Shia LaBeouf Performance art How is Shia relevant to performance art? In early 2014, LaBeouf began collaborating with British artist and author of The Metamodernist Manifesto, Luke Turner, and Finnish artist Nastja Sade Ronkko, Why did he colaborate with them? embarking on a series of actions described by Dazed as "a multi-platform meditation on celebrity and vulnerability". Was this colaboration successful? Since then, LaBeouf, Ronkko & Turner have engaged in numerous high-profile performance art projects, Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? he occupied a Los Angeles gallery for six days wearing the paper bag and silently crying in front of visitors, How did the members of the gallery react to this? I felt cared for however it came--it was beautiful, it blew me away."
What else is interesting about his connection to performance art?
Other than the public's response, what else is interesting about Shia LaBouef's connection to performance art?
In early 2014, LaBeouf began collaborating with British artist and author of The Metamodernist Manifesto, Luke Turner, and Finnish artist Nastja Sade Ronkko, embarking on a series of actions described by Dazed as "a multi-platform meditation on celebrity and vulnerability". Since then, LaBeouf, Ronkko & Turner have engaged in numerous high-profile performance art projects, including #IAMSORRY (2014), #ALLMYMOVIES (2015), #TOUCHMYSOUL (2015), #TAKEMEANYWHERE (2016), and HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US (2017-ongoing).  On February 9, 2014, the artists caused controversy at the Berlin Film Festival when LaBeouf arrived at the red carpet wearing a brown paper bag over his head with the words "I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE" written on it. In a conversation conducted as part of the trio's #INTERVIEW piece in November 2014, LaBeouf said that he was "heartbroken" and "genuinely remorseful and full of shame and guilt" at the start of their subsequent #IAMSORRY performance, in which he occupied a Los Angeles gallery for six days wearing the paper bag and silently crying in front of visitors, but that "in the end I felt cared for however it came--it was beautiful, it blew me away." He revealed, however, that one woman had proceeded to sexually assault him during the February performance, while Ronkko and Turner later clarified that they had prevented the assault by intervening as soon as they were aware of the incident starting to occur.  In 2015, LaBeouf appeared in #INTRODUCTIONS, a half-hour video made by LaBeouf, Ronkko & Turner in collaboration with Central Saint Martins Fine Art students, comprising a series of short monologues performed by LaBeouf in front of a green screen. One segment in the form of an exaggerated motivational speech, dubbed "Just Do It" after the Nike slogan, became an Internet meme after going viral within days of being released, spawning numerous remixes and parodies, and becoming the most searched for GIF of 2015 according to Google. CANNOTANSWER
He revealed, however, that one woman had proceeded to sexually assault him during the February performance,
Shia LaBeouf (; born June 11, 1986) is an American actor, performance artist, and filmmaker. He played Louis Stevens in the Disney Channel series Even Stevens, a role for which he received a Young Artist Award nomination in 2001 and won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2003. He made his film debut in The Christmas Path (1998). In 2004, he made his directorial debut with the short film Let's Love Hate and later directed a short film titled Maniac (2011), starring American rappers Cage and Kid Cudi.

In 2007, LaBeouf starred in the commercially successful films Disturbia and Surf's Up. The same year he was cast in Michael Bay's science fiction film Transformers as Sam Witwicky, the main protagonist of the series. Transformers was a box office success and one of the highest-grossing films of 2007. LaBeouf later appeared in its sequels Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), both also box office successes. In 2008, he played Henry "Mutt Williams" Jones III in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

His other credits include the films Holes (2003), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), Lawless (2012), The Company You Keep (2012), Nymphomaniac (2013), Fury (2014), American Honey (2016), Borg vs McEnroe (2017), Honey Boy (2019), The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019), and Pieces of a Woman (2020).

Since 2014, LaBeouf has pursued a variety of public performance art projects with LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner.

Early life
LaBeouf was born on June 11, 1986, in Los Angeles, California. He is the only child of Shayna Saide and Jeffrey LaBeouf. His mother is a visual artist, jewelry designer, and former dancer, while his father is a Vietnam War veteran and former professional clown. LaBeouf's mother is Jewish, and his father, who is of Cajun French descent, is Christian. LaBeouf has described himself as Jewish, and has stated that he was raised around "both sides"; he had a Bar Mitzvah ceremony, and was also baptized. One of the camps he attended was Christian. In Hebrew, his first name Shia spells 'gift of God'.

LaBeouf has described his parents as "hippies", his father as "tough as nails and a different breed of man", and his upbringing as similar to a "hippy lifestyle", stating that his parents were "pretty weird people, but they loved me and I loved them." During his childhood, he accompanied his father to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. LaBeouf has also said he was subjected to verbal and mental abuse by his father, who once pointed a gun at his son during a Vietnam War flashback. LaBeouf has stated that during his childhood, his father was "on drugs" and was placed in drug rehabilitation for heroin addiction, while LaBeouf's mother was "trying to hold down the fort."

His parents eventually divorced, mainly owing to financial problems, and LaBeouf had what he has described as a "good childhood", growing up poor in Echo Park with his mother, who worked selling fabrics and brooches. LaBeouf's uncle was going to adopt him at one stage because his parents could not afford to have him anymore and "they had too much pride to go on welfare or food stamps." As a way of dealing with his parents' divorce, he would perform for his family, mimicking his father. LaBeouf remains close to and financially supports both of his parents.

He attended 32nd Street Visual and Performing Arts Magnet in Los Angeles (LAUSD) and Alexander Hamilton High School, although he received most of his education from tutors. In an interview, LaBeouf said that, looking back on his childhood, he feels grateful and considers some of those memories as scars.

Career

1996–2006: Career beginnings and Even Stevens
Prior to acting, LaBeouf practiced comedy around his neighborhood as an "escape" from a hostile environment. At age 10, he began performing stand-up at comedy clubs, describing his appeal as having "disgustingly dirty" material and a "50-year-old mouth on the 10-year-old kid." He subsequently found an agent through the Yellow Pages and was taken on after pretending to be his own manager. LaBeouf has said that he initially became an actor because his family was broke, not because he wanted to pursue an acting career, having originally gotten the idea from a child actor he met who had things he wanted.

In the early 2000s, LaBeouf became known among young audiences after playing Louis Stevens on the Disney Channel weekly program Even Stevens, a role that later earned him a Daytime Emmy Award. He has said that "[he] grew up on that show" and being cast was the "best thing" that happened to him. In the next several years, he appeared in the film Holes (2003), which received praise. In 2005, he co-starred in Constantine, playing the role of Chas Kramer, with Keanu Reeves in the starring role. The same year he provided the voice of Asbel in the Disney-produced English dub of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. LaBeouf made his directorial debut with the short film Let's Love Hate with Lorenzo Eduardo. He has played real-life people, including golfer Francis Ouimet and the younger version of Dito Montiel in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006).

2007–2010: Breakthrough

LaBeouf starred in Disturbia, a thriller released on April 13, 2007, as a teenager under house arrest who suspects that his neighbor is a serial killer, which he considered a "character-driven" role. He received positive reviews for the role, with The Buffalo News writing that he "is able to simultaneously pull off [the character's] anger, remorse and intelligence". He hosted Saturday Night Live on April 14, 2007, and returned the following season to host the episode that aired on May 10, 2008. He next played Sam Witwicky, who becomes involved in the Autobot-Decepticon war on Earth, in Transformers.

In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), LaBeouf portrayed Indiana Jones' greaser son, Mutt Williams. Stephanie Zachaek of Salon deemed his performance "appealing enough" and wrote that he "sensibly keeps his performance as low-key as possible". LaBeouf told the Los Angeles Times that he felt he as an actor "dropped the ball" on Jones' legacy, and "there was a reason" the film wasn't universally accepted. His next film was Eagle Eye, released on September 26. Josh Bell of Las Vegas Weekly said he "makes a credible bid for action-hero status, although his occasional stabs at emotional depth don't really go anywhere."

In February, LaBeouf made his music video directorial debut, directing the video for "I Never Knew You", a single by American rapper Cage, from his third album Depart from Me (2009). It was shot in Los Angeles and features several cameo appearances from Cage's Definitive Jux label-mates. Through Cage, LaBeouf met Kid Cudi. All three of them later worked on a short film titled Maniac (2011), which was inspired by the song of the same name from Cudi's second album Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager (2010). Aside from directing the short film, LaBeouf directed the music video for Kid Cudi's song "Marijuana", which he filmed at the 2010 Cannabis Cup.

LaBeouf reprised the role of Sam Witwicky in the 2009 sequel to Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Filming for the movie began in May 2008 and ended in late 2008. Due to LaBeouf's injury from his car accident, director Michael Bay and screenwriter Roberto Orci had to rewrite the script to protect his hand throughout filming. LaBeouf said production was only delayed two days after his accident because Bay made up for it by filming second unit scenes, and LaBeouf recovered a few weeks earlier than expected, allowing him to return to the set. Near the end of filming, LaBeouf injured his eye when he hit a prop; the injury required several stitches. He resumed filming two hours later. While the movie grossed $800 million, it received mostly negative reviews by critics, with LaBeouf sharing a nomination for the "Worst Screen Couple of 2009" Razzie Award with "either Megan Fox or any Transformer."

He appeared in the Oliver Stone-directed film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), the sequel to Wall Street (1987). In this, LaBeouf played an ambitious Wall Street trader. The Hollywood Reporter named LaBeouf as one of the young male actors who are "pushing – or being pushed" into taking over Hollywood as the new "A-List". LaBeouf completed the 2010 Los Angeles Marathon on March 21, 2010 with a time of 4 hours, 35 minutes and 31 seconds.

2011–2017: Subsequent career

He reprised his role in the third live-action Transformers film, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which was released on June 28, 2011. He did not return for the fourth film in the series, Transformers: Age of Extinction, and Mark Wahlberg was cast as a new lead character. In 2012, Rob Cantor of Tally Hall produced a song describing LaBeouf as a murderous cannibal. In 2014, Cantor produced a music video based on this song. Despite the title and lyrics, the intent was humorous and non-serious, and LaBeouf appeared at the end of the video, applauding.

LaBeouf has created three short graphic novels Stale N Mate, Cyclical, and Let's Fucking Party, and a webcomic series, Cheek Up's through the publishing company, The Campaign Book. In April 2012, he promoted them at Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo. In the same year, LaBeouf played a bootlegger in John Hillcoat's crime drama Lawless. In June 2012, Icelandic band Sigur Rós released a music video for the song "Fjögur Píanó". It depicts "a man and woman locked in a never-ending cycle of addiction and desire", in which LaBeouf stars and appears nude.

In February 2013, he pulled out of what would have been his Broadway debut, in Lyle Kessler's play Orphans, citing "creative differences" with co-star Alec Baldwin, although The New York Times and Baldwin himself maintain LaBeouf was fired. A month later, a film in which he starred alongside Robert Redford titled The Company You Keep was released. He next portrayed Jerôme Morris in the Lars von Trier-directed erotic art film Nymphomaniac, which premiered in December 2013. Meanwhile at the film's screening at the Berlin Film Festival a tuxedoed LeBouef walked the red carpet with a paper bag over his head with the words "I am not famous anymore" written upon it.

LaBeouf co-starred with Brad Pitt and Logan Lerman in David Ayer's World War II-set film, Fury, which was released in October 2014. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called LaBeouf's performance "outstanding", whilst New York Daily Newss Joe Neumaier commented that he "finally finds a role he can disappear into, without his image getting in the way." Calvin Wilson of St. Louis Post-Dispatch called LaBeouf's performance one of his best.

In 2015, LaBeouf starred in Sia's music video for "Elastic Heart" along with Maddie Ziegler. He also starred in the war-thriller film Man Down directed by Dito Montiel alongside Gary Oldman and Kate Mara. In 2016, LaBeouf starred in American Honey, directed by Andrea Arnold, playing the male lead role, Jake. In Variety, Guy Lodge wrote that "despite the apparent stunt casting of LaBeouf", he "easily delivers his best performance here, bleeding the eccentricities of his own celebrity persona into the character to fascinating, oddly moving effect". In 2017, he portrayed tennis player John McEnroe in the Swedish sports drama film Borg vs McEnroe.

2019–present: Further film career
In 2019, LaBeouf starred in the comedy-drama film The Peanut Butter Falcon, which premiered in March, and was released in August. In the same year, he portrayed a character based on his father in the film Honey Boy, which he also wrote. He penned the screenplay while in rehab and based it upon his life as an actor. Both The Peanut Butter Falcon and Honey Boy garnered acclaim from critics. The following year, LaBeouf starred in The Tax Collector, directed by David Ayer. In September 2020, he participated in a virtual reading of the comedy-drama film Fast Times at Ridgemont High. LaBeouf also starred in the Netflix drama film Pieces of a Woman opposite Vanessa Kirby, directed by Kornél Mundruczó. He was originally attached to star in the psychological thriller film Don't Worry Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde, but had to depart due to "scheduling conflicts". A later report stated that he was actually fired by Wilde due to poor behavior and clashes with the cast and crew.

Performance art

In early 2014, LaBeouf began collaborating with British artist and author of The Metamodernist Manifesto, Luke Turner, and Finnish artist Nastja Säde Rönkkö, embarking on a series of actions described by Dazed as "a multi-platform meditation on celebrity and vulnerability". Since then, LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner have engaged in numerous high-profile performance art projects, including #IAMSORRY (2014), #ALLMYMOVIES (2015), #TOUCHMYSOUL (2015), #TAKEMEANYWHERE (2016), and HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US (2017–2021).

On February 9, 2014, the artists caused controversy at the Berlin Film Festival when LaBeouf arrived at the red carpet wearing a brown paper bag over his head with the words "I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE" written on it. In a conversation conducted as part of the trio's #INTERVIEW piece in November 2014, LaBeouf said that he was "heartbroken" and "genuinely remorseful and full of shame and guilt" at the start of their subsequent #IAMSORRY performance, in which he occupied a Los Angeles gallery for six days wearing the paper bag and silently crying in front of visitors, but that "in the end I felt cared for however it came—it was beautiful, it blew me away." He revealed, however, that one woman had proceeded to sexually assault him during the February performance, while Rönkkö and Turner later clarified that they had prevented the assault by intervening as soon as they were aware of the incident starting to occur.

In 2015, LaBeouf appeared in #INTRODUCTIONS, a half-hour video made by LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner in collaboration with Central Saint Martins Fine Art students, comprising a series of short monologues performed by LaBeouf in front of a green screen. One segment in the form of an exaggerated motivational speech, dubbed "Just Do It" after the Nike slogan, became an Internet meme after going viral within days of being released, spawning numerous remixes and parodies, and becoming the most searched for GIF of 2015 according to Google.

Plagiarism controversies
On December 17, 2013, LaBeouf released his short film Howard Cantour.com to the Internet; shortly thereafter, several bloggers noted its close similarity to Justin M. Damiano, a 2007 comic by Ghost World creator Dan Clowes. Wired journalist Graeme McMillan noted at least three similarities in their article, one of which was that the opening monologue for the short and the comic were identical. LaBeouf would later remove the film and claim that he did not intend to copy Clowes but was instead "inspired" by him and "got lost in the creative process." He followed this up with several apologies via Twitter writing, "In my excitement and naiveté as an amateur filmmaker, I got lost in the creative process and neglected to follow proper accreditation", and "I deeply regret the manner in which these events have unfolded and want @danielclowes to know that I have a great respect for his work". Clowes responded by saying "The first I ever heard of the film was this morning when someone sent me a link. I've never spoken to or met Mr. LaBeouf ... I actually can't imagine what was going through his mind." LaBeouf was criticized over his apology, with some sites such as The A.V. Club noting that the apology itself appeared to have been lifted from a 2010 post on Yahoo! Answers.

Since the initial discovery of the plagiarism of Clowe's work, LaBeouf's other work has come under scrutiny. News outlets reported that LaBeouf's graphic novels, Let's Fucking Party and Stale N Mate, had been plagiarized from Benoît Duteurtre's The Little Girl and the Cigarette and Charles Bukowski's Assault.

In January 2014, LaBeouf spoke about the plagiarism accusations with Bleeding Cool writer Rich Johnston, where he stated that he saw copyright laws as too restrictive and that they did not allow for ideas to flow freely. LaBeouf later tweeted a description of his next project, Daniel Boring (a reference to David Boring, another comic created by Clowes). The description of the project was also taken word-for-word from a description by Clowes of his comic. Clowes' attorney, Michael Kump, has since sent a cease-and-desist letter to LaBeouf's attorney, which LaBeouf posted on Twitter.

Personal life
LaBeouf contributed an essay to the book I Am Jewish by Judea Pearl, in which he stated that he has a "personal relationship with God that happens to work within the confines of Judaism". LaBeouf has described himself as Jewish, but declared in 2007 that religion had "never made sense" to him. However, LaBeouf said in an interview in Interview magazine in October 2014 that he had become "I found God doing [the film] Fury. I became a Christian man [...] Brad [Pitt]  was really instrumental in guiding my head through this.". 

LaBeouf suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

LaBeouf met English actress Mia Goth while filming Nymphomaniac in 2012. On October 10, 2016, LaBeouf and Goth appeared to have gotten married in a Las Vegas ceremony officiated by an Elvis impersonator. Two days later, a local official said that the pair were not legally married, but instead a commitment ceremony was performed. Later that month, LaBeouf confirmed their nuptials on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In September 2018, it was announced the couple had separated and filed for divorce. However, in February 2022, it was reported that Goth was pregnant with their first child.

In 2015, LaBeouf endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in the Labour Party leadership election. He told the Evening Standard: "I like Jeremy Corbyn. I like him in every way. British politics just got very exciting."

LaBeouf dated English musician FKA Twigs from 2018 to 2019. He began dating American actress Margaret Qualley in 2020 after they co-starred in her sister Rainey Qualley's short film music video "Love Me Like You Hate Me". The relationship reportedly ended in January 2021, and in September Qualley told Harper's Bazaar that she believed FKA Twigs's allegations.

Legal issues
On June 26, 2014, LaBeouf was arrested at New York City's Studio 54 theater and subsequently charged with disorderly conduct, harassment, and criminal trespass. He was said to have been "acting disorderly, yelling and being loud". Following the incident, LaBeouf voluntarily sought outpatient treatment for alcoholism. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, while the trespassing and harassment charges were dropped.

On July 8, 2017, LaBeouf was arrested in downtown Savannah, Georgia, at around 4 a.m. for public intoxication, disorderly conduct, and obstruction. Bodycam footage showed LeBeouf making "profanity-laced racial remarks" towards police officers during his arrest. He later attributed the incident to his alcohol addiction. After pleading no contest to the charge of disorderly conduct in October 2017, LaBeouf was found guilty of obstruction but was found not guilty of public intoxication. He was sentenced to probation for one year, including time served, and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine as well as seek therapy to manage his anger and substance use issues.

In September 2020, LaBeouf was criminally charged with misdemeanor battery and petty theft for his involvement in an altercation with a man in June of that year. He pleaded not guilty. A judge ordered LaBeouf into a diversion program in May 2021, with the charges possibly dropped should LaBeouf complete the program within a year.

In December 2020, LaBeouf was sued by Tahliah Debrett Barnett ("FKA Twigs") for sexual battery, assault, and infliction of emotional distress. He stated in his response that he had been "abusive" to himself and those around him "for years" and that he was "ashamed" and "sorry to those [he] hurt." Following the lawsuit, Netflix removed him from its awards campaign for Pieces of a Woman. LaBeouf subsequently took a hiatus from acting and began receiving treatment. He received a nomination for the Hall of Shame Award at the 2020 Alliance of Women Film Journalists EDA Awards.

Filmography

Film

Music videos

Television

Video games

Awards and nominations

References

External links

 
 

1986 births
Living people
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
Alexander Hamilton High School (Los Angeles) alumni
American Christians
American male child actors
American male film actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American music video directors
American people of Jewish descent
American performance artists
Converts to Christianity from Judaism
BAFTA Rising Star Award winners
Emmy Award winners
Daytime Emmy Award winners
Male actors from Los Angeles
Metamodernism
Method actors
People from Echo Park, Los Angeles
People involved in plagiarism controversies
Robbie Gringras is a British-born Israeli writer, performer, and educator.

Robbie is a motivational speaker who performs internationally as far as Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, USA, and Israel. His shows revolve around the theme of complexity of love and understanding of Israel and Judaism.

Background and Performances 

A British-born Oxford University graduate, Gringras is a writer, actor, singer and storyteller who now lives in Israel on Kibbutz Tuval.

Through theater and music, Robbie Gringras expresses his passion for the land of Israel (which he and his family made Aliyah to in 1996) and artistically shares his passion with his audiences. He is able to do this with his talents of directing, writing, acting, and story telling. One of his productions is called, That’s Why I’m (Still) Here, in which he tells a series of stories about his adjustment to Israel – when he moved there, the significance of why he did, and why he is still there today. His performance provides a new perspective of the land of Israel, and what it means to live there. “In the end aliyah isn’t about arriving. It’s about staying...”, he says.

Gringras drew attention for his 2009 performance piece The Eighth Child,  penned as a response to Caryl Churchill's controversial play, Seven Jewish Children.

One of the songs he performs in this show (with friend musician, Adam Mader), is written by Ehud Banai, called Hayom, meaning "Today." Robbie Gringras calls it an “…honest love song. When you’ve landed and you’ve moved forward to the next phase of this honest relationship.” The relationship he refers to in this sweet melody is one’s relationship with Israel, and how just like in a romance between two people, Israel can be emotionally connected with at many levels. 
Other stories that Gringras tells in this performance are called Kissing through a Handkerchief – what happens when two cultures clash; The Arab and the Jew – the pain and humanity of the conflict between them; Chesed and Din – the overflowing love from Israeli Chutzpah; and An Unbeliever in the Holy City – a tale of a Yom Kippur in Jerusalem. San Francisco BJE and Israel Education Initiative describe Robbie Gringras and his work, "Robbie's work is delightful, and of great significance in helping build intimate, honest, [and] open relations between Israel and Diaspora".

The Goal 

When asked about the main message he wishes to deliver in his shows, Gringras replied, “I don’t believe in messages. It is my belief that good art (and good education) is about setting fire to important questions, and not giving self-important answers. I also believe that good art allows for an audience to assume and to interpret many different messages. The fun of art is that many people can draw from it so many different things.”
Part of Robbie Gringras’s performance art is to show Jewish people how they can connect to the land of Israel. Historically, many artists, musicians, and actors have used performance art to create interest in Israel. Similar figures who have done this include artists Theodore Bikel, Amos Oz, and David D’Or. 
One of the main goals of Gringras’s shows is to engage his audiences into deep thinking about their connection to Judaism and Israel. He believes it is important to motivate individuals by asking pertinent questions and not necessarily by offering what he terms, “self-important answers.”  According to a May 2006 Jewish Exponent article, Gringras describes himself as, "an educator trying to build intimate and emotional connections to modern Israel. American Jews are having a difficult time coming to grips with the gritty reality. We have to get up close and personal with contemporary Israel".

Robbie Gringras’s Network 

Robbie Gringras is also the chief editor and artist in residence of the online network, Makom. Makom is translated as “place” and in Judaism is another name for God – Its goal is to get others to recognize the necessary effort to restore and preserve where Israel stands in Jewish life. The site includes a popular and active book club, which Gringras created with musician Kobi Oz. Gringras says, “Makom believes that every Jew in the world should embrace the complexities of Israel in order to reach a deep and passionate commitment to Israel’s well-being. We create materials [that help] train teachers and other leaders [in writing] articles in the general media about this complexity.”

References

External links
 Personal website

Israeli male stage actors
Israeli male dramatists and playwrights
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Alumni of the University of Oxford
Place of birth missing (living people) Jon McKenzie is a performance theorist, media maker, and transdisciplinary researcher and teacher at Cornell University. He is founder of the StudioLab pedagogy and former director of DesignLab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. McKenzie's main interests are in new media, performance theory, and the role of art and technology in cultural research, contemporary processes of globalization, and emerging forms of social activism.

Career

Degree
Throughout his career McKenzie has achieved the following degrees: BFA (with honours) at the University of Florida, Department of Fine Arts (1984); MA (with honours) at the University of Florida, Department of English (1987); and finally a PhD at the New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, Department of Performance Studies (1996). McKenzie has held a number of professional positions including; Writing Instructor,  Department of English, University of Florida (1985–1987); Assistant Professor, Department of Multimedia, The University of the Arts (1999–2001); and Associate and Full Professor, Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2006–2007); Full Professor, Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Dean's Fellow for Media and Design and Visiting Professor of English at Cornell University.

Influences 

During his time as an undergraduate at the University of Florida McKenzie was heavily influenced by the work of Professor Gregory Ulmer and his theories of applied Grammatology. By taking film classes with Ulmer and fellow Professor Robert Ray, McKenzie began to explore art informed by theories of relativity and psychoanalysis. This led to an interest in the deconstructive and grammatological projects of Jacques Derrida. The first lesson that Ulmer taught McKenzie was that even the most critical of theories, such as Marx and Freud, came from creativity and invention. Therefore, for McKenzie theory became a form of applied conceptual art. The second lesson Ulmer taught McKenzie was to approach the classroom as a performance space, a site where materials (bodies, ideas, media) could be mixed together to create pedagogical events.

Another influence for McKenzie has been performance artist Laurie Anderson as he was fascinated by the complexity and simplicity of her work. He wrote his master's theses on Anderson's United States Parts: I-IV where he explored Anderson's multimedia performance art using Derrida's notion of grammatological, generalised writing, while also trying to explore the relation of experimental performance and the highly normative theory of performativity articulated by Lyotard. In his essay ‘Laurie Anderson for Dummies’ McKenzie analyses Anderson's performance stories from the Never Bible and her CD ROM, ‘Puppet Motel’; and how they are related to his interest in performative pedagogies. 
 
The years at Florida shaped McKenzie's approach to theory and life and Ulmer's teaching left a big thumbprint on his mind. ‘The experimental approach to theory is constant, the emphasis on generalised writing, multimedia, mixing them up. Anagrammatology’.

McKenzie's concepts and views on performance theory

Jon McKenzie has various views on performance theory. He refers to performance as having multiple definitions: performance as spectacle, performance as a machine's effectiveness, and a government representative's performance during speeches. All these concepts are becoming ‘entwined’ (McKenzie, 2003; 118) due to the different paradigms involved around the phenomena in defining what is performance. McKenzie describes the whole world as becoming a ‘test site,’ (McKenzie, 2003; 120) in which everything is being tested as a performance. McKenzie believes that the world is entering ‘an age of global performance.' He believes that performance has become globalized and that everything can be perceived as a performance. In the article, 'Democracy’s Performance,' he notes that ‘performance practices have gone digital... merging art, activism and technology to create electronic civil disobedience’ (McKenzie, 2003; 117). According to McKenzie, performance studies is constantly ‘contesting’ (McKenzie, 2003; 117) and expanding its own concepts through ‘experimental’ (McKenzie, 2003; 117) ways of teaching and research. McKenzie considers the definition of performance in light of globalization to be ‘too American’ (McKenzie, 2006; 7) because it is problematically seen as universal, where, in actuality, each piece of performance is contextually unique.

Another of McKenzie's theories, influenced by the work of Judith Butler, Jean-François Lyotard and Herbert Marcuse, is that performance has formed a ‘performance stratum’ (McKenzie, 2003;117). This stratum involves the intersection of power and knowledge; although he admits that it has not ‘fully installed itself’ (McKenzie, 2001; 6); he has come to this conclusion by extending Michel Foucault's theories of discipline, in which he believes there needs to be a term to explain the different degrees of performance; cultural, organizational, and technological, although this term is only new due to the emergence of the globalization of performance; which is rapidly increasing. Referencing Friedrich Nietzsche, he also suggests that Gay Science might help us to develop a methodology that can be practiced within performance by interweaving paradigms and researching different types performance. In the article ‘Democracy’s Performance’ he suggests that global performance contains complex forces and affects; the effects being a system of barometers including the Eurobarometer, which are a group of demographic constituencies which take public surveys based on the performance of democracy in countries and regions across the world. The thoughts expressed in the article by McKenzie are extended thoughts based on research for his book Perform or Else.

McKenzie notes in ‘Performance and Global Transference’ that cultural performances contribute to the contemporary process of globalization. Although he generally sees the globalization of performance as having a negative impact, he does see some positive aspects, such as: the emergence of universal human rights, establishment of the world court (international court of justice), annual conferences on global warming and the AIDS crisis, and the formation of Performance Studies International, co-founded by noted American feminist scholar Peggy Phelan.

A unifying theme throughout all of McKenzie's work is researching what performance might mean in an attempt to build a clear and unique single definition that sums up various paradigms in performance studies globally. It is understood that his goal by publishing materials is to create an understanding of different theorists and researchers around the world and their different understanding of terms and approach to cultural performance and help solve problematic queries regarding to the definition of performance which is increasingly difficult as the further you research the more contradicting performance becomes to its previous definitions.  This is established as his mission statement within ‘Is Performance Studies Imperialist?’(McKenzie, 2006).

StudioLab 
In 1996 McKenzie decided to tackle the question: ‘How does an artist perform technologically?’ With this performance in mind he taught ‘Electronic Performance’ as a graduate course in the summer of 1996 and then in an undergraduate workshop in the autumn. McKenzie explains that ‘the focus of both workshops was to explore electronic performance as the cross of cultural performance (such as theatre, ritual and performance art) and technological performance (ranging from clocks and answering machines to computers and the internet). McKenzie explains that both humans and technologies perform: ‘interfaces are thus always joint performances’. McKenzie believed that it was critically important for his drama students to experience and experiment with new media. Student participation is a high expectation in McKenzie's classes and he has created a framework that allows students to add their own work.

The StudioLab is designed to take place in studio and computer lab environments, allowing students to develop critico-creative projects and digital skills using models drawn from cultural performance: theatre, performance art, ritual and practices of everyday life. In the studio, the students work in ‘bands’ to collaboratively conceive and develop performative aspects of their projects. StudioLab bands contain specialised players; one student might focus on imagery, another on text and another on interactive elements. However, in the lab, the same students work in different groupings called ‘guilds’ to develop the electronic elements needed by the bands. Guilds are technically monochromatic, composed of specialised players such as Photoshoppers, Hypertextualists and Interactivists. Individual guild members then bring their skills back to their bands in the studio, integrating them into projects. Moving between studio and lab, band and guild, these projects unfold through the interlacing of bodies, ideas and media. McKenzie's role in this process is one of producer giving his students advice on how to mix their tracks. The interlacing of the bands and guilds was an important discovery for McKenzie, for it took the collaboration to a higher level.
  
One project McKenzie used was ‘Interface in Everyday Life’ combining performance art and Donald Norman’s work on interface design. Students were given the opportunity to pick a common interface, explore the activities the design brings forth, and create a live performance from this exploration. They then tried to translate the performance back into a Web interface. Another project is a transformation of Brenda Laurel’s Computers as Theatre, which developed a theory of human-computer interaction using Aristotle's Poetics. Students created actual and virtual events by substituting another performance form for Greek tragedy: Kabuki, solo performance, Dada, Sumo as well as the theatre of Brecht, Artuad, Schechner and LeCompte.

In this interview McKenzie was asked about his opinion about the validity of collaborative student Web projects. He explained that theatre has traditionally been a collaborative activity: ‘If dramatic writing has traditionally been a solitary activity, producing theatre has always been collaborative: actors, costume and set designers, technical crews, etc. It's this collaborative dimension that makes theatre so applicable to creating new media, which requires integrating so many different skills and media. McKenzie believes that the model of individual genius that has dominated modern aesthetics is giving way to collaborative modes of creativity. For him, all creativity is social and recombinant’. McKenzie goes on to talk about the process of updating and maintaining a large website like StudioLab. He joked that ‘Maintaining a Website was artificial life!’ He explains that the joke makes sense on two levels: First, anyone who builds and maintains a site knows that it takes some effort and if you want it to be really interesting, it takes a lot of effort so much that it can take over your life for a while. Second, the joke suggests Manuel De Landa's notion of inorganic life, which teaches us something important about human-computer interfaces, namely, that there are feedback loops and machinic processes everywhere, operating in all mediums—organic and inorganic—and doing so at very different scales and temporalities. Machinic processes are more than tools, more than mediums even: at a general level, they make up everything.

In sum: StudioLab is characterised by the circulation between studio and lab environments, by collaborative learning in different sociotechnical groupings and by the mixing and fine-tuning of physical, conceptual and multimedia elements.

Jon McKenzie's second book published in 2019 Transmedia Knowledge for Liberal Arts and Community Engagement: A StudioLab Manifesto provides an overview of his StudioLab pedagogy.

McKenzie Stojnić

In 2017, McKenzie co-founded the media performance group McKenzie Stojnić together with his spouse, performance theorist and artist Aneta Stojnić. Their first performance, "Thought Action Figures EPISODE 7: THE THINKERS," premiered on 23rd May 2018 at Spring Festival in Utrecht. McKenzie Stojnić operated at the intersections of art & life, theory & practice, playing & reality and episteme & doxa and performed across a variety of media. The main focus and means of their collaborative work was Thought Action Figures a.k.a. TAF. TAF is an original concept conceived by Jon McKenzie and developed by McKenzie and Stojnić in a series of lecture-performances, comics, videos, talks, publications, workshops etc.
They proposed TAFs as a new mode of thinking and performing in digital age. TAFs overcome the limitations of ideation and literacy for the benefits of figuration, digitally and transmedia knowledge. McKenzie explains: “With transmedia knowledge, a new image of thought emerges: Thought-Action Figures, which are to digitality what ideas are to literacy, basic forms of thought and existence (recall that Plato interpreted Being as eidos). Thought-Action Figures are not limited to human figures: animals, plants, machines, systems, processes, materialities, symbols and other abstract entities—all become thought-action figures via transmediation, movement through mediums deemed material, spiritual, cultural, etc. within different ontologies.”. Aneta Stojnić elaborates: “TAFs are figures of thought as well as concrete objects that allow us to transform and perform ideas, concepts, and knowledge across different media and in variety of forms. TAFs are always created in relation, and they always produce meaning: that is what distinguishes them from simple objects. These relations are multiple, fluid, networked, transversal, and always in motion.”

Published literature

Definition

McKenzie's most heavily cited work is the 2001 book Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance. In his book ‘Perform or Else,'  McKenzie questions whether there is a single and conclusive definition capturing all types of performance. In the first part McKenzie reviews the research area Performance Studies. Including how theatre transcended into performance as well as industries and corporations emergence into performance. Due to its complexity, there is no fixed definition of performance despite its vast field of research. McKenzie attempts to find a universal and coherent definition of performance and questions whether it is feasible to do so. He then explores why and how performance has emerged as a theoretical paradigm within the past century. He proves why there is a need for a single coherent definition of performance and shows how it goes beyond a concept of theory for theatre. McKenzie's research uses the 1986 NASA Challenger Space Shuttle shuttle flight as a case study linking his theory to that of Marcuse, Lyotard and Butler, and assesses its performative qualities. He challenges himself to create a meta-performance theory called ‘perfumance’ (McKenzie, 2001: 232). Perfumance is a neologism from McKenzie's research into finding a global definition for performance. A perfumance incorporates the sense of smell into performance, as performance as a manifesto with an alluring smell to it, that everyone is drawn to and pulled in and trapped, due to its complex meaning. McKenzie notes that ‘perfumance emits emissions of the future’ (McKenzie, 2001: 232). Meaning that it can finally end the ongoing discussion battle of performance; solving the problems of global communications.

Politics

In a platform about performance studies Jon McKenzie gives a speech titled ‘Democratizing Torture: Three Scenarios’ McKenzie addresses to the participants that society is ‘dictated’ (McKenzie, 2005:1) by performance and that people are ‘judged’ (McKenzie, 2005:1) on whether their actions can be tested as performance according to the State of the art. Performance he continues has become to find an ‘emergence of freedom’ (McKenzie, 2005:1) due to the large ‘undetermined’ (McKenzie, 2005:1) field which overlaps other fields such as institutions and processes. He continues by saying that ‘everything and everybody’ (McKenzie, 2005:1) is being judged by its potential in performance and theorists are now beginning to predict the new performance hierarchies. He then begins to discuss three scenarios based on this new immergence of performance and democracy and what he predicts by using these three scenarios what the future entails because of this performance. The first being an extension of today's society he calls this ‘clean torture’ (McKenzie, 2005:2) which entails; stun guns, stress position and highly public human rights initiatives. He calls this ‘torture as usual’ (McKenzie, 2005:2). He addresses the second scenario as ‘society of the spectacle of the Scaffold’ (McKenzie, 2005:2) of which entails politicians becoming ‘security obsessed’ (McKenzie, 2005:2)  because of the increasing danger of terrorism. This meaning the theatre of torture goes public as civilians begin to support ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ (McKenzie, 2005:2). The final scenario McKenzie discusses is ‘A world without torture’ (McKenzie, 2005:2). He explores the avenues we need to explore to abolish torture on a global mass. He argues that international human rights have helped develop clean torture techniques rather than the brutal torture techniques developed in earlier decades.

Society

In 2005 McKenzie wrote another article titled ‘Hacktivism and Machinic Performance’ in which he attempted to define both terms in context to the social climate of today. He referred to his book ‘Perform or Else’ when he defines Hacktivism: ‘the emergence of political activism within digital environments, primarily but not exclusively, the Internet’. McKenzie's goal has been to theorise the performance of hacktivism in hope of connecting his research on electronic civil disobedience to his ongoing performance research. Whilst being interested in cultural performances such as performance art and political theatre, McKenzie has focused on the relationships between cultural performance and ‘high performance’ technologies and ‘peak performance’ organisations. As well as being interested in these three performances (cultural, organisations and technological) McKenzie is most interested in performance as the defining modality of power in contemporary society. He goes on to define machinic performances as ‘arising when different processes ‘recur’ or communicate across diverse systems, thereby creating performances that escape subjective control and even objective analysis...They happen at multiple sites through multiple agents, both human and technological. Machinic performances pose a real challenge to study, as to research a machinic performance is perhaps to become part of it’. McKenzie suggests that two areas where machinic performance was most visible are interface design and socio-technical systems. In new media interface design is primarily in discrete human-computer interactions, such as an exchange in front of an automated teller machine (ATM) or on a web page. The machinic performance is precisely the interaction between an individual and a PC or other device, each providing the other with information. From another perspective, however, McKenzie states that all human-computer interactions are actually close-ups of larger socio-technological systems. It is not simply one person standing at an ATM: it is a customer base interacting with a financial institution or even a whole client sector interacting with a multinational banking industry. McKenzie believes that socio-technical systems perform machinically: they entail communication across diverse structures and processes, and their ‘events’ are not confined to discrete times and places, but are instead distributed across many performance sites.

Speech

In the article ‘Democracy’s Performance’ (McKenzie, 2003), McKenzie extends his discussion and research on performance he produced in ‘Perform or Else’ (McKenzie, 2001) by discussing the definition of performance further. He begins this by using George W. Bush’s speech; his announcement of war on terrorism as a performance, he tests his speech to see, according to the term performance, whether it is indeed a performance as such. McKenzie goes on to discuss how performance has become involved in a power matrix and the ‘will to power’ (McKenzie, 2003: 119) performance stratum.  Through discussing this he gives his theory structure by using evidence linking the idea ‘the will to become in power’ (McKenzie, 2003: 119) to performance through George Bush. He does this by showing how Bush's will makes his speech become a performance as he emphasizes his democratic views in order to gain the public's faith. McKenzie argues that Bush used a weak point in America by tackling the 9/11 attacks by blaming those responsible in a historical and philosophical perspective by linking the attacks of Al Qaeda and comparing these attacks to those of Pearl Harbor.

Culture

In the article ‘Performance and Global Transference’ (McKenzie, 2001) McKenzie analyses the impact of globalization on cultural performances. Commenting on previous research from the article ‘Democracy’s Performance’ (McKenzie, 2003) he continues his theory by saying that the stratum he has developed to make a clearer term for performance has not been ‘fully installed’ (McKenzie, 2003:6) this being due to the emergence of globalization and the era we are heading into of global performance.

His research in performance theory has inspired performance arts groups, such as Doorika, mentioned in the feminist theory journal Women & Performance.

References

External links
 www.english.wisc.edu/mckenzie
 
  McKenzie Stojnić website
  Jon McKenzie "From Gay Science to Theory Comix" on Wisconsin Public Television's website, 2013
  Jon McKenzie - Center for 21st Century Studies Fellows

Living people
University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
University of Florida alumni
Tisch School of the Arts alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)