airport yoga
2012 Performance at The Los Angeles County Airport
The artist performs a series of amateur yoga poses in the main mecca of the Los Angeles airport. The performer, at times looks at ease and other times, like a corpse laying motionless on the floor. The behavior of the passersby reveals that the body goes almost unnoticed as they walk to their next destination. The video documentation creates dissonance between the viewer and the scenario created by the performance as viewers question the inaction of passersby.
This performance was inspired by Marc Auge’s book, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (1995). Augé’s term for “generic places such as bus depots, train stations, and airports which, however elaborate and grandiose, do not confer a feeling of place. As Gertrude Stein famously said of Oakland, there is no ‘there’ in a non-place. In direct contrast to places, which we tend to think of as being relational, historical, and concerned with identity, non-places are designed and intended for the frictionless passage of a nameless and faceless multitude.” (from Oxford Reference)
JaNae Contag 