Consider the issues raised in the text and discuss in relation to the lecture.

Autobiographical performance can have a tendency to seem self riotous, self indulgent and
narcissistic; therefore devaluing the work of the performer and misleadingly categorising them. In
this weeks a lecture we reflected on three artist, Carolee Shneemann, bobby baker and Tim miller,
each of them have specialising in autobiographical performance and each of them with a deep
political meaning which they wish to convey within their artwork. The figure on stage could simply
be seen as a vessel or representation of their message. As good as it sounds (I hope) that my solo
narratives carry with them the potential for creating community and shared agency- I know from
first- hand experience the delights, dangers, and limits of working in the first person. (Miller, 2002,
p. xxiii)
Tim Miller's main focus was on adapting social acceptance, ranging from sexuality/gender to the
aids crisis. He noticed that some people had a lack of acceptance for such issues due to their
deficiency of enlightenment and knowledge behind such issues. I created my queer body during
the worst of the AIDS crisis and in the period when my own particular front line of the nineties
culture war, the NEA4 controversy, was at its peak. (Mirrwe, 2002, p. 81) Through his own
experience he therefore produced autobiographical work to relate, comedically, to a broad audience
and so they can personally reflect on his own experiences. In the heat of times, I wanted to listen to
places on my body speak their tales. I began work on this piece by trying to tell the story of my
dick (Miller, 2002, p. 80) Although sounding crude Miller expresses his personal stories within his
own body.
Shneemann belongs to a group of artist associated with the first generation of happenings and
Fluxus in the late 1950s through the mid-1960s that theorized their own art in text that inspired
younger artists, laying the practical and theoretical foundation for the body and performance art
(Stiles, 2010, p. xxviii) Shneemann also had a passion for adapting the perception of certain
ideologies within sexuality and gender issues while exploring subjectivity, suppressed history and
native American's view of the bodies sacred being through visual art and painting; from painting
came movement-body and movement art. Despite her work being autobiographical, her work on
feminist ideologies and freedom for woman's right insinuates that her motives for working were not
rifled with self-indulgence and incipient monumental egotism. (Kalb, 2001). She uses her own
subjectivity within her body to divert the male gaze and to negate the dominating figure of men
within her sexually provocative work, as seen in her film fuses which also explores certain
realities within it. To displace the gaze within her work she would often have her cat Kitch present,
a sexual symbolism and an innocent spectre within her pieces.
Boby Baker also takes a role in her personal feminist autobiographical performance art by break
down the walls of femininity and masculinity Issues of autobiography, of the self, and the
authenticity, have been fully explored, as have questions about feminism and femininity. Bakers
presentation of self as a housewife and mother, from which position she invariably mocks the whole
set-up, is a focal point. (Barrett. 2007, p. 13) While attacking in an almost post-feminist manner;
using circumstances in the kitchen to represent how housewives and mothers are unjustifiably
viewed in modern society.
Using these performance artists as examples it is clear that, by positioning themselves as the
centrepiece within their artwork they can open up a vulnerable and exposing side to the art,
allowing the audience to connect with it on a higher and more personal level. It seems unjust and
undignified to group such individual artwork as simply egotistical or self-indulgent. Despite the
pieces relating directly to the artists personal rendition of certain political values it also appeals to a
mass audience allowing it to relate with many other individuals and opening up the audience own
interpretation of it.

Bibliography
Barrett, M. (2007). The Armature of Reason. In B. Baker, M. Barrett (Ed.) Bobby Baker:
Redeeming Features of Daily Life (pp. 13). New York: Tayler and Francis e-library.
Miller, T. (2002). Body Blows: Six Performances (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies).
Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press
Kalb, J. (2001). Guilt and Cunning. Documentary Solo Performance: The Politics of the Mirrored
Self, Volume 31, 13-29.
Schneemann, C., Stiles, K. (2010) Correspondence Course: An Epistolary History of Carolee
Schneemann and Her Circle. Duke: Duke University Press.