Otino Corsano: 2017

Forest

July 18 - 29, 2017

Statement

For the past three years, I have been training in a patch of green space near my home in North York to create a new genre of performance art as part of my neo-conceptual art practice.

I developed a type of mild forest parkour combining forms of trail running with customized dance and simple gymnastics maneuvers. This work is moderately informed by the aesthetics made popular in skateboarding, surfing and other performance-based sports videos similarly located in a natural, remote and outdoor setting.

The core experiences of the live performances are impossible to capture; nevertheless, the documentation of these brief jumps and movements in HD video provide a transmedia base enabling digital byproducts. Still, the work champions the primary and immediate interaction of choreographed motion through the Canadian landscape. Although my new genres practice commonly operates within the commercial gallery system, at the same time I enjoy developing practices unrestricted by art structures, and to a degree, even economics. Aspiring to Adrian Piper’s practice of yoga as a form of social transformation, I practice these actions with similar ambitions towards amelioration.

I strive to make more than objects. I also question the role of audience and receivership in order to expand the parameters of meaning production. I do not create work obligated to meet any market. This afforded freedom is both liberating and limiting. Unlike, Christopher Knight, who managed to live in the forest without contact with other humans for over 25 years, I do wish the work to expand beyond the scope of immediate experience. I want to draw new life from early performance work specifically occurring on the American West Coast around the time of my birth.