, marketing research involves a broader spectrum. It provides information on the market, the customer as well as the community. It provides sound information to the marketing managers to develop a good marketing strategy based on the external environment as well as the internal environment. Marketing research allows decision makers to make the right marketing decision under guidance from the data collected. Marketing research is usually conducted for launching a new product in the market so that managers may make better decisions by understanding the market and the needs of the consumers. The most important aspect of every marketing research is the identification of the problem which is done through a proper knowledge of the background of the situation (Malhotra, et. al, 2002). Background of the Situation With the Olympic Games being held in London for 2012, the Royal Mint has been selected to commemorate the minting, distribution and marketing of the Olympic Coins. Royal Mint, for the designing of the coins, opened up a Royal Mint Public Competition for making the designs of the coins. Out of the 30,000 entries, only 29 designs were chosen for the different sports (BBC, 2010). Furthermore, the UK government changed its legislation to accommodate the new half kilo gold coins for the special occasion. Olympic Coins have been introduced in Olympic Games since the time of the Greeks. The purpose of the Olympic coins was to act as a souvenir for the games so that the ordinary people would relate with the game also. They should also become part of the legacy by buying the coins and eventually promoting Olympic Games (Preuss, 2004). Even though the Royal Mint is a leading coin producer in UK and has expanded into the global arena since a long time, it is the first time that the organization has been selected to mint coins for an occasion as big as the Olympic Games. Therefore in order to effectively launch and market its products, the organization needs to conduct a marketing research. Problem Definition Problem Definition is the most important aspect of the marketing research as it forms the foundation of the marketing research. If the researchers are able to identify the problem correctly, the marketing research is made easier and more effective. In the case of the Royal Mint, the problem is the effective manner of launching Olympic Coins in the public. Royal Mint has little or no experience in this particular field since they have not minted coins for commercial purposes on such a vast level. The question here is not whether to launch