Pigs & Cats

One of the most important characteristics of performance art is that, because the performer always takes his own body as the art material, the process of a performing work involves combining the subject (the artist—the performer of the work) and the object (the artist's body—the art object, or the work). It is this space-in-between that will be an open ground for the most diverse expressions of the artist, and it will also open up dimensions of interpretation from the receiver-the public. Seiji Shimodo made an acrobatic in slow-motion over and underneath a wooden table. (A table he carried on his back all over the world for a decade to do this performance). Exposed on the table, all muscles are there to be seen, stretching, bending extending and moving around the table from top to bottom, left to right without touching the floor. The performance took twenty-five minutes in total, making the public perhaps uncomfortable.