Performing Things
By
Maiko Yamamoto
BFA, Simon Fraser University School for the Contemporary Arts, 1996

A THESIS ESSAY SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF APPLIED ARTS
In
Visual Arts

EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART + DESIGN
2014

© Maiko Yamamoto, 2014

ABSTRACT
I make performances using space, time, the body — and sometimes things — as
materials. These performances attempt, through a personal and embodied
investigation of these materials, to explore an intimacy with the viewer that engages
with questions of individual and collective identity.
My current work includes performative acts or gestures that evolve through a
phenomenological process of inquiry. The work aims to challenge the ways we relate
to each other physically, emotionally and conceptually inside the spaces we occupy in
order to create moments of tangible engagement with each other. Through my art
work, I am interested in finding a means to open up family histories, everyday
experience and cultural and socio-political perspectives between the viewer and the
artwork, in order to explore how this exchange can shift our interaction with the world,
offering new ways of seeing and identification.
As a form of research, the artwork investigates how the act of interpretation can draw
the viewer into a performed reception, attempting to make essential the complex social
relationships that exist in a shared space through activating what the viewer’s ‘part’ or
‘role’ is in relation to a work. To this end, my working processes include promoting an
intimacy through reversing spatial relationships, using performance and the body to
encourage an embodied response and drawing upon narrative conventions, such as
metaphor, to further an interpretation that supports an intersubjective engagement in
order to deepen the opportunity for the viewer to perform their own meaning in their
reception of a work.
Influenced by Merleau-Ponty’s theories of bodily perception, Claire Bishop’s writing on
the physical relationship between art and viewer and Amelia Jones’ ideas on
representation of the performed body and its role in meaning production, my research
attempts to understand how we can create definite connections with the viewer
through our shared attention to a work. As such, artists Tino Sehgal and Sophie Calle
have been influences inside my practice.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

iii

LIST OF FIGURES

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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DEDICATION

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Introduction
Performing Meaning
Proxemical Flipping
Performance
Metaphorical Embodiment
The Act Of Interpretation

1
2
3
7
11
13

Case Study: And if I tied myself to you
Spatial Resonance And The Power Of The Flip
The Body Is A Metaphor For Home
The Gallery Can Be A Lonely Place To Perform

16
18
20
21

Case Study: Public Sleep and Bridge Affection
Spatial Identification And The Sleeping City
The Body As Transmitter
A Metaphorical Jump

26
27
29
31

Case Study: Rose
When Proxemics Get Personal
A Bodily Association
The Burden of Rice

36
38
40
42

CONCLUSION

44

BIBLIOGRAPHY/REFERENCES/WORKS CITED

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LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 1: Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells, The Quiet Volume, 2010.
Used by permission of Ant Hampton.

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Fig. 2: Theatre Replacement, BIOBOXES: Artifacting Human
Experience, 2007. Used by permission of Theatre Replacement.

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Fig. 3: Maiko Yamamoto, Public Art Carry Me, 2012.

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Fig. 4: Maiko Yamamoto, And If I tied myself to you, 2012.

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Fig. 5: Lucy Gunning, Climbing Around My Room, 1993. Video Still.

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Fig. 6: Maiko Yamamoto, And If I tied myself to you, 2013.

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Fig. 7: Maiko Yamamoto, And If I tied myself to you, 2013.

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Fig. 8: Maiko Yamamoto, And If I tied myself to you, 2013.

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Fig. 9: Maiko Yamamoto, Public Sleep, 2013.

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Fig. 10: Maiko Yamamoto, Public Sleep, 2013.

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Fig. 11: Maiko Yamamoto, Bridge Affection, 2013.

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Fig. 12: Tino Sehgal, The Kiss, 2010. Used by permission of
Loren Madsen.

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Fig. 13: Maiko Yamamoto, Rose, 41 2014.

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Fig. 14: Maiko Yamamoto, Rose, 41, 2014.

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Fig. 15: Maiko Yamamoto, Rose, 41, 2014.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to the following people and organizations for their support and guidance:
Chris Jones, Jill Banting, Leigh Gillam, Sarah Nordean, Lisa Simpson, Leah Weinstein
Jay White, Saori Yamamoto, The Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts
Council, National Association of Japanese Canadians and Theatre Replacement.

DEDICATION

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For Kevin, Hokuto and Felix MacDuff

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INTRODUCTION
In this thesis I will discuss the research and artworks I developed over the course of my
Masters of Applied Arts degree program. Together, this work describes an
investigation into how performance can manipulate what I call the ‘materials’ of space,
time and the body, in order to explore new physical and mental spaces of engagement
between the artwork and the viewer. Through the construction of how these materials
interact and collide, I hope to invite the viewer into a considered negotiation of
interpretation, and specifically one that reveals this negotiation as part of a process in
which the viewer of an artwork can perform reception.

In Performing the Body Performing the Text (1999), Amelia Jones and Andrew
Stephenson write that they are interested in “exploring practices that enact the body or
subject in a performative fashion in order to point to the act of interpretation itself as a
kind of performance.” (1) I view this shared performance as a bridge; a space where
my own identity, history and perspectives can co-mingle or exchange with the viewer’s
to create deeper and broader understandings of our individual and collective identities.
As such, one of the main considerations of my research is the notion of
intersubjectivity and how it may be possible, through a viewer’s response to an artwork
to encourage a self-reflexivity that reinforces interpretation, essentially inviting the
viewer to perform meaning. Through the manipulation of space and spatial
expectation, the body — both live and suggested — and using metaphor, it is possible
to produce a physical and emotional engagement with an artwork through revealing
how the viewer identifies in relationship to it. It is this investment and the relationship it
raises between the viewer and the artwork that has the potential to open up
possibilities for shared experience and the means with which to better understand our
own histories and perspectives.

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My thesis also acknowledges that, much like the act of interpretation, my method is in
flux. As such, it puts forth some current questions and challenges within my practice
and looks to my research in an attempt to answer and address these questions. How
do the relational elements I am working with blur and accumulate to create the
intended space for interpretation? And within the unpredictability of performing
meaning, how do I encourage the viewer to receive my intention within the work? In
other words how can I best direct the viewer’s experience to result in the desired
performed response? I will be looking specifically at the role of space and site within
my practice, through exploring how performed reception can be activated through
working with aspects of space and time. I also explore the vital role the body plays in
intersubjectivity and its double role as both subject and object. In acknowledgement of
the ephemeral nature of performance and the transformative qualities of form, I will
consider how the recontextualization of a work continues to build further
interpretations that go on to encourage a performed reception.

PERFORMING MEANING
“Interpretation, like the production of works of art, is a mode of communication.
Meaning is a process of engagement and never dwells in any one place.” (Jones and
Stephenson, 8)

Within my research I am interested in how performing meaning can suggest an active
interpretative relationship between the viewer and the artwork. Ideally this is a physical,
emotional and mental reception that shapes how a viewer identifies with a work, which
also indicates how much they invest in it. I have found that formal elements have the
ability to reinforce a performed reception; elements such as placing the viewer in a
performative space through the use of lighting, sound or objects; drawing out
narratives through using analogous tools such as metaphorical objects or actions; as
well as using the body to suggest a physical or empathetic response. Whether this

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investment incites a kind of pathos, or a response that generates other imagined
meanings, my methodology addresses the ways in which we can maximize the
viewer’s conscious and unconscious relationships to an artwork in order to draw out a
range of performed meanings.

There are three main frameworks I have been working with as part of the overall
methodology of performing meaning. The first is a process I call proxemical flipping,
which looks at how we can reverse spatial expectations to enliven the relationship
between the viewer and an artwork. The second deals with the role performance can
play in suggesting a physical and emotional co-presence. And the third framework is
what I call metaphorical embodiment, which uses metaphor as an action that seeks to
deepen opportunities for interpretation. My interest has focused on how these
processes can be complicated in order to examine how the intersubjective act of
performing meaning prompts the viewer to be engaged in the artwork as an active
producer. The development of these frameworks and how they work in relation to each
other has required experimentation, and as such, much of my practical research has
revolved around multiple iterations of works that serve to continue this inquiry. My
thesis considers these methodological processes that I am developing through
discussion of several specific works I have produced as part of my studio practice
during the MAA.

Proxemical Flipping
Space can be a powerful communicator in the process of performing meaning. We can
consider different types of space: traditional performance spaces (such as theatres and
galleries), site-oriented public spaces, or simply the outdoors. Space plays a large part

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in determining our reception of a work1. As viewers, our experience can also be
affected by our proximity to a work. Imagine sitting in the back row of an opera house
or watching a site-oriented performance that happens in an underground parking lot.
Both of these spaces will impose upon a work. In challenging how they regularly
operate, I aim to change the ways the spaces are perceived, shifting the narratives that
regularly exist within them.

I find there is a friction between the public nature of performance and the often very
private or personal content I am interested in working with. In my work I have played
with how this opposition generates multiple levels of engagement between the artwork
and the viewer. In the best-case scenario, it can allow for a work to be received on
both a physical and intellectual level, and can lead to a rich accumulation in the
viewer’s experience. This conscious and unconscious engagement with a work has the
potential to create further levels of meaning. I believe this kind of affect is assisted by
the re-expectation of our relationships to public and private space and allows for an
intimacy to be present within the performance experience that encourages the viewer
to be open to a performed reception. This further foregrounds the viewer and their
experience inside the collaborative act of interpretation and evokes a kind of pathos,
attributing to the viewer’s investment and ultimately, to a work’s resonance.

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With regards to more traditional performance space, we can consider the writing of performance theorist Marvin
Carlson, particularly his work on theatre semiotics, as well as sources such as The Empty Space by director Peter
Brook, or Richard Schechner’s Performance Theory, as well as Claire Bishop’s book, Installation Art. For less
traditional spaces and ideas on site and place, I have found Bishop’s Artificial Hells and Miwon Kwon’s One Place
After Another to be two illuminating sources.

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Fig. 1: Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells, The Quiet Volume, 2010. Used by permission of Ant Hampton.

I found this to be evident in the work The Quiet Volume, in which artists Ant Hampton
and Tim Etchells construct a ‘self-directed’ performance that draws upon several
sonic, visual and experiential elements to create both an incredibly private and
undeniably public experience. The work illustrates Ant Hampton’s practice of
‘autoteatro’ or ‘automatic theatre,’ where “audience members perform the piece
themselves, usually for each other.” (Hampton, Autoteatro) The Quiet Volume
investigates the interplay and tensions between whispered and read text in a public
space with a particular relationship to silence and volume.
For me, the natural tension between the private and intimate nature and content of the
performance, placed within the everyday environment of a public library resulted in a
deeper investment in the work. This was reinforced materially through the use of books
and headphones — both objects that are common in a library, but which offer a private
means to convey information. This problematized the socially expected behavior of a
library through the performance and maximized a heightened sensation of spatial
awareness, creating an intimate bubble where a shared, crafted narrative occurred
between me and a perfect stranger. We were co-creating the performance, which

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involved engaging simultaneously in the intimate act of reading and being read to. Our
own individual interpretations of the work reinforced the roles we were invited to
perform, and this collided with the public nature of the performance, which resulted in
a performance experience that used this essential reversal of spatial reception — a
proxemical flip — as an initial layer on which to perform meaning.
An important reference for me in suggesting the notion of the proxemical flip is cultural
anthropologist Edward T. Hall’s The Hidden Dimension. In this book Hall identified 4
primary categories of space2: Intimate (up to 1.5 feet in proximity), Personal (between
1.5 to 4 feet), Social (between 4 feet to 12 feet) and Public (between 12 feet to 25 feet)
(116-129). Hall defined proxemics as “the interrelated observations and theories of
man’s use of space as a specialized elaboration of culture” (1). This idea of the
communicative function of space was integral to Hall’s concept of space as language,
by which he meant that space has the capacity to deliver information directly to a
viewer. I am interested in this basic idea that spatial relationships are highly developed
and can be understood as forming a collective language. We all exist in space, and as
such we have some sort of concept of human territoriality inside private and public,
personal and social spaces. I look to engage what Hall calls “delicately controlled,
culturally conditioned servomechanisms” (5), in order to complicate and make
apparent our collective understanding of how we both inhabit and are alienated by the
different spaces we encounter.
As my research has progressed, my practice continues to draw upon this framework of
proxemical flipping as a valuable process in making work. By utilizing this intentionally
simple exercise — taking something that occurs in intimate space, such as lovemaking, whispering or wrestling, and placing it in public space — a gallery, or a public

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There are many theoretical and conceptual references regarding how different kinds of space interact with each
other, and many of these include more multi-dimensional ideas of space, Henri Lefebvre’s theories on how space is
socially produced, for example. However, I have found Hall’s compartmentalized approach to spatial designation an
integral part of employing space as a material within my practical process of making work.

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square, my process engages in how this destabilizes the expectations between the
artwork and the viewer and reorders or reinvents our understanding of space, thereby
affecting the ways we identify with them. And while proxemical flipping has been useful
in generating work, I also acknowledge that spatial relations are complex and exist
around us and shift within different kinds of artworks all the time. In this way, the
characterization of spaces that Hall defines offers a valuable perspective in
understanding the complex social relationships enacted between public and private
space within my research.
On top of the spatial flip, it is possible to add other layers that build further
opportunities for performing meaning. Personal identifications, the socio-political
context of the environment the work is situated in, and formal aspects, such as
materiality, performance and duration. My practice considers what happens when
these elements come together to tell a shared story with the viewer. This is an
unpredictable encounter, where histories, experiences and perspectives can interact
with the specific narratives that the piece calls forth.
When thinking about space, my research is not only invested in our physical
relationship and understanding of it, but also in the consciousness that these spaces
evoke. The way one feels or thinks inside intimate space and the activities that evoke
these feelings are an integral part of performing meaning. What is the consciousness
we hold around certain intimate acts, for example? Undeniably, we are affected by how
close we are to another person. We are also affected by our tactile relationships to
objects. How do these elements determine our immediate emotional, physical and
intellectual responses? How does space — both our relationship to it and the way it is
used — communicate with us?

Performance
Within my practice, I employ perspectives, approaches and process drawn from my

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training as an experimental theatre maker. This has led to an emphasis on a search for
narrative inside my work — the dramaturgy of the performance experience, as well as a
heightened consideration for the viewer/performer relationship. In my work3,
performance is a key aspect to engaging the viewer; theatre is most demonstrably
about talking to an audience.
Performing also places me within my work, as a subject. I draw from my experiences
and personal history, and as the subject of the work I am able to speak directly to
issues of my own identity. But within my work, I am often also the object, and I utilize
my performative body to further suggest narratives. By taking on this role of both
subject and object, my goal is to allow for fuller associations from the viewer. To this
end — how I appear, where I am, what I am doing — these are all things that can
contribute to how effectively meaning can be performed. An important reference for me
in this aspect of my work has been historian and critic Amelia Jones, who states that
“whether our body or that of another, it is never fixed or simple in its significance, but
always fully lived, in process, and contingent. Our body both makes us subjects and
makes us objects for others” (Critical Terms, 260). This narrative potential that being
both subject and object presents feels generative within my research, as it connects
the diverse processes within my practice.

I am also interested in exploring how shifting the conventional expectations of space
can operate as a kind of framing mechanism for building performance. Certainly in
theatre, this manifests itself in more overt ways, through stretching ideas or
expectations of traditional performance spaces, for example. BIOBOXES is a work I

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My definition of performance draws from my experience and history in experimental theatre and aligns with the
concept of performance as discussed by art historian RoseLee Goldberg in her book Performance Art: From
Futurism to the Present. Goldberg defines performance as an “open-ended medium with endless variables, executed
by artists impatient with the limitations of more established forms,” (9) and she includes the work of Russian
Constructivists to Allan Kaprow and John Cage, to the work of influential theatre directors Robert Wilson and
Richard Foreman to dance artists Pina Bausch and Jerome Bel.

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conceived and co-created with the performance company Theatre Replacement, which
contains six short-form pieces featuring one performer, performed for one audience
member at a time. The performance takes something that would normally happen in
public space (a work of theatre) and contains it in what Hall would categorize as
intimate space: a box theatre4, worn on the performer’s shoulders, with the audience
and performer one to two feet away from each other. In a further play on language,
each box is bilingual, with the performers switching between English and another
respective language seamlessly at the audience’s command. In this way, BIOBOXES
attempts to highlight that performance should be, above all, an immediate experience.
Within this work, the vitality of the relationship between performer and audience offers
an immediacy that encourages a performed reception.

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The box theatres were 16 inches high, 24 inches wide, 16 inches deep and stood on legs, with a hole cut in the
bottom of the box for the performers’ heads. Both the performer and the audience member were seated for the
performance, and the audience area was enclosed by a red curtain. The audience member and performer’s faces were
about 1.5 feet away from each other, well within the realm of what Hall would constitute as personal space.

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Fig. 2: Theatre Replacement, BIOBOXES: Artifacting Human Experience, 2007. Used by permission of
Theatre Replacement.

Of interest in this regard is the notion of bodily co-presence, as developed by German
performance theorist Max Herrmann5. Herrmann was one of the first theorists who
placed significance not only on the body, but on how the performers’ bodies promoted
a responsiveness in the viewer, which he believed maximized the opportunity for a
collective understanding in the audience assembled:

“For Herrmann the process of embodiment, not text, was central to the
theatrical experience and this embodiment moreover had to be experienced and
empathized with by other bodies, those of the audience, in each unique
manifestation of the art” (Fischer-Lichte, 3).
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Max Herrmann’s theories signaled a shift or a “performative turn,” which is significant to my own particular
lineage of training, acknowledging theatre as being less about a “dramatic text” and more about a “physical event.”
(Fischer-Lichte, 3).

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Again, this idea includes the viewer’s physical and mental engagement as essential to
the realization of an artwork; the presence of the performer leads to the presence of
the viewer. As I will make clear later in this thesis, the notion of presence can extend
beyond the performance itself — it can also exist within the recontextualization of a
work; a moment of connection between the viewer and an artwork can go on to
produce meaning beyond the initial performance through the metaphorical actions and
objects that continue its resonance.

Metaphorical Embodiment
My research explores the use of physical actions as metaphors that can offer yet
another way to activate a viewer’s subjectivity in relationship to a work. I am interested
in how this connection can encourage a kind of empathy, which results in the viewer
receiving the work through an embodied response. This response can be less
conscious and even allow for imagined or invented associations. In this way,
metaphorical embodiment has the potential to be a profound way to perform meaning
with the viewer because it accesses identifications that are perhaps more instinctual.
Through exploring the process of metaphorical embodiment, I am searching for a
deeper, more internal way in which the work can connect to the viewer.
In Metaphor: A Practical Introduction, author Zoltàn Kövecses references George
Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s description of the characteristics of metaphor, which
removes the concept from the realm of words and redefines it in the realm of action.
These characteristics challenge the more traditional and dominant understandings of
metaphor, and perhaps most fundamentally to my own research; Kövecses defines it
as “an inevitable process of human thought and reasoning” (x). This ‘inevitable
process’ feels like a key way in which metaphor can encourage interpretation. As a
process, it is dependent upon a physical act or gesture that is recognized, understood
and embodied by the viewer, which allows for further opportunity for a performed

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response. Public Art Carry Me, 2013, one of the provisional works I made in the MAA
program, began as an examination of intimate space, and utilized the physical act of
carrying in order to draw out different metaphorical responses from the viewer.
Carrying requires an intimacy between the particular bodies and/or objects involved, as
well as imposing a degree of empathy for the thing being carried. In Public Art Carry
Me, I ask the public art in and around some potentially contentious public spaces in
Vancouver — the Olympic Village and Yaletown neighbourhoods, for example — to
carry me, in order to reinvent the narratives of these particular spaces and reveal a
diverse range of experiences and relationships within our city’s public sites.

Fig. 3: Maiko Yamamoto, Public Art Carry Me, 2012.

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With this work I wanted to create a tangible relationship between myself and these
public artworks, while exploring the relationships and responsibilities they have to the
public. Both the Olympic Village and Yaletown are neighbourhoods that have suffered
from over-aestheticization due to large events (the 2010 Winter Olympics and Expo
86). As an individual, but also as a member of a larger community, I have a relationship
to these events that is somewhat hypocritical. In theory, I oppose how these events
alter our public systems and redirect resources, but I also experienced a sense of
community and support around both these events. What’s more, today these spaces
— as they are — offer enjoyment to the individuals and communities who use them,
myself included. And yet there is always an underlying tension I feel within these
spaces due to the larger concerns they simultaneously represent.
As a gesture then, Public Art Carry Me intervenes a proxemical flip within an attempt to
get intimate with public art in a paradoxical space. Metaphorically speaking, this draws
our attention to the ownership of these spaces and the problem with memorializing
events in history that are part of a discourse around these complicated and globally
draining events.

The Act of Interpretation
As I have discussed, I regard the act of interpretation as having the potential to affect a
viewer in physical, mental and emotional ways. This response can take many forms, as
it is dependent on the intersubjective engagement between a viewer and an artwork. In
considering the body in space and time, another way to think about how this
intersubjectivity affects the viewer is to look at how a performed response can cause a
momentary ‘thickening’6 of space, as proposed by French surrealist writer and
6

Interestingly, Leiris’ notion of spatial thickening is related to Marcel Duchamp’s ideas of “inframince,” described
as the moment when 2 dimensional becomes 3 dimensional. (Lotringer, Becoming Duchamp)

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ethnographer Michel Leiris. Leiris uses the analogy of the bullfight to illustrate how
space can shift and take on a density, as in the instant when the matador and the bull
square off. He believes this condition creates a moment “where one feels tangency to
the world and to oneself” (Leiris and Smock, 21). This notion feels relevant within my
practice, as the frameworks I am engaged with concern these moments of tangible
connection.

In order to set up contexts for performed meaning within my research, I have seized
opportunities to speak to themes and issues of personal and cultural identity. This
means that each element of a work, including site, object, body and duration, can
contribute another specific and related layer. If space is the playground on which we
meet, by site I mean the actual physical location; by objects I mean the things or
materials involved in the work; by body I am referring to my own body as the performer
or activator of a work; and by duration I mean the time that the performance takes to
unfold. Each of these elements has a highly personal context and speaks to my own
socio-political issues, such as family histories and the nature of performance itself,
which I will elaborate upon further in this document. By inviting an audience to engage
with ideas of cultural identity and embodied understanding, I am hoping to build new
ground on which to create alternative meanings and change the way we associate and
identify, within our relationships, to space and the things around us.
Part of the impetus for this level of engagement comes from the desire to make
resonant connections with the audience through my work. I make work to feel less
alone — to address feelings of alienation I experience in my everyday life due to my
gender, my cultural background, my experiences and even my occupation. Through
attempting to generate a kind of pathos through my work, my research allows me to
better understand how these feelings are associated and thus, offer meaning through a
shared experience with the viewer.

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Amelia Jones and Andrew Stephenson speak about this idea of interpretation as a
collaborative act. They suggest we are “entangled in the intersubjective spaces of
desire, projection and identification. As classed, raced, sexed and gendered (fully
socialized and embodied) subjects, both artist and interpreter are imbricated within any
potential determinations of meaning.” They go on to say that “the notion of the
performative highlights the open endedness of interpretation” (Performing the Body, 1).
This open-endedness feels integral to the kind of relationship I endeavor to have with
my viewer, but also to my artwork; there may be clear connections, or the engagement
may be operating on less conscious levels.
However I can invite the viewer in — whether through a spatial reception, the hook of
performance, or an embodied understanding — it contributes to the narrative
production of a work, and each contribution relies on its own histories, experiences
and ideas. The meaning is not dependent on the work alone. This is important to me;
that the languages that I am drawing upon within my practice allow for a shared
contract with the viewer, where they have the possibility to draw upon their own
cultural identities, their own personal perspectives and political beliefs. This careful
process of interpretation is not a concrete formula, nor would we ever want it to be. We
want it to be as complex as it is — or, as Jones and Stephenson so aptly put it — we
want to ensure that it “never dwells in any one place” (Performing the Body, 8), in order
to promote our further engagement and understanding of our own identities as well as
the collective nature of our existence.

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CASE STUDY: And if I tied myself to you
I believe all space speaks to us, whether we become nostalgic when we drive by the
first apartment we ever lived in, or we get a feeling of anticipation sitting in a darkened
theatre waiting for the curtain to rise. Space communicates, both on conscious and
unconscious levels. When thinking about performative spaces, there are many
practical, physical, imaginative, emotional, cultural and political ways in which we
process spatial information. How is the physical space constructed? Where is the
delineation, if any, between performers and audience? What is the process of
managing our individual parts within the performance? How does our perception of
space write the narrative of what occurs there? In a site-oriented performance, what
does the site communicate as a backdrop for a work? This ongoing dialogue inevitably
affects our behaviour, both towards the space itself as well as any other people who
might be occupying it at the time. I am interested in how we can utilize these ways in
which we process space to build specific meaning with the viewer through an artwork.
In this first case study, I will look at two different iterations of the work And if I tied
myself to you, 2012, to reflect upon the negotiation between the processes of
proxemical flipping, the role of performance and metaphorical embodiment and how
these come together to shape the work and the viewer’s reception.

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Fig. 4: Maiko Yamamoto, And If I tied myself to you, 2012.

And If I tied myself to you is a durational performance in which I tied myself with ropes
of varying length to an ‘anchor’ — a physical, conceptual and psychological mooring
— for different durations of time. In the first iteration, the anchor was my home. I tied
one end of the rope to my house and the other to my body and walked away until the
rope prevented me from going any further. And then I stopped and waited, sometimes
for 5 minutes, sometimes for an hour. I would allow instinct within the process to
determine the length of time. For instance, as I moved away from the house and

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crossed the street, if a car came by and needed me to retreat in order to continue
driving, I would stop, go back to the house, re-tie to the anchor and head off again.
The work became an exercise in attempting — both physically and emotionally — to
extend private space through and into public space, by using the rope as a device for
this extension.
Whether I got as far as the curb, or the field across the street, because of the rope, I
was able to carry the intimate space of my home — and all that it entails — with me; a
complex snail’s shell of comfort and burden. I held onto the consciousness of this
intimate space as I moved increasingly away. The intention of the flip here was to allow
the viewer to keep their own ideas and associations of home alive, as part of the
narrative of the work. In this way, the proxemical flip worked with a slower rhythm that
utilized the rope to maximize affect and meaning.
Further, this first iteration also addressed the incidental audience that encountered the
work in the original moment of the gesture. This interaction exists in its own context
and inevitably affects the work with regards to how it may be recontextualized. There is
some trace of these encounters in the overall narrative of the work; the moment an
unsuspecting viewer sees the performative act and slows to take in a woman tied to a
house by a rope, offers an entanglement that becomes part of the narrative of the
performance, and is therefore always present in the performance of the work.

Spatial Resonance And The Power Of The Flip
With regards to the process of proxemical flipping, the home offers up easy access for
both a personal and shared understanding of space. And this can be used to invite
associations — potentially powerful ones — into the process of interpretation. I am
interested in both the power and conflict of the home as a domestic and socially
complex space.

18

The home is arguably one of the most resonant spaces imaginable. In The Poetics of
Space, Gaston Bachelard deconstructs the worlds — both real and imagined —
contained within the private space of the home. He describes one’s house as “our
corner of the world…it is our first universe, a real cosmos in every sense of the word.”
(4) My research considers how the poetic imagination and phenomenological pursuit
that Bachelard speaks of functions in our individual and collective understanding of
domestic space. In And if I tied myself to you, I attempt to grab onto both conscious
and unconscious ideas of home in order to encourage interpretation from the viewer.

This image has been removed due to copyright restrictions.

Fig. 5: Lucy Gunning, Climbing Around My Room, 1993. Video Still.

This kind of viewer engagement and receptiveness is evident in artist Lucy Gunning’s
work, Climbing Around My Room. In this work from 1993, we encounter a single
channel video, played on a small monitor, of a woman in a red dress moving about a
mostly unfurnished room without ever touching the floor. She precariously balances on
the edge of a dresser and a fireplace, using the ceiling for counter pressure; she edges

19

along a window ledge, appearing to eye how she will traverse the gap between the sill
and a set of built in shelves. Firstly, in considering my own performed reception of the
work, the title of the piece speaks volumes. By naming the space her room, suddenly
the narrative potential is amplified, and I am invited in to add my own ideas of how that
space is defined. My imagination becomes activated; I add memories of my own
rooms, performing my own meaning on top of what Gunning offers. I empathize with
the climber in the red dress through my own interpretation of this particular space. In
the same way, And if I tied myself to you attempts to use our connection to this idea of
home as a hook to intentionally engage the viewer. Considering how a space can be
invested in the process of interpretation is both an exhilarating and puzzling prospect
at the heart of my methodology.

The Body Is A Metaphor For Home
The home also has huge metaphorical presence. Just as Bachelard reveals, it functions
“as the portal to metaphors of imagination” (xiii). The act of tying myself to my home
offers the viewer many entry points for metaphorical embodiment. We can all identify
with a sense of being tied to something. The viewer senses the rope around their
waists; senses the slight lean of the body outward as the rope becomes taut. They
have a physical understanding and sensation of this metaphor, and this allows them to
relate this tethering to their own situations. Through this physical empathy, they
suddenly play a part within the construction of a narrative that intermingles the
imagined story of the tied woman and the experiences of being ‘tied down’ within their
own lives.
In my methodology, I am looking for more tangible ways to build metaphorical
embodiment. The rope offers a way to physically connect with the viewer. After a while,
the feeling of being tied begins to affect me; I get increasingly frustrated by this desire
to leave, but not being able to, and this is part of a narrative in the performance that I
am attempting to transmit to the audience, whether it be the incidental audience that
20

encounters the work in the moment, or an intentional, secondary audience that
experiences the work as it is recontextualized. I am curious about how even more
physically rigorous and immediate metaphorical gestures can increase a viewer’s
sense of investment. Here we can again consider Gunning’s work. A large part of my
identification with this work comes from observing and imagining the physical difficulty
in the woman’s act of climbing. This registers itself in my own body, and I interpret the
plight of the climber. I feel her action and I understand what it means. The performance
is amplified by the red dress, the lack of furniture or objects in the room, and the way
the lighting is shining upward, almost giving a vaudevillian character to the piece. This
activates a performed reception and heightens how these elements come together to
relate a drama that places me inside of its narrative.

The Gallery Can Be A Lonely Place To Perform
The second iteration of And if I tied myself to you, 2013, recontextualized the work for
the gallery space, and was presented as part of the MAA Low Residency Interim
Exhibition, Alteractions/Alterations/Altercations.7 There were new considerations within
this process; the alternate environment and context posed several challenges. The
main concern was in determining what the style of the performance would be. How
much amplification (or theatricality) did the work call for? How did time function in this
case? How did materiality — which was more integral inside the gallery — work inside
the piece? In removing myself from the anchor of the home, I needed a new anchor, so
what would that be? After this conceptualizing was in place, even more was
discovered through the performance of the work itself.

7

This show took place in the Concourse Gallery at the ECUAD campus, from July 18th to 22nd, 2013, and featured
the work of Jill Banting, Leigh Gillam, Sarah Nordean, Lisa Simpson, Leah Weinstein, Jay White and myself. A
common thread that seemed to tie all the works in the exhibit together was each of the artist’s desires to actively
engage the viewer in the construction of meanings either through formal or spatial considerations.

21

Fig. 6: Maiko Yamamoto, And If I tied myself to you, 2013.

The gallery version still operated with the same basic function; I tied myself on one end
of a rope, and attached the other end to a physical anchor. However, with this iteration
the ropes accumulated on the anchors and my body according to the different degrees
of time that I remained tied to each one. This acted as a way to trace or record my
22

performance of the work in the space. I wanted to make visible the materials of my
research; to reveal spatial relationship through the way the ropes tangled and marked
my pathways along the floor — through a reminder of the body in the space. What the
physical anchor was going to be however, was in many ways, the most influential and
determining factor of the work. Initially I considered tying myself to the actual
architecture available in the space, but eventually, in bridging together the initial model
of the work and the new context of the space, it became clear that a more personal
and conceptual anchor was needed, and one that could still generate intimacy —
something that I recognized was going to be much more challenging inside the gallery.
I decided to ask my father, who is a wood craftsman, to build three circular rings out of
wood, to be mounted to the gallery wall. These were made of yellow cedar and were
stained with a high-gloss varnish (to look a bit unnatural). The connection between the
concept of home in the first iteration, and collaborating with my father added the right
degree of relevance to the anchors for me, as it furthered a narrative of familial
obligation, which felt like an integral through-line of the work.

Fig. 7: Maiko Yamamoto, And If I tied myself to you, 2013.

I chose all synthetic ropes of varying lengths, colours and diameters. Again, something
unnatural in their materiality appealed to me, especially in contrast to the wood of the

23

anchors. In addition, these were all ropes (boat ropes, various work ropes) that were
specifically made to be seen, which was also important, as it referenced one of the
original sources of the work, which was an article I read about Japan's Suicide Forest.8
I also liked the juxtaposition between the bright colours of the rope, the synthetic
materials and the wood anchors. The ropes were of different lengths, and allowed me
to travel varying distances within the gallery, and to also step beyond the confines of
the space. These ropes would also, at times, determine my proximity to the viewer. I
would spend an indeterminate amount of time on each rope (again, led by instinct) and
then I would cut it off my body, leaving it tied to the anchor and freeing myself to then
start a new rope. The ropes accumulated on the anchors as well as on my body.
About halfway through the exhibition period, I considered that the work was potentially
more interesting when I was not in the space, leaving the viewer to experience a trace
of the performance, and therefore continuing it, in a sense, through the metaphorical
objects and in the bodies of the viewers as they encountered them. The outline of a
performance was present, and the narrative of the work was potentially stronger in the
viewer’s performed response.
The gallery version of And if I tied myself to you allowed me to test out my research
material over the course of several days, and added valuable information to my
process. This iteration was less about imposing an intimate space, and became more
about confusing how we visualize proximity. This was an unexpected result, but for
me, it became an integral significance inside of the work. My absence in the gallery,
represented by a tangle of ropes, conjured a dialogue with the viewer about proximity
and presence, and extended an opportunity for performed reception.

8

The Aokigahara Forest lies on the side of Mt. Fuji, and is “the most common place to commit suicide in Japan.”
(Estrin, Wandering in Japan’s ‘Suicide Forest’). Many people contemplating suicide will tie a rope to themselves in
order to help guide them out of the forest, should they change their minds. Park rangers stumble upon these ropes
leading eerily off into the forest, and are unsure of what they will find when they reach the other end.

24

The recontextualization of And if I tied myself to you offered many opportunities to
push this work further and to consider aspects of spatial relationship, performance and
metaphorical embodiment. In addition, this process exemplifies how a work can be
recontextualized beyond the initial performance. The work now exists as a trace of a
performance; the residue or remembrance that reveals space, the body and time within
the narrative told by the ropes.

Fig. 8: Maiko Yamamoto, And If I tied myself to you, 2013.

25

CASE STUDY: Public Sleep and Bridge Affection
“Space considered in isolation is an empty abstraction; likewise energy
and time. Although in one sense this ‘substance’ is hard to conceive of,
most of all at the cosmic level, it is also true to say that evidence of its
existence stares us in the face: our senses and our thoughts apprehend
nothing else.” (Lefebvre, 12)
There is an apparent contrast between Bachelard's more quiet definition of space and
more prevalent understandings of space as a product of human intention and activity,
put forward by the writings of Henri Lefebvre. Just as the house has been carved out
and carefully built and resonates on an intimate scale, other sites can hold public
resonance and speak to potentially larger-scale ideas. This is a space that, as opposed
to a place where we enter to retreat from the rest of the world, we go to connect
ourselves to this idea of the city, alive with the echoes of human movement and
activity. It is, as Lefebvre envisions, all around us, and perhaps not considered as
concertedly as the home, but ever-present. And just as the space of the home can pull
you into reflection, so the city can be an instigator for performing meaning.
This is true for both of the works included in this next case study: Public Sleep and
Bridge Affection. Both works take a different act, which commonly occurs in intimate
space and places them in iconic public spaces. Searching for the spatial tensions
within these sites forces us to look differently at them; to search deeper in order to
better understand how they function within our lives. These experiments were
occupied with real space and as such, the location became an integral part of the
narrative of the work. My research revealed these public spaces to carry their own
identities and politics. Miwon Kwon’s writings on site-oriented practices are significant
to consider in this regard, especially her elaborations on site-specific work as a
“problem idea” (2), complicated by the many layers of discourse that are invested in
attempting to organize these spaces. This co-organization opens up much dialogue

26

around the potential power of the site to “strengthen art’s capacity to penetrate the
sociopolitical organization of contemporary life with greater impact and meaning” (30).
Both Public Sleep and Bridge Affection utilize the public identity of a site to generate a
particular interpretation of the work.

Spatial Identification And The Sleeping City
Spaces are spaces before we encounter or inhabit them. They have a history and
character, and this shapes our understanding, perception and experience of it. With
the work Public Sleep, 2013, I wanted to explore the intimate act of sleeping, and the
consciousness of this intimacy, in order to search for how the collision of private and
public could function with the specific choice of site. For two weeks I recorded my
body’s positions during sleep, in order to determine my dominant sleeping positions,
which I narrowed down to three. I then re-enacted these positions while attempting to
sleep in public, in and around the grounds of Vancouver's City Hall. This is a site
characteristic of production, where policy is made and decisions affecting the lives of
everyday citizens are taking place. Sleeping here presented me with the opportunity to
make a statement on the idea of our collective disillusionment within the public
process. Further, in carefully selecting to bar a populated walkway on the grounds, I
was able to mediate my own identity within this collective narrative, and speak to my
own personal disagreement within my place in the city.

27

Fig. 9: Maiko Yamamoto, Public Sleep, 2013.

In this way, Public Sleep attempts to provide further relevance through its encounter
with the individual and complex shared identity of the public space in question. The
site’s meaning is derived from this common understanding as well as the individual
relationships brought to it by the viewer, which ostensibly could be full of civic
purpose, but could also be about wanting a quiet place to sit and admire what the
space has to offer: an iconic representation of our city. Our associations with the public
identity of City Hall blurs with our own experiences and understanding of this site,
creating a multilayered interpretation.

28

I chose sleeping as an act of intimacy, because it felt like a way to access the
consciousness of private space. For me, sleeping evokes a kind of intimacy of the
body and mind. My awareness moves inward, residing close to or on my skin. My
consciousness becomes internalized. My eyes are closed; I swim in the darkness
surrounding my bones and organs. I wanted to see if it was possible, through the
performance of this work, to recreate this state of mind in order to pull the viewer into
this consciousness with me, essentially to perform meaning with them through evoking
the intimate act of sleeping.

The Body As Transmitter
With Public Sleep, the concept of performative presence is important to consider. I am
interested in the body’s role in suggesting a performed reception. As a performer, I
understand how I can physically interpret the gesture or the act, while at the same time
transmitting an intention to the viewer through the performance. The performative body
has presence, which is a mode of transmission. How we read a sleeping body is
affected not only by the site and context, but also by the countenance of the figure, the
tension in the body, the emotive qualities we can read. The sleeping figure is suddenly
‘extra-present’, which transmits further information. Again, the atypical relationship
between gesture and space offers interpretive opportunities. On top of this are all the
possible associations that sleeping in public might suggest: homelessness, substance
abuse, danger, etc. The body also communicates particular socio-political and cultural
identifications, which further provoke the interpretation. These elements combine to
create a friction that extends a theatricality, and a narrative is intimated.

29

Fig. 10: Maiko Yamamoto, Public Sleep, 2013.

In her book The Transformative Power of Performance, Erica Fischer-Lichte states that
presence “refers to the phenomenal body of the performer. Presence marks not an
expressive but a purely performative quality. Through specific processes of
embodiment, the actor can bring forth his phenomenal body in a way that enables him
to command both space and the audience’s attention.” (96)
This notion of presence being a key part of one’s ability to “command space and
attention” feels significant within my research. With a work like Public Sleep, the
proxemical flip is only apparent in the body’s performance of sleeping in an
unexpected space.

30

In addition to thinking about the performative body’s capacity to transmit information
through performance, bodily presence is yet another way we can understand or receive
space. I appreciate Amelia Jones’ articulation of the phenomenological viewpoint with
regards to embodied knowledge. She states that: “for Merleau-Ponty, the body is
never simply an object, but 'a grouping of lived-through meanings’” (Critical Terms,
260). The body has the potential to unlock unanticipated significance within the viewer,
and continue to turn this meaning over and over like a kaleidoscope. In this way, it is a
generous instrument within my own research.
This idea of the inclusivity of the bodily experience is something I am attempting to
draw out in my process. The performative gesture speaks to not only my own livedthrough meanings, but the lived-through meanings of others. This dual interpretation
that the body provides feels integral to performance as a form, as it allows the
performers’ subjectivity to be present, while at the same time engaging the subjective
experiences of the viewer, offering a connective tissue between them. This promotes a
collective understanding between humans, and for me, illuminates the idea that our
experience is a shared one. Even though we may be separated by beliefs, history and
perspectives, we have a common corporeal ground on which to build collective
meanings.

A Metaphorical Jump
The original intention of Bridge Affection, 2013, was to have a moment of intimacy with
two very public spaces, The Burrard Street Bridge and the Lions Gate Bridge
respectively, to show my appreciation for these bridges and all that they do for our city.
It did not take long to reveal that bridges are spaces that make people uncomfortable.
They are loud, cars speed by, walkers just want to get to the other side, and people are
unsettled by those who linger too long in one place. It is impossible to be intimate in
this space. With Bridge Affection I wanted to acknowledge the iconography of these
two spaces, while at the same time push up against them; to show my affection for

31

bridges in order to invent new relationships to these public spaces and to create
broader realities. Metaphorically, I wanted to be a bridge for new perspectives. In this
way, Bridge Affection attempted to counter the ways that we are alienated by space.
I spent three different days on site at the Burrard Street Bridge, walking the length of
the structure and spending time at the midway point. Each time, I wore particular
clothing — a costume. This was intentionally meant to make me seem friendly,
unthreatening and visible, and it also added to a level of performance. I adopted a kind
of character, which indicated to the viewer different possible narratives inside the work.
At any point during my time on the bridge, I would try to show it my affection. This
would manifest in different ways; sometimes it appeared as if I was hugging the bridge,
other times it seemed I was lifting it up, or attempting to help it support the many cars,
buses and people that were crossing it at the time. By placing my body in these
specific spatial relationships with the bridge and performing an act of affection, I was
attempting to incite an embodied activation in the viewer. This promoted a physical
reception of the metaphor at work: my affection for the bridge reveals a lack of
connection I feel within the city and between the people who live within it.

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Fig. 11: Maiko Yamamoto, Bridge Affection, 2013.

Artist Tino Sehgal's work, The Kiss, is an example of a more overt way that a work can
promote a metaphorical embodiment. In it, we see two dancers in the gallery space,
performing famous and infamous kisses of art history. In viewing this performance, we
feel the kiss in our own bodies, and through this embodiment, we receive a deeper
understanding of the work and how it translates to our own lives.

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Fig. 12: Tino Sehgal, The Kiss, 2010. Used by permission of Loren Madsen.

In an interview in the Guardian newspaper around the premiere of his work for the
Turbine Hall commission, These Associations, Sehgal said: "Attention is the material I
work with" (Sehgal, 2012). Thinking about his work, I understand his definition of
attention to be primarily physical, but inherently linked to an intellectual and conceptual
awareness. There is something that greatly attracts me about Sehgal’s statement. It
contains, inherently, a challenge. The challenge of attention; giving and taking it,
agitated by the desensitized and over-technologized world we live in. For me it implies
a necessary and active physical relationship between the artwork and the viewer and
reinforces the idea of co-performing meaning. Through highly choreographed
movements and text, the group of performers traveling in and around the massive
space of the Turbine Hall, offer the viewer a mirror on which to perform individual and
collective meaning. This is suggested through a physical reception — whether a
kinesthetic kind of reaction, a natural sense of empathy, or a resonance evoked by one
of the personal stories shared by the performers. With all these connections,

34

significance is placed on the body — performers and spectators, both individually and
as a collective presence. With this in mind, I would propose that metaphorical
embodiment can generate this kind of multifaceted attention: physical, spatial and
emotional. I am most compelled to speak through these kinds of attention within my
own artwork, as the essential challenges of demanding them from the viewer are not
only about this process of promoting performed reception, but about my own ability to
give and generate attention with a work.

To varying degrees, both Public Sleep and Bridge Affection reveal how working with a
particular site can be problematic within my process. Dealing with the site's identity
can prove to add layers of complication that may possibly rob the work of its intended
simplicity. The site is a hard space to control; it is unpredictable and the intention of
the space is less specific in relation to a performance. This is arguably what makes the
site exciting, but more recently it has also drawn me to consider works for the more
determined space of the gallery. Bridge Affection remains unresolved, with larger
questions around how the work is recontextualized and presented to a viewer beyond
the initial performance.

35

CASE STUDY: Rose, 41

Fig. 13: Maiko Yamamoto, Rose, 41, 2014.

Rose, 41, 2014, is the work I produced for the final graduate exhibition in the Charles
H. Scott Gallery. Forty-one bags of rice were stacked in a tier formation, perpendicular
to the long entrance wall of the gallery, encouraging a physical and emotional
encounter. In this work I was investigating proximity and relationships; these
relationships were between the bags of rice themselves and also between the viewer
and myself. I wanted to reveal a narrative of cultural identity and to explore ideas of
alienation through a personal history with rice — Kokuho Rose rice, in particular.
Spatially, Rose, 41 explored two environments. The long view, front approach of the
work presented an area before the sculptural “wall” of rice bags, suggestive of a more
public, heightened/dramatic and anticipatory space. This was supported through the
use of coloured lighting, which illuminated the 20 feet of wall space leading up to the

36

rice, moving from a spectrum of blue to red. Directly on the other side of the sculptural
form was revealed a more private space, suggestive of an intimate, domestic
environment. Here, there sat a plinth with a small rice cooker on it. At times, viewers
were confronted by the subtle smell of cooking rice.
Through the process of making this work for the group show in the Charles H. Scott
Gallery, the performative nature of Rose, 41 evolved into a more quiet, restrained
performance than I had originally intended; an almost invisible performance that
evoked a fairly clear essential narrative: the slow processing of the rice, as the cooker
steamed and worked away in relation to the substantial barrier: a literal wall of rice
bags. The rice was either eaten in the gallery (by myself while sitting on the bags) or
taken home to be eaten later. This transformation (washing, cooking and eating)
generated a kind of performative distance in relation to the installation, as I found it
increasingly awkward — as the performer — to be present in the gallery. Instead of
waiting to be seen executing these tasks by gallery goers, I found myself quickly
tending to the work in order for the installation to maintain its state of independence.
My intention was to allow the viewer room to navigate his or her own relationships to
the work, opening up more opportunity for their associations and perspectives.
Rather, Rose, 41 relied more on the encounter with the sculptural form of the bags and
the subsequent reveal of the cooker as well as the imagined progression of the
narrative of the cooked rice, than on the performer. This marks a significant shift in my
ideas around how performance can function within the gallery. The performative body
was still suggested, but I became less present as a performer. In many ways, the work
pointed to an absence of the performer, although there is still a suggestion that the
installation is somehow performed, through the theatrical lighting as the viewer
approaches; through the discovery of the rice cooker; through the open bag of rice
which appears to be continually depleting its supply. Further, the installation seemed to
propose, through these elements, that the viewer was cast as a performer in the work,
supporting the process of a performed reception.

37

When Proxemics Get Personal
Growing up, there was always a bag of Kokuho Rose rice in our house. Like many
Japanese Canadians, it was the true staple of my family’s diet, and in addition to
countless memories of having to prepare and make rice, as well as the chore of lugging
the giant bags in from the car upon my mother’s request, I also remember many little
rituals around rice: never stab the rice with your chopsticks, never dirty the rice, never,
ever leave any uneaten grains in your bowl. I remember my mother repeatedly saying
“At one time, rice was more valuable than gold.” So, rice has built up many levels of
meaning for itself within my life.
Kokuho Rose was the rice that most Japanese Canadian families used after the 1960s
when it became readily available. It was the first rice that truly resembled Japanese rice
and so everyone cooked with it, especially the generation of immigrants that came to
Canada during the late 60s/early 70s, such as my parents. After some time, other
brands came up, but these were either less or more expensive, and so Kokuho Rose
came to represent a kind of middleclass-ness. Back then, rice was integral; we ate it at
least twice a day, and more commonly three times a day. Regardless of what brand
you ate, you learned quickly that it was something to be valued. Of course, this was a
philosophy that was reinforced within my immediate family, but as a concept, the way
the Japanese identify with rice is reiterated on broader, historical levels. In her book,
Rice as Self: Japanese Identities Through Time, author Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney
investigates the notion of rice as the “dominant metaphor of self” (4) for the Japanese,
as fortified not necessarily through being a primary food, but also through a
relationship of land and labour. She states that “throughout history, the symbolic
importance of rice has been deeply embedded in the Japanese cosmology…rice as
soul, rice as deity, and ultimately, rice as self.” (8) She also discusses this idea that the
Japanese have in part, defined their relationships with the other through fiercely
attaching their identity to rice. All this confirmed the potential of rice as a fitting material
to test out my methodology.

38

With Rose, 41 I was interested in these bags of Kokuho Rose as a kind of readymade,
an object with wide-ranging references, arranged to probe relationships between
myself and the viewer. I wanted to investigate how I could persuade the viewer to
perform their own meaning alongside my own within the work?

Fig. 14: Maiko Yamamoto, Rose, 41, 2014.

Indeed, the work furthered my research into performing reception. Interpretation was
encouraged through the experience of the encounter with the bags and was further
supported by the way in which the space set up the viewer’s approach. A proximity
with the installation was suggested, whether reading the public space of the gallery, or
39

the private space of the installation. Spatially, the space before and after the rice bags
followed Hall’s descriptions of public and personal space. Because of where the work
was situated in the gallery, the opportunity arose to utilize the length of the wall,
encouraging the viewer to first consider the work from afar before drawing closer. This
distant approach then revealed the more private, domestic space of the cooker, which
fortified the overall narrative of the work. In this way, the physical distances within the
work became a key narrative aspect to Rose, 41. I came to regard the proxemical flip
occurring through the relationship between these two spaces, as opposed to the usual
flip of content and space.

A Bodily Association
I chose Kokuho Rose rice as a material, because of its ability to access a personal
history as well as a socio-politically specific context in the hopes of amplifying my own
presence and agency within the work. Rose, 41 offered me the opportunity to
rigorously explore the primary themes I am addressing inside my research; the theme
of identity through referencing a particular family relationship and context and through
using a culturally specific product; as well as the theme of alienation through a
culturally and socially specific examination of rice. In addition, the bags presented a
way of observing proxemics on a broader level, through the opportunity to examine,
through the encounter, how these materials suggest a physical and emotional
interaction with the performer, the viewer and the space.

The structure of the work investigates the two overarching perspectives within my
research: a physical, or external perspective, and an intellectual, or internal
perspective. Externally, this very tangible object was used as a way of exploring the
body’s relationship to the physical structure of the work; how the viewer’s body
interacted with the installation, which altered depending on what side of the work they
were on. Through the washing, cooking and eating of the rice, an internal perspective
was drawn out, which triggered more personal and conceptual associations. Through
40

this specific process in the work, there was less contingency within the viewer
relationship; the piece operated more autonomously in defining the form of a
performed installation. My goal was to leave more room for the viewer’s interpretation,
but this also made their experience more difficult to steer.

Fig. 15: Maiko Yamamoto, Rose, 41, 2014.

On another level, the work opened up space for specific associations around the role
of the body — and the female body in particular — in this act of processing and
consumption. The washing, cooking and eating is connected to ideas of domesticity,
and this, fortified by the aesthetic quality of the bags and the ‘rose-coloured’ lighting,
was suggestive of the female body in particular. This was quite a new identification for
me, as in my previous research my works are not overtly suggestive of gender. This
has opened up new areas of research, further reinforcing the relationship between
physical and intellectual areas of engagement. In the future, I would like to continue to

41

explore the form of the performed installation with works that investigate all aspects of
my own identity in order to access further potential for intersubjective engagement.

The Burden of Rice
As a material, rice offers several access points upon which to build associations.
Beyond its significance as a food found in many cultures, with a long history of
processing and use, most people can identify with rice in one way or another. Whether
it evokes a particular culture, or it suggests a kind of modesty or simplicity, there are
many connotations it calls forward. As such, its metaphorical potential is far reaching,
which is both beneficial and challenging in relation to my own research. There is the
danger of generalization, which can undoubtedly remove personal meaning from the
work and alter its intention. With Rose, 41, I found that I had less control over how the
metaphor transmitted to the viewer through my absence, however, the bags as objects
themselves allowed stronger opportunities for additional associations to occur.
In the article The Language of Things, Hito Steyerl dissects Walter Benjamin’s On
Language as Such and on the Language of Man, and examines the idea that things
might have their own distinct language. In other words, objects speak to us and have a
communicative power. Steyerl states that “a thing is never just something, but a fossil
in which a constellation of forces is petrified” (3). She goes further to say that things
“consist of tensions, forces, hidden powers, which keep being exchanged” (3). In
choosing bags of Kokuho Rose rice as a material, I was able to utilize the power of this
particular thing, to draw out its language in order to add deeper levels of meaning to
the work.

The potential for metaphorical embodiment in Rose, 41 was suggested through the
immediate identifications that the viewer has with rice. It allowed for the construction of
meaning to occur through many layers: the visual, initial association with the bags; the

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scale of the work and the tiered display; their tactile quality as well as the action of
washing, cooking and eating the rice all suggested the body.
In addition, the stacking of the bags carried further metaphorical resonance, and this
was received on both physical and mental levels. The shape of the work and the
spaces around the installation were intended to be registered physically, while the
stacking of the bags was suggestive of other images: bodies, sandbags, architectural
forms such as buildings or stairways, landscapes, etc. All of these associations
heightened the possibility for a careful meaning to be performed between the viewer,
the performer and the thing.

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CONCLUSION
In this text, I have outlined my methodology as it has evolved through my research and
studio practice in the development of this thesis project, and although there are still
many considerations inside of the work, several overarching notions within my
research have taken shape and can now be applied within my practice in different
ways. Specifically, my research has drawn me to better understand and further
confront ideas around spatial relationships, and how reversing our spatial expectations
can reveal the complex social relations that operate within space at any given moment.
Further, I have explored how these relations might be applied to actively engage the
viewer in an encounter with an artwork. This process has also deepened my interest in
the significance of performance and the body in generating powerful conscious and
unconscious connections; it has taught me how metaphor and other analogous
narrative tools can be used in promoting a performed response. Perhaps most
importantly, it has enlivened a new form for exploration within my practice — the
performed installation.
In the trajectory of my research in the MAA, the provisional works I began with focused
on performative gestures that did not necessarily construct the viewer experience in
the moment of the gesture. Thoughts on how the viewer would receive the work came
much later, through the recontextualization of a work, whether through the
presentation of the documentation, or subsequent iterations. Although these initial
explorations were generative and helped to develop my process, it was making work
for the gallery space that truly tested and activated my methodology. Through the
formal considerations of how these performative gestures function within the
relationship between the viewer, the performance, and the objects or materials within a
shared space, I have gained a better understanding of how my work offers
opportunities for intersubjective engagement between an artwork and an audience.
With regards to the notion of performing meaning, I have experienced how these
intersubjective engagements are directly related to moments where one feels a sense

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of “tangency”, as Leiris describes. It is an active connection where an exchange occurs
and we are drawn into playing out our own narratives alongside a work. I am interested
in how these moments of tangency are created and furthered.
During the final graduate exhibit, a viewer mentioned that her family ate rice every
night, and her experience of Rose, 41 made her remember the countless awkward and
tense moments around the dinner table. She told me that dinners were not a happy
time, and as she said this, her arms crossed over her body. Suddenly I felt her family
history layer on top of my own, and this changed the work, if only briefly. I am
interested in exploring how this kind of engagement is encouraged, through the use of
the space, the lighting elements and the objects, the way the body is suggested
physically and symbolically. I believe the subtle function of the performed installation
has the potential to leave room for viewers to place themselves inside the work,
without over-determining a relationship. In this way, both the conscious and
unconscious reception of a work can be used to build an act of co-performing its
meaning.
Through my work I am looking for ways to be in the same space with my viewer,
however long this can last — to conceptually share a moment of space, whether it be
physical, philosophical or emotional. In this moment we demand attention from each
other. We care for each other and share our ideas, experiences and perspectives. We
feel what Amelia Jones calls interpretive desire — a moment of active, intersubjective
connection. I now see this desire as a necessary component in making a work. It is full
of complex, subjective narrative potential that can go on to resonate on many different
levels. Through my research, I have found ways to amplify my own terms of
engagement — and hopefully the viewer’s. I hope to continue this work: to draw out
associations that disturb contexts and blur histories, in order to build new narratives
that hold the potential to shift the dominant narratives of our shared experience.

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