Very silly party politics : surrealism and satire in the ‘Pythonesque’

2019 sees the 50th anniversary of the iconic British television comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus (BBC: 1969-74). This article focuses on the concept of ‘Pythonesque’, placing the broadly political satirical content that is evident within the Pythons’ mainstream TV work and in selected subsequent film work at the centre of the notion of ‘Pythonesque’. It will be suggested, moreover, that the Pythons’ socio-cultural critical position is embedded in a long established British literary satirical tradition. Further, this article will aim to show that ‘Pythonesque’ incongruity, whilst adopting the aesthetic of the nihilistic cabaret of the Dadaists, was further influenced by the contemporary strain of British vernacular surrealism that permeated twentieth century popular performance through Music Hall, Variety comedy and The Goons, and also borrows Surrealist satirical perspectives. This evaluation of ‘Pythonesque’ fusion of satirical and surreal elements will posit that the comedians were simultaneously behind the times; of their time; and, in their prescience, some ways ahead of their time in their construction of humorous commentary on British societal mores and their vividly underscoring of the absurdity of the institutions they targeted. Key Words: Monty Python, Satire, Surrealism, Comedy, ‘Pythonesque

Funny walking : the rise, fall and rise of the Anglo-American comic eccentric dancer

This article will attempt to reposition comic eccentric dance as a metamorphic form that still, surprisingly, exists, and is to be found with reasonable ubiquity, in renewed incarna-tions within twenty first century media. Tracing the origins of comic eccentric dance through examples of earlier comedy performance, and drawing from Bergson’s comic theory of body misalliance, this article will dis-cuss this particularly ludic fusion of music and comedy. Further changes to the form affected by modernist preoccupations during the new Jazz Age at the turn of the twentieth century will be suggested. Finally, ways in which the formulation lives on in twenty-first century in-carnations in the comedy work of, for instance, Jimmy Fallon and Ricky Gervase, and in popular television shows such as Strictly Come Dancing (BBC 2004 - ) and Britain’s Got Talent (ITV 2006 - ) will be posited

A future for Hashima: pornography, representation and time

This article sets out to investigate the relationship between ruins, futurity, and ‘ruin porn’ - a visual mode of representation that all too often seeks to fix post-industrial ruins as mere aesthetic objects, devoid of history and/or temporality. It does so by focusing on performance, which, in this context, is understood as a processual mode of art-making that provides spectators with an experience of time. In this expanded definition of performance, as one may perhaps expect, the performativity of the object is not limited to the theatrical event alone; rather, it now inheres in sometimes uncanny durational aspects of both still and moving images. The essay proceeds in three stages. Part one provides a historical and theoretical overview of the type of performance inherent in ‘ruin porn’; part two critiques two images from Yves Marchand's and Romain Meffre's Gunkanjima (2013), a photo album that attempted to document the ruins of Hashima, an island situated 15 kilometres from Nagasaki City in the East China Sea; and part three investigates the very different aesthetic at work in Lee Hassall's film Return to Battleship Island (2013) which was made in response to AHRC- funded project, ‘The Future of Ruins: Reclaiming Abandonment and Toxicity on Hashima Island’ (2013). In this reading of Return to Battleship Island , the onus is on showing how Hassall's film, in its representation of Hashima's crumbling apartment blocks and industrial buildings, intentionally sought to contest the atemporal logic of ‘ruin porn’ by attempting to endow the viewing experience with a sense of futurity. Crucially, this does not mean that film represented the future as an object, but, on the contrary, tried to make it palpable, as something one undergoes physically in the very act of reception

Performance Art : From Futurism to the Present

Goldberg provides a survey of performance art of the 20th century tracing the tradition's evolution from futurism through constructivism, Dada, surrealism and the Bauhaus. The practice in the United States (beginning with Black Mountain College through the New York scene of the 1950s and 1960s to the influence of conceptual art and the work of "the media generation") is also examined. Bibl. 2 p

Perfomance Art From Future to the Present

RoseLee Goldberg mengeksplorasi pendekatan seniman kontemporer terhadap politik, tradisi, keterlibatan sosial, dan dunia seni itu sendiri, sambil mengevaluasi perubahan status kinerja dan relevansinya yang semakin meningkat dengan seniman dan khalayak. Menampilkan karya terbaru oleh seniman pertunjukan terkemuka seperti Marina Abramovic, Walid Raad, Francis Alys, Pierre Huyghe, Tino Sehgal, dan Sharon Hayes, buku ini mencakup satu abad medium. Edisi baru ini juga mencakup kata pengantar yang diperbarui dan daftar bacaan yang diperluas. Terdapat pula 206 ilustrasi hitam-putih

Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present, 3/E.

This pioneering book has now been expanded with a new chapter that brings it into the second decade of the twenty-first century, mapping the global rise of performance to the present day. RoseLee Goldberg explores contemporary artists’ approaches to politics, tradition, social engagement, and the art world itself, while evaluating the changing status of performance and its ever-increasing relevance to artists and audiences. Featuring recent work by leading performance artists such as Marina Abramovic, Walid Raad, Francis Alys, Pierre Huyghe, Tino Sehgal, and Sharon Hayes, the book covers a century of the medium. This new edition also includes an updated foreword and an expanded reading list. 206 black-and-white illustration

Ser Cubano (entrevista com Tania Bruguera)

Tania Bruguera nasceu em Havana, Cuba, em 1968, filha de Miguel Bruguera, conselheiro político cubano na Embaixada de Cuba em Paris e embaixador no Líbano e no Panamá, e de Argelia Fernandez, tradutora de espanhol-inglês com bacharelado em Ciências Sociais. Tania Bruguera estudou no Liceu Francês durante sua infância e, dos 12 anos em diante, em uma escola de arte em Havana, se graduando pelo Instituto Superior de Arte em 1992. Nos últimos sete anos [1998 a 2005], ela tem vivido em Chicago e em Havana, dividindo o ano entre duas cidades, duas culturas e duas ideologias, “entre passado e futuro”, como ela disse. Essas idas e vindas entre continente e ilha, intercaladas com extensas viagens internacionais, têm aguçado o entendimento de Bruguera sobre o que significa “ser cubano” e o que é necessário para realizar uma obra que seja relevante tanto localmente quanto internacionalmente. “Posso utilizar o mesmo modelo dentro e fora de Cuba?” – ela se questiona. Sua consciência de viver em uma animada matriz política, de consequências ligadas a ações, proporciona a bússola ética à obra de Bruguera. Esse também foi o foco de nossa conversa que começou no último janeiro na Cidade do México e continuou em Miami e em Nova York