Disruptive Consciousness, Performance Lecture, 2009
Carolee Schneemann
Disruptive Consciousness: A Performative Lecture

In the 1960s, Carolee Schneemann (*1939 †2019, USA), a pioneer of performance art, was associated with both the Fluxus movement and the Judson Dance Theater. Schneemann worked with film, sculptures and performances. Her art was visionary and transcends genre boundaries; it was thus initially met with little sympathy and much criticism from her predominantly male colleagues in the avant-garde art scene (the Fluxus movement soon excommunicated her) and feminist artists alike. Schneemann’s experimental film "Fuses" from 1964-1967 is considered to be the first feminist erotic film. In protest against the Vietnam War, she developed more interactive forms of performances, which her audience could directly influence. The central themes of Schneemann’s work were gender roles, sexuality, war, memory and death.

In her 'performative lecture' Disruptive Consciousness, Schneemann addressed
resistance, radicalization and current art issues through a history of her own
work as it was activated by feminist research. The performative lecture will
unravel certain misapprehensions and deformed conventions surrounding theoretical
assumptions of the 1970's.

Format
lecture performance

Document media
Video File

Issue date
2009

To be seen in
re.act.feminism - performance art of the 1960s and 70s today, Akademie der Künste, Berlin., 13.12.2008

Tags
fluxus