I wanted to try something new this week – live tweeting myself working through the assigned readings. I had a plan to Storify these tweets, but
- a) 50 tweets is a lot for a Twitter thread and
- b) even for Storify, it would be a lot of work.
Here’s the draft of what I had written, though:
| Tweet | Charac. Count |
| Trying something new for #AMST2560: bear with me y’all. | 55 |
| This week, in talking about “Empathy & Other”, we watched Paula Heredia’s “The Couple in the Cage.” http://bit.ly/2mUaRP5 | 121 |
| I found myself taking lots of notes on Fusco’s article “The Other History of Intercultural Performance.” http://bit.ly/2mDQq6Q | 127 |
| & seeing as I like livetweeting lectures……why don’t I try livetweeting my notes? So here goes. | 95 |
| “While the experiences of many of those who were exhibited is the stuff of legend, it is the accounts by observers and impresarios… | 131 |
| …that comprise the historical and literary record of this practice in the West.” | 81 |
| There’s an emphasis on historical and literary here…what other records might bring forth diverse accounts? Are there any? | 121 |
| The language of “legend” is interesting, too – adding to the exoticness being applied to those exhibited. | 106 |
| I rarely read behind-the-scenes review of exhibits, but it’s cool to see Fusco acknowledge the intent & realities of the project. | 130 |
| And these realities of fiction and misinformation, literalism and public interest, seem more relevant now than in 1994. | 119 |
| “the Bush administration had drawn clear parallels between the ‘discovery’ of the New World and his New World Order.” – I just wrote ? Here. | 140 |
| A little research brought me here, explaining her calling Columbus a “smokescreen” http://bit.ly/2ny4fmG | 104 |
| “Out of this context arose our decision to take a symbolic vow of silence….” – I wonder what the performance would’ve been like w/o this? | 137 |
| Speaking English, of course, wouldn’t have made sense. But how would language have altered the performance? | 107 |
| “Our cage became the metaphor for our condition… | 48 |
| linking the racism implicit in ethnographic paradigms of discovery with the exocticizing rhetoric of ‘world beat’ multiculturalism.” | 133 |
| I circled the details of the performance – the ‘traditional tasks’ incorporating both old and modern concepts, the ‘ethnic’ dance to rap… | 137 |
| …the ‘Amerindian stories’, the guards on hand….the leashes made me EXTREMELY uncomfortable though. | 99 |
| Immediately after reading the list of performance environments: “THIS is going to be a point of contention.” | 108 |
| What were the conversations were like behind the scenes? Esp. places like the @NMNH or @FieldMuseum? | 101 |
| How does performance art fit in natural history museums? Esp. recognizing the history of such events in similar spaces? | 120 |
| I mean, I think of intercultural performances as events for state fairs and expositions – but there’s something unsettling… | 123 |
| about this in a museum. Even if it is satire. | 46 |
| “The contemporary tourist industries…still perpetrate the illusion of authenticity to cater to the Western fascination with otherness.” | 135 |
| ^this reminded me of seeing shows like The Lion King on Broadway, or iLembe at the National Arts Festival. http://bit.ly/2mGiLuR | 129 |
| In the case of shows, the focus is cultures over exotic individuals…but seeing these shows & paying to see them… | 112 |
| …makes me think about how exoticness persists. The type of display has evolved, but is the West masking the intentions of performance? | 136 |
| “These shows were where most whites ‘discovered’ the non-Western sector of humanity.” Where do we learn about that now? | 119 |
| “The original ethnographic exhibitions often presented people in a simulation of their natural habitat.” | 105 |
| ^Does Fusco explain why they chose not to do so? I think the cage is more powerful in display if people were taking it as satire. | 129 |
| But, as we know, they weren’t… | 30 |
| “…even though the idea that America is a colonial system is met with resistiance-since it contradicts the dominant ideology’s presentation… | 139 |
| …of our system as a democracy-the audience reactions indicate that colonialist roles have been internalized quite differently.” !!!!! | 135 |
| Fusco goes on to discuss how exhibiting humans has continued – through decapitated limbs, gentials, etc. | 105 |
| What does removal of the whole body do for these presentations? How does it remove and obscure the “other”? | 107 |
| “The desire to look upon predictable forms of Otherness from a safe distance persists.” I’m reminded of Jennicam. http://bit.ly/2mlrlN4 | 135 |
| Or reality TV. Or YouTube commenters in general. These aren’t racial/ethnic categories of Otherness… | 100 |
| …but they are people that we choose to “other.” People we choose to remove ourselves from. People we ogle and do not imagine complexly. | 137 |
| “We underestimated public faith in museums as bastions of truth and institutional investement in that role.” !!!!!!!!!!!!!! | 123 |
| We had a great conversation about this at #heritage17 w/ Morgan Grefe & Ruth Taylor. http://bit.ly/2n3gMlt | 106 |
| Fusco then goes on to discuss the different experiences w/ gen. public from art museums to natural history museums, q’s I mentioned earlier. | 140 |
| pg. 157 is just covered in scribbles and notes toward the beginning in the end. | 80 |
| But “We found that [children’s] reactions have been the most humane” reminded me of this video: http://bit.ly/2mUohuH | 117 |
| Fusco goes on to discuss different audience reactions – POC, white spectators, art aficionados, museum professionals. | 117 |
| “No American ever asked about the legitimacy of the map…of the taxonomic information of the signs…” would this change in a smartphone era? | 138 |
| (I doubt it, but one would wonder. I, for one, would almost immediately Google it. Or I hope I would.) | 102 |
| Fusco then discusses the reactions of Latinos, Native Americans, and Spaniards. She also mentions the gender stereotypes. | 122 |
| I’m curious why she chooses to end her article on the frank dicussion of sex – | 78 |
| – its relationship to exoticness, being catcalled, projection of fantasies onto her body. | 92 |
| “Those are also the times when, even though I know I can get out of the cage, I can never quite escape.” | 104 |
| (Also did anyone take the time to read through the Encyclopedia Britannica entry? Makes you think about museum exhibition panels.) | 130 |
| I’m still fascinated by this performance – its otherness, its satirization, but mostly the reactions. | 102 |
| In what ways is this limited to performance art? How do we see elements of what Fusco satirizes in exhibitions, displays? | 121 |
| Other questions: what role does performance art have in public humanities? Is it a different one than public art? | 114 |
| What stakes does the performer have in its presentation? What about the venue? What if that venue is a museum? | 110 |
| Do we need to expect “better” of our patrons? Do we need to challenge ourselves further? To do what, in these cases? | 116 |