Aesthetic experience in performance art : Marina Abramović the artist is present
Author
Kırmızı, Defne
Advisor
Gürata, Ahmet
Date
2013Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
This thesis explores the possibility of an embodied, corporeal and transforming
aesthetic experience that performance art may reveal. The artistic practice of Marina
Abramović, who witnessed and pioneered the paradigm shifts in the performance art
sphere, will be examined in conjunction with the performative turn and affective turn
that art has been going through. In addition to a comprehensive overview of the former
academic studies done on Abramović’s body of work, her latest performance The Artist
Is Present (2010) and the critical reception it received will be discussed within the
framework of aesthetic experience as a path to affective encounter in the area of
contemporary performance art. John Dewey’s idea of art as a form of experience that
creates an active engagement with oneself, and the others, in addition to the
contemporary affect theory that is rooted in Gilles Deleuze’s concept of affect will lead
us to see how affects grow in the area of performance art, and how aesthetic experience
is constituted in and reinforces this affective engagement.