July 10, 2013 – Over the next two days, we move further and further out into the city to explore, critique how sexuality interacts with public space, and percolate on what our personal art projects will be. Before we send the participants out into the streets of Madrid to photograph, play, and scrutinize, we circled back to our core ideas of power and reclamation.We looked at two articles, one in Dwell Magazine about Italian/Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi whose driving enthusiasm for building was creating spaces for the public to convene, interact, and construct their own collective identities. The second was from Gentleman’s Quarterly, a first person account of urban exploring, or “Urbex” for short. Urbex is the art, philosophy and action of infiltrating public, semi-public, and private urban spaces such as buildings under construction or ancient aqueducts.
To feed our brains more before tromping around sites such as public tranpsortation and religious zones to examine sexuality, we looked at artworks and documentation practices for temporal art from artists including Alexey Timbul, Marina Abramovic, James Turrell, and Laurie Anderson. They caused us to think of simple actions as profound, human connection as art, light as a medium, and the airwaves as a public space waiting to be claimed.
The remainder of the day was spent in small groups making site visits to photograph, record, and otherwise test out what rules govern sexuality in public space, how, and why.Caption photo B: Participants freshen their lipstick before dinner on the steps in Plaza de Vazquez.
QueerArtLab 