Reading 3 Response

I found this article to be very interesting as well as directly linked to my chosen performance artist for the Performing Body project. Discussing trauma in art and the possibly problematic aspects of this concept, the author references trauma both in the context of performance art and well as in photographs. I think it is an interesting discussion to be had, not necessarily about whether or not it is ethical to perform traumatic art, but more about the ethicality of observing this type of art and whether it affects the inherent sensitivity to real, tangible human trauma which we all possess. The author brings up photographs from concentration camps, including quotes from a concentration camp survivor. These photographs, while striking and powerful, almost sexualize the context in which they are taken. Is it ethical to turn something so horrific into something beautiful? Something so approachable? I thought this was the most interesting part of the article because I had never thought of such a concept. Thinking about this concept now, it seems strange that we as artists memorialize awful things through art. I understand the concept of paying respect or tribute through the piece, but in a greater scope, it seems odd to turn something or someone's experience which shouldn't be approachable to the everyday person into something to be owned, admired, and shown to others. The concept of objectifying a person and their trauma creates an issue of placing the subject in an everlasting cycle of being seen as a spectacle over a person and therefore reiterating the trauma done to the person in seeing them as "someone (like us) who also sees," as Susan Sontag put it. This same question comes up in relation to performance artists in their performative work that may be either about their trauma or include physical trauma to draw attention to the larger issues at play. A performance artist who uses physical trauma to themselves, like Maria Marmolejo cutting her feet before walking atop pieces of white paper, very effectively creates a sense of urgency to identify the larger problem at play. But at the same time, this draws the attention away from the humanness of empathy for the pain the artist is going through. The artist effectively turns themselves into the object, the spectacle, that the photographed victims were turned into, but I can't imagine this doesn't do some harm to the viewer and their empathy. We are in an age where movies and video games depicting unspeakable violence are commonplace, and yet it seems there is still at least some distinction when we see it happening in real life. Though I think performance art is necessary and very powerful, I think it does further blur the lines of what pain of our fellow humans we should be tending to when we see it. Where does the performance go from art to an emergency?