Unstable

The use of the body as living raw material during a performance enables the artist to reduce the distance between himself and his art work. Even before any activity takes place, the body manifests itself in both a material and a temporal dimension by its simple presence. The arrival of performance art during the 1960s followed man’s desire to use the human form to diminish the gap between life and art.

In Anna Halprin’s tasks and Allan Kaprow’s happenings the body became both a medium and an instrument, enabling artists to study, in a different light, questions that have troubled artistic thought, above all questions relating to representation.

Defining “living,” as the frontiers become blurred …

Through submitting her own body to numerous surgical operations, the artist Orlan questions our notions of gender and identity. Other artists have used advanced technology to push the frontiers of what is commonly accepted as being human (flesh, intelligence, history, technology). In 2000, the Australian artist Stelarc created the performance “Third Hand,” during which he used both of his hands as well as an artificial arm attached to his own arm in order to write on a wall. This ...