Performance artist Miranda July is aiming to achieve an effect.
She will be at UNM this Wednesday and Thursday at the Arts Technology Center, on Los Lomas and at Rodey Theatre in the UNM Center for the Arts.
Performance art can be some pretty freaky stuff and oftentimes it's a powerfully intimate window into an artist's or audience's psyche.
Miranda July was born in 1974, in Barre, Vermont. Her videos "The Amateurist," "Nest of Tens" and "Getting Stronger Every Day" have screened at prestigious venues like the Whitney Biennial, the Guggenheim Museum and the International Film Festival of Rotterdam. July's most recent multi-media performances, "Love Diamond" and "The Swan Tool" have been presented in The Kitchen in New York and the Institute of Contemporary Art in London.
July has recorded several performance albums and was recently commissioned to make a series of new audio works for National Public Radio. She directed a video for the rock band Sleater Kinney, made her feature film acting debut in Alison MacLean's "Jesus' Son" and provided consultation for feature films.
In 1995, she founded Joanie 4 Jackie, a movie-distribution network for independent women filmmakers.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Wednesday, July will be talking about all that stuff and more. This screening and presentation will include part of "Nest of Tens," "The Amateurist" and all of "Getting Stronger Everyday."
Thursday's performance will be more involved. July will be performing "How I Learned to Draw," a new and in-progress composition that requires some audience pre-homework.
To attend the presentation, July asks that you complete assignment 12 from www.learningtoloveyoumore.com -- you'll have to print out pictures of Morgan Rozacky's neighbors and have a friend or stranger tattoo one of their images onto your body with a ball-point pen.
Who the hell is Morgan Rozacky you ask? Go to the Web site. "How I Learned to Draw" is a performance in 20 parts, with only 12 currently in place. To perform the piece July employs the audience, sound, video, prayer, levitation and herself. Multiple stories continually tell each other -- the story of the performance and its audience on this particular night, a story about fathers and a story about levitation.
So you'll have some stranger scribble on your person and get lost inside a happy, inner-place and each performance is free and within walking distance.
The Wednesday presentation will be held at the Arts Technology Center of the University of New Mexico at 1923 Las Lomas Blvd. NW, at 7 p.m. Thursday's performance will be at the Rodey Theatre in the Center for the Arts Building, at 5:30 p.m.
