Choose your own adventure - Dangerous Border Crossers

For this assignment I chose option 2 and read Part III of Dangerous Border Crossers by Guillermo Gómez-Peña. This section of the book is titled Conversations Across the Border Fence. This section of the book discusses the intricacies that come along with developing work with "Artists operating in a multiracial and culturally pluralistic context..." Guillermo acknowledges that in modern America an artwork will not be interpreted the same way be people of different cultural backgrounds. Guillermo says, "In this sense, any performance artist who wishes to cross borders must he a cultural relativist..." The chapter's main discussion begins with a discussion between Guillermo Gómez-Peña and other collaborators. In this conversation they reflect on past performances, and on reactions of audience members. One key takeaway from this dialogue is Guillermo's perspective on audience understanding. He speaks about his past fear of his performances being misunderstood, but as time has progressed he has embraced the confusion. Guillermo says,  "I now distrust people who come up to me right after a show and tell me “I understood everything and I am with you.”" I think it'a really powerful to be comfortable creating work that isn't readily understandable for the audience. The real goal with performance art is to get the audience to really think and reflect about what they have just seen. The next section of Conversations Across the Border Fence is another conversation, this time between Guillermo and a music critic and cultural writer Josh Kun. In their conversation they discuss Guillermo's incorporation of technology into his work. Here Guillermo acknowledges the ever changing landscape of the world of performance art. He speaks briefly about how he decided to delve into the internet as a "cyber-immigrant." Ultimately this discussion with Josh is incredibly unguided and I found it hard to pull a greater meaning from it. Overall I found this chapter to be a great insight into Guillermo's thought process. He clearly was/is working through some very complex ideas with his performances. I think this format also aides the reader into having a much greater understanding of the artist and I wish more art writing was like this.