Kaprow, also known as the initiator of "happening", called activities those private actions whose instructions, listed in booklets, each interpreter would perform their own way.
Each one of the reinventions (executions) of an activity helped to redeem the changing essence of art (art was like the weather), to recover it from its subordination for centuries to material artwork, being in reality pure flow, hazardous as life, subject to the influences of each time and place. [These are brilliant words by Le Bastart, which I adore]
The Activity involved couples engaging in eight sets of rules and procedures during a time in history when public displays of intimacy were monitored by the country’s authoritarian regime.
Comfort Zones explores the notions of “territorial bubbles” and “eye contacts” as defined by the social sciences, which essentially posits that people have invisible bubbles around their bodies limiting their degree of comfort in relation to the proximity of other people.
Kaprow anticipated that the bubbles would shift in size and range depending on the social situation and individuals involved, so he sought to engage his participants with each other through behaviours that would elicit imperfect and unconscious non-verbal communications.
They were expected to pronounce the key word “now” in scenarios where either reached the limit of his or her comfort zone. Invisible and extrasensory elements that stem from mutual feelings were responsible for bringing them together or repelling them away.
For time spans ranging between a few hours to private/public spaces and sedentary/mobile activities, partners A and B engaged in acts that tested the fluidity and resilience of their territorial bubbles, or the boundaries of their comfort zones as they stood in relation to one another.
The activity consisted of eight rules or protocol for couples at the time when demonstrations of intimacy were checked by the authoritarian regime of Franco then in place. The title refers to the invisible territorial bubbles we unconsciously create around our bodies — limiting our relationship with other bodies and establishing the boundaries of our comfort zones.
Kaprow states that these bubble shift in size and range depending on the social situation and the people involved, so he prompted the participants to engage in these situations that would prompt imperfect and unconscious non-verbal communications.
"It did happen. The seven couples who carries out Comfort Zones in Madrid, discovered antagonisms, tenderness, and even visionary states they were unprepared for."
Comments