What is it about Performance Art, that makes it a performance, yet also an art?

It can be justified that art is in the eye of the beholder, but when art is presentated based on an act. It can be argued since the performance is not really abstract but a learning experience practiced by many people. It is not your own creation, nor is it a purely imaginative form.

The main performance I see is the Mime. Yes it is abstract and the performer creates imagination instinct, however it is not raw and free flow, that gives a form of emotional expression. A guy dressed like a prisioner in white and black stripes does not really hold taste.

Don't get me wrong, I do like Mimes and think it is a good skill for a performer, but as a performing artist, it has to be unique. In class, it took me awhile to get actually the real meaning behing performance art, until my professor Santiago showed us various clips of people doing random things.

Oh, that reminds me. performance art needs an audience in mixed reactions. Not just positive or negative, but as a scandal (like Santi says). Something the audience is surprised about and is not considered NORMAL. Performers are normal because the act is done over and over again. All are different but all are similar. Performance art is you. Your own act, your own performance, created entirely by you.

It can be based of others ideas but not their routine and performance. It is all about you. You make it up as you go, no rules.

"Sorry Bucko your not a performance art. Still you are better than a clown though in my taste :)"
               (Brutus, of the Ohio Buckeyes, Columbus Ohio, copyright Ohio State University)