Diogenes

The Mountain Standard Time Performative Art Festival is a phrase that I have name recognition of.

That’s all.

When I saw an invitation to listen to hear Scott Rogers and David Dyment give a Diogenes Lecture under the Festival moniker I read the synopsis closely:

A performative lecture investigating the life and activities of philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412 BC) as the prototypical performance artist. It encompasses numerous themes from Rogers and Dyment's mutual research on Diogenes including biographical information on his life and deeds, recreations of his 'performances,' and details on the striking similarities and parallels to contemporary performance art.

Dyment is a Toronto based artist whose practice includes audio, video, multiples performance, writing and curating. His work has been exhibited in Calgary, Dublin, Edmonton, Halifax, New York City, Philadelphia, Surrey, Toronto and Varna, Bulgaria. He is represented by MKG127

Rogers is a visual artist who produces site-specific, collaborative, and conceptual projects. Currently he's an MFA candidate at the Glasgow School of Art. His work has been exhibited widely in Canada and internationally in Ireland, New York, Minneapolis and Berlin.

Everything was working for me. A performance by people from out of town. A venue close enough that I could walk to the event. A subject, about which I know nothing: Diogenes. An hour to close down what I was doing at home and walk over to the Nickle Arts Museum.

Three other people attended: a curator from the Nickle and two others in front of me. A powerpoint presentation flashed a picture of Diogenes on the screen and thought to myself, “Hey, I saw that on the ceiling at the Vatican.” At least I thought I saw it.Later,Wickipedia was to confirm for me that yes, Raphael’s “The School of Athens” has Diogenes front and centre. In the Vatican, the guide that day had said, pointing at the figure reclining on the mable steps, “Here is Diogenes, a character in his own right, but we don’t have time to go into that today.” A mystery is always more interesting than all of the other facts at hand, and so I continued to stay alert because what could be luckier than having 2 performance artists talk about Diogenes

Their paper opened with a quote from Laurie Anderson: "History is an angel being blown backwards into the future / History is a pile of debris / And the angel wants to go back and fix things /To repair the things that have been broken / But there is a storm blowing from Paradise /And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future / And this storm, this storm is called Progress." The presenters were also referencing Walter Benjamin’s book On the Concept of History. That was a lot of information in the first five minutes of a lecture given to someone whose face and probably brain is still frozen from cataract surgery. In the back of my mind I was thinking about Rebecca’s paper-in-progress on Angels in America and wondering how it was that I was making connections with 4th century B.C. Diogenes.

By the time the lecture was over there were plenty of links, showing how Diogenes might have been the first performance artist – even linking him with contemporary Spank, whom I would have known nothing about unless I had attended this academic lecture.

Well, enough jokes for all of you.

Love,

Arta