Body As Medium.

I think one of the most important points Bird discusses is the universality of the body throughout time. One can see this is in the Lascaux Caves, where the human presence is indiciate with handprints as stencils. Parts of the human body can be used for branding a person's individual identity in the world, while being different but the same as everyone else's. Bird also claims that later in time performance art would go hand in hand with using the body as medium.

The idea of performance art is more relatable to me, but it is not the main idea of this section. Using what the human body produces as medium is an extremely personal, rare, difficult thing to do. And because of the time needed to collect such personal products, it seems like it would be difficult to incorporate into a school setting.

• I wonder what it could be like to incorporate human hair into a piece from a barber shop. There seems to be a possible reference to "Breakfast in Fur"or making other three dimensional objects that deal with fetish or the human condition.
• I heard of an accident where hair was blown into a painting as it was drying. I wonder if this could be done intentionally to a portrait, to enhance the identity of the viewer to a new level. Or even if it was incorporated into a landscape to show the passage of time, man's interconnection with nature, or the cycle of life. 
• I wonder what it would be like to personally, or with high school students, have grown up finger painting. Where the style and aesthetic of the artwork does not revert to childish mannerisms, but instead the entire class is using the exact same tools, their hands. 




• This would be interesting to do especially for a common subject matter such as a still life, to see how students create unique and similar styles.
• I heard of a student once using her own blood in her two dimensional artwork at MU. The student had to sign specific consent papers and not create the work on campus. This seems very extreme and not something I would want to bring up with a student. But still, it would technically be a possibility to do so as well in a safe, healthy manner. It would have to be valid to the content of the work such as identity, genetics, cycle of life, vulnerability, substainability, etc.,
• Photography students could use macro lenses to show the body as universal, malleable, and vulnerable. How everyone has hangnails, blisters, toes, sleep marks, eyelashes, etc., I would look to Elinor Carucci for examples: