Hi, my name is Amy Bryzgel. I am a Professor of Film and Visual Culture
at the University of Aberdeen and I'm about to take my students on a little walk.
But it's not just any walk.
This is a performative participatory walk.
I use it to teach them about performance art, the genre that I study.
So this is a piece that was adapted from a performance scripted and scored by
Czech artist Milan Knizak in the 1960s and it was a walk around Prague.
Now, I've adapted it for the University of Aberdeen campus,
but this year I also adapted it for Covid times.
So these are the instructions that the students got about the walk. You'll see them
in this walk referring to them.
Normally I just adapt this for the University of Aberdeen campus, but
now I've added in Covid restrictions so always maintaining the two metres
physical distancing and the rule about remaining silent was a part of the original performance.
I think it's about time to go. Let's go see what this is all about all right.
So,
I hope you enjoyed that.
It's a fun thing for me to do with my students every year and the students really enjoy it.
If you're wondering what it meant, well it meant several things.
First of all, my students became the artists.
Of course, the piece was written by Milan Knizak and so he is the author of the piece
itself and the idea, but my students created the performance today. So they were also the artists.
So, in many ways this democratises the art process.
It's not just the great artist genius that can create a work of art but everyone can do it. Even
people who've never created an artwork before
The other thing is that this artwork, well where is it? Can we hold it,
can I bring it, can we hold it in our hands?
No, it is not an object-based based form of art. So there is nothing to buy or sell
and in many ways artists were trying to get away
from the buying and selling of art and art that was about higher ideas.
And then there's also the idea that it breaks up the monotony of the every day. There was a
lot of people on campus sort of looking, oh what's going on you know, so it breaks up
the monotony of the every day and gets you to look at things maybe a little bit differently.
So I hope you enjoyed that. I certainly did and thanks for watching.